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(January 17, 2004 -- 11:57 PM EDT // link)

Kevin Drum's got a great, great catch here that you'll want to read. Believe me, you've gotta see it.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 17, 2004 -- 11:37 PM EDT // link)

I think we can say this is getting interesting.

The new ARG New Hampshire poll out late this evening has Clark and Kerry in a virtual tie (Numbers: Dean 28%, Clark 20%, Kerry 19%).

-- Josh Marshall

(January 17, 2004 -- 07:29 PM EDT // link)

A couple new sites to check out.

The Dean campaign has put together a section of their site ("Bloggerstorm") which has RSS feeds from people with blogs who are on the ground in Iowa. I figure they're probably mostly Dean supporters, volunteers who've come into the state, and so forth, but not exclusively. In any case, it's a neat idea -- a fun way to get different perspective on what's going on on the ground in Iowa. Take a look.

The Columbia Journalism Review has a new site ("Campaign Desk") with on-going media criticism and watch-dogging of 2004 campaign coverage.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 17, 2004 -- 07:06 PM EDT // link)

Kevin Drum has the most concise, on-point run-down on the Clark testimony silliness.

As Drum says, "The nickel version is that Clark testified before Congress in 2002 that Saddam was a dangerous guy and it was appropriate to put a lot pressure on him. Then after the war was over he wrote an op-ed for the London Times congratulating everyone involved for having fought a brilliant campaign."

The issue here is what it means to be 'anti-war'. I've said I suppose a million times now that Clark was a consistent opponent of the president's policy. But I've also said that calling him 'anti-war' misses the mark. I say this because in our politics this phrase 'anti-war' has a meaning that goes beyond one's position on a given use of military force. It signals a general tone -- one that simply doesn't apply to Clark and leads to all sorts of innocent and in other cases not so innocent misunderstandings.

So for instance this very anti-Clark editorial in the Florida Times-Union says Clark now has no credibility because his congressional testimony "hardly sound[s] like the words of a war protester."

A 'war-protestor'. You get the idea where this goes.

Similarly, Mickey Kaus says "it's impossible to square this London Times article with Clark's current antiwar criticism. Not only is the tone the opposite of Bush-bashing, but Clark seems to have forgotten that it was "the wrong war at the wrong time," as his adviser Jamie Rubin characterizes his current position."

This is priceless on a couple levels. Apparently, if a pundit decides you're a 'bush-basher' and then finds you've said something generous about the president, it means you've been untrue to your bush-bashing values. I don't know quite what to make of that.

More to the point, though, I think we've got a more muted version of the Times-Union's 'war protestor' line here.

Mickey's line is that opposition to the president's policy is inconsistent with cheering a stunning military victory once the decision for war has been made. For an ex-General I don't think it's that surprising at all. As I said, Mickey's point is similar to the Times-Union's point. Since Clark is running as some sort of war protest candidate how could he enthuse over the success of the military's rapid victory in Iraq?

But whatever people think of Clark, I don't think most people in this country would find that a contradiction. I do think that will cause Clark some difficulties in the Democratic primaries. But the slices of the electorate that will decide this election will, I think, share that ambivalence.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 17, 2004 -- 06:39 PM EDT // link)

The Zogby poll out of Iowa continues to have Dean, Gephardt and Kerry grouped in pretty much a tie (Numbers: Kerry 23%, Dean 22%, Gephardt 19%, Edwards 18%). But the bigger news is out of ARG's New Hampshire poll (Numbers: Dean 28%, Clark 22%, Kerry 18%) Clark remains a half dozen points behind Dean. But look at Kerry -- back at 18%. A week ago he was at 10%.

Now, of course, the precise numbers in these tracking polls are volatile. But trends over time are usually on the mark.

A couple days ago over lunch I was talking to a friend about the Kerry campaign. And I said the big question about Kerry was whether an unexpectedly strong showing in Iowa could whip Kerry back into contention in New Hampshire.

My friend said no, can't happen. And though I'd proposed it as the big question, I instantly agreed.

But clearly I shouldn't have.

The reason it seemed improbable (to me at least) that Kerry could surge back in New Hampshire is, paradoxically, precisely because he used to be so far ahead there.

I can see Clark surging there, or perhaps Edwards, or even Gephardt. But that's because their support was never that high. Someone who's left Candidate X and is looking for someone new will probably look for someone ... well, new, not someone they were supporting before they moved on to candidate X.

Nice theory. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be true. Kerry is quickly moving back into contention in New Hampshire.

Also on the Kerry front, see this article in The New Republic about Kerry's field organizer Michael Whouley -- who may be playing an important role in the shift.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 17, 2004 -- 01:41 PM EDT // link)

A quick note on some game-playing on Andrew Sullivan's site on the Drudge/Clark business.

