(3 of 4)
Maybe not, but Clark never had to take a vote on the issue, and there is an antsy quality to his tap dancing that is not reassuring. It reinforces other eruptions of loose talk--statements that weren't very statesmanlike, rumors he has reported as fact. Last fall, for example, Clark stated without equivocation or any proof that Donald Rumsfeld had leaked his own "long hard slog" Iraq memo. This sort of carelessness is strange in an obviously disciplined military man. If foreign policy is a character issue, the general is in danger of appearing to be a cad.
But at least Clark is talking about national security. Not every Democrat is. Dick Gephardt and John Edwards hardly mention foreign policy in their speeches. Both voted for the war, but they seem to have done so as a matter of convenience--to get the issue "off the table" so they could concentrate on populist economics. An Edwards adviser told me the Senator wasn't emphasizing foreign policy because "that's not what people are interested in." That seems myopic. The Edwards ascendancy has been stunted by the Senator's youthful appearance--he could use the opposite of Botox--and there is no more painless way to inject gravitox into a campaign than to speak with knowledge and controlled passion about foreign policy issues.
Howard Dean was early and clear against the war, which provided the initial propulsion for his candidacy, but he's had no second act. When asked about his lack of foreign and military expertise, he has said that all the candidates "talk to the same experts"--as if talking to experts were enough. But Dean has a far more serious problem, his Ruth Bedinger problem: his intemperance. It is difficult to imagine this huffy, impertinent man in a delicate diplomatic negotiation; it is difficult to imagine him showing the resolute but gentle public touch that George W. Bush displayed after Sept. 11.
That leaves--in addition to Clark--Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman as the only plausible foreign policy candidates in the Democratic field. Both Kerry and Lieberman are solid men; both have emphasized their foreign policy expertise--and both have serious problems with the Democratic electorate. Lieberman's problem is the more serious: he is an inveterate hawk with a reliably neoconservative--if not quite unilateral--view of America's role in the world. Most Democrats disagree with that. Kerry's problem is political. He voted for the war resolution, but it seemed a tactical vote, taken so that Republicans couldn't accuse him of mortal dovishness (Kerry voted against the first Gulf War). The Senator has criticized Bush for his conduct of the war almost since the day the Iraq resolution passed, and he has voted against the $87 billion needed to demonstrate America's resolve in Iraq. But Kerry has never disavowed his vote to authorize the war. It is difficult, to this day, to know whether or not he thinks the invasion was a good idea, and in this tangled confusion lies an uncertainty that diminishes his presidential stature.