I don't want to get into all the particulars. But two points stand out to me.

One is that Sullivan doesn't seem bothered by the fact that Drudge not only took the quotes out of context but actually reordered them to change their meaning. Why no concern over that? That seems like a problem.

Then he goes on to tendentiously misconstrue most everything Clark said. His final judgment is that Clark's stance was basically identical to Bush's but that at the key moment he wimped out and got cold feet about the war. He also tosses in the self-justifying canard that the whole issue was one of getting the permission of France.

I'll leave it to you to read the testimony or not read it and make your own judgments about what Clark says. My read is that it's pretty clear that Sullivan's readings in several cases are just tendentious misconstruals.

But this really isn't about Clark, who can stand or fall on his own. (Like any candidate he has inconsistencies in his positions over time -- just not the extreme, cartoonish ones that certain operatives keep trying to push.) This is about a bigger question, a more fundamental debate.

To Sullivan and those who share his view, if you believed that Iraq remained a serious and unresolved security question for the United States which had to be confronted, and you didn't support the war that the president chose to fight, that means that you had a failure of nerve (add in here, of course, the standard Munich references.)

But that's only true if you had an extremely myopic view of the Iraq question and believed that quite literally everything had to give way before it.

That was always a foolish read of the situation, and for some it was a dishonest one too.

For my part, the fundamental issue and the issue of urgency was finding out the status of Iraq's WMD programs. Once we'd done that (and we'd largely done that before we went to war, particularly on the nuclear arms front) the question became one of much less urgency -- one which we had to balance against a series of other priorities.

What priorities? Al Qaida, for one -- which the Iraq adventure set back. More importantly, I think, was creating an international order in which American power is durable and enduring.

As Fareed Zakaria (another weak-willed peacenik) wrote about a year ago, in the process of solving the Iraq problem the administration created an America problem. As he wrote ...

[T]he administration is wrong if it believes that a successful war will make the world snap out of a deep and widening mistrust and resentment of American foreign policy. A war with Iraq, even if successful, might solve the Iraq problem. It doesn’t solve the America problem. What worries people around the world above all else is living in a world shaped and dominated by one country—the United States. And they have come to be deeply suspicious and fearful of us.

I think it's pretty clear now that we haven't solved the Iraq problem -- or perhaps we got rid of one Iraq problem and created another. But even if we had solved it, I think the bargain that Zakaria sketches out was a bad one, especially after it'd become quite clear that the threat from Iraq was minimal.

These are complex questions, ones not easily reasoned through by the standard nah-nah-nah. But there are some folks who can't get over their 1939-envy, their hunger for the Orwell moment. But this wasn't one of them. It never was. And the failure to understand that -- whether by deception or myopia or an honest mistake or the simple need for drama that is the curse of intellectuals -- has done us real harm.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 17, 2004 -- 01:03 PM EDT // link)

He reports, you decide?

Tompaine.com has a downloadable scorecard for you to use while watching the president's State of the Union address this Tuesday.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 16, 2004 -- 08:52 PM EDT // link)

A little more unfinished business on the Drudge/Clark smear.

As I've already told you several times yesterday and today, Drudge got hold of some quotes from Clark's September 26th, 2002 congressional testimony and distorted them out of recognition by highly selective quotation.

In a subsequent post last night I quoted a passage from a piece which ran on the KnightRidder newswire. Here's the passage ...

Clark's congressional testimony was further distorted Thursday by cyber-gossip columnist Matt Drudge, who quoted selected portions of Clark's testimony and added sentences that don't appear in the transcript on his Web site Thursday. Drudge didn't respond to an e-mail request for comment.

Now, I figured the authors of the piece had done their homework on this one, particularly the point claiming he had "added sentences that don't appear in the transcript." But it seems that that's not quite true. Drudge did something almost as bad, but not quite.

With the help of TPM's crack editorial assistant Zander Dryer we compared the Drudge quotes with the ones in the actual transcript.

By our read, all but one was right there in the text. And we assume the one they're referring to is this one ...

There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat... Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He's had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001... He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we.

As we've reconstructed it, this is where it's from ...

There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat (p. 6)... Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He's had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001 (p. 25-26--Clark is actually making the point that this posture gives us time to "work the diplomacy")... he is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we (p. 6).

This is a big no-no. Ellipses (the dot, dot, dots) are one thing. But you don't take ellipses out of their order when the reordering changes the meaning. However, that's still very different from manufacturing quotes. And by our read, that wasn't done.

Now, none of this changes the substance of the original point. This is more a house-keeping post. Drudge and various GOP chat-meisters and CNN anchors who followed his lead, cherry-picked a few quotes out of context and in so doing made Clark's testimony seem almost the exact opposite of what it in fact was.

Still, we reprinted the clip of KnightRidder's accusation. So we wanted to set the record straight.

(We've emailed the reporters. And we'll let you know what we hear from them.)

Late Update: A number of readers have written in to say that they think that Drudge's radical reordering of the order of Clark's words is tantamount to manufacturing a quote. Thinking it over I'm half inclined to agree. In any case, I'll let you be the judge.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 16, 2004 -- 04:51 PM EDT // link)

On his site this afternoon, Middle Eastern Studies Professor Juan Cole -- who runs one of the best blogs on the web -- says he'll be on the Newshour tonight talking about Ayatollah Sistani and the growing tension over the handover of power in Iraq next summer. That will definitely be worth watching.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 16, 2004 -- 04:43 PM EDT // link)

So now Drudge's after Kerry in Iowa, claiming he wanted to abolish the Department of Agriculture and cut farm subsidies.

I know, let's say, rather less about Ag policy than foreign policy. So I really have no direct knowledge whether this is a fair characterization or not. And I'll be curious to see if someone out there can evaluate the statements in their context and get to the bottom of it.

But considering what a scam his dig at Clark ended up being yesterday, every benefit of the doubt has to be with Kerry.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 16, 2004 -- 02:14 PM EDT // link)

Ahhh, Perle's of wisdom. Or perhaps unintended self-incrimination. But who's counting.

As you know, I've been flogging since yesterday this issue of the ridiculously distorted quotes Drudge used from Wes Clark's September 26th 2002 congressional testimony. Then this morning the Journal got into the act claiming that the silly clips showed that Clark was endorsing Perle's views.

Now, I've been suggesting that people go and read the actual testimony to get a sense of whether these cherry-picked lines at all represent what Clark said that day. But I know people's lives are busy. And perhaps you don't have the time to get through the whole transcript. But maybe that's not necessary.

Toward the end of the session Perle himself characterized Clark's position ...

(Perle's run-down is more than a little disingenuous and he apparently felt the need to wait until Clark had left the hearing room for the day. But let's forgive him this once.)

Schrock: Sure, I would love to know Mr. Perle's, you know, the general said time is on our side. My guess is you do not believe that.

Perle: No, I don't believe it and frankly I don't think [Clark] made a very convincing case in support of that cliche but it was one of many cliches. At the end of the day when you sought to elicit from him a reconciliation of the view that time is on our side with what he acknowledged to be our ignorance of how far along Saddam Hussein is, he had no explanation.

He seems to be preoccupied, and I'm quoting now, with building legitimacy, with exhausting all diplomatic remedies as though we hadn't been through diplomacy for the last decade, and relegating the use of force to a last resort, to building the broadest possible coalition, in short a variety of very amorphous, ephemeral concerns alongside which there's a stark reality and that is that every day that goes by, Saddam Hussein is busy perfecting those weapons of mass destruction that he already has, improving their capabilities, improving the means with which to deliver them and readying himself for a future conflict.

So I don't believe that time is on our side and I don't believe that this fuzzy notion that the most important thing is building legitimacy, as if we lack legitimacy now, after all the U.N. resolutions that he's in blatant violation of, I don't believe that that should be the decisive consideration. So I think General Clark simply doesn't want to see us use military force and he has thrown out as many reasons as he can develop to that but the bottom line is he just doesn't want to take action. He wants to wait.

Did the Journal guys run their piece by Richard? Seems he disagrees. And what about those shows on the cable nets that got taken in? (Yeah, I'm talking about you too, CNN) No research departments?

-- Josh Marshall

(January 16, 2004 -- 12:50 PM EDT // link)

Coming next Tuesday: the TPM Interview with George Soros.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 16, 2004 -- 11:56 AM EDT // link)

Let me add my voice to those criticizing the ABC News story on Dean and the state trooper on his security detail who apparently was guilty of spousal abuse. As nearly as I can tell, this person who worked on his security detail beat his wife. But there's no evidence in the piece that Dean knew it. Then, while this guy was beating his wife or after it had occurred, Dean filed a three page affidavit for use in a custody hearing attesting that the trooper, Dennis Madore, was a good father.

But, again, there's no evidence that Dean knew anything about the abuse! Or really, any evidence that he should have known. Without going into all the ins and outs of the story, Dean seems to have played it by the book at every point.

Now, certainly it's a bit of a touchy thing for Dean. But not because he did anything wrong, only because it's always awkward to have something ugly like that happen in your proximity.

But even in a pint-sized state like Vermont, governors have lots of people who work with them or for them. And they can't be expected to have a handle on what bad acts one or more of them might or might not be doing at home.

It's an impossible standard.

You might say that the piece can't be that unfair since I was able to glean this exculpatory information from it. And to an extent that's true. But the piece seems packaged to hit Dean with all sorts of ugly insinuations, and quite unfairly.

The article is headlined "Dean's Trooper" -- a pretty obvious reference to the Clinton trooper stories. And the whole story is associating him with the extremely (and rightly) hotbutton issue of wife-beating, even though, as I noted above, it's wholly unmerited.

Perhaps this story deserved a small write-up about a minor controversy in Vermont state politics. But as it was done, I don't see how you can say it wasn't deeply unfair and really a smear.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 16, 2004 -- 11:35 AM EDT // link)

Oh how sad a day it is when even the Wall Street Journal's 'Review & Outlook' section (subscription required) cribs its material right from the RNC fax printout. Today one of the 'Review & Outlook's' pieces is entitled 'General Wesley Perle'.

They take the cherry-picked quotes Drudge ran yesterday -- the ones he seems to have gotten from Ed Gillespie, who also used them in a speech yesterday in Little Rock -- and use them to argue that Clark has flip-flopped on the war.

Little more than a year ago, the Journalistas say, he was endorsing the views of none other than arch-hawk Richard Perle.

Now, we know that all the usual suspects have been hitting the airwaves on this one, with the crib notes from Movement Central in hand. But let's point out one fairly straightforward fact that the worthies at the Journal (and the rest who have made this point that Clark was supporting Perle's view) seem to leave out.

If you look at the actual testimony, which I've posted here, you'll notice something that couldn't be simpler. The testimony on that day before the House Armed Services Committee was set up with one supporter of the president's policy and one opponent of it. The first was Perle, the second was Clark. And if you read through the testimony, that's how it reads. A fuller picture, as usual, shows the real story.

The Journal 'Review & Outlook' piece plays it otherwise because the authors aren't troubled by making deceptive arguments by withholding key pieces of information which contradict their point -- which is a bit of a failing for journalists.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 16, 2004 -- 10:46 AM EDT // link)

Do we need to rewrite the script? This is really getting interesting.

Today Zogby has John Kerry opening up a five point lead over Howard Dean and Richard Gephardt in Iowa. The numbers: Kerry 24%, Dean 19%, Gephardt 19%, Edwards 17%.

Even more interesting however are the ARG numbers out of New Hampshire. Today's numbers there are Dean 28%, Clark 23%, Kerry 16%.

Clark is now a mere five points behind Dean. But, again, Kerry is the bigger story.

He's moved up a point or two a day each day this week. And the internals on those numbers tell an interesting tale. As the ARG analysis says: "The drop in ballot preference for Howard Dean has stabilized and women voters who have switched from Dean are giving John Kerry a lift at the expense of Wesley Clark."

In other words, Dean has lost support. And most of it has gone to Clark so far. But Clark is having a real problem getting female voters who leave Dean to come to him. And they're going to Kerry.

If those Zogby numbers out of Iowa are real and Kerry wins the caucuses ... well, let's wait and see.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 15, 2004 -- 09:40 PM EDT // link)

So imagine that. The same day Drudge has his 'world exclusive' with ridiculously distorted clips of Wes Clark's September 2002 congressional testimony on Iraq, RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie is in Little Rock giving a speech about Clark and he's using the same testimony to riff on.

What a coincidence they were both using google on the same day with the same idea, right? Amazing.

And then, according to KnightRidder, it turns out that Drudge didn't even play the smear straight. To quote the KnightRidder ...

Clark's congressional testimony was further distorted Thursday by cyber-gossip columnist Matt Drudge, who quoted selected portions of Clark's testimony and added sentences that don't appear in the transcript on his Web site Thursday. Drudge didn't respond to an e-mail request for comment.

Oh what a tangled web ...

-- Josh Marshall

(January 15, 2004 -- 03:40 PM EDT // link)

A small note of thanks.

At a luncheon yesterday in Manhattan (actually at Harold Evans and Tina Brown’s apartment), The Week magazine gave out its first annual opinion awards. Tommy Tomlinson of The Charlotte Observer won in the local columnist category; Tom Friedman won for Columnist of the year; and Paul Krugman won for Issue Advocacy Columnist of the year.

In a cool development they also decided to make an award in the blog category. And I’m honored to say that they chose this humble web site. So to the editors at The Week, to Harold Evans, and to the judges on the panel a very sincere thank you.

There’s a write-up on it at Editor and Publisher if you want to find out more.

Now there were various luminaries there and it was quite flattering to hear that some of these people have visited the site. But let me share with you a private moment.

Early on I noticed that one of the folks there was Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Schlesinger, if you’re not familiar with him, is one of those few people who is quite literally a legend in his own time. I don’t know precisely how old he is. But, to give you a sense of the range we’re talking about, the book that made his name as an historian, The Age of Jackson, came out, I believe, in 1946.

Schlesinger is an historian and an advisor to president Kennedy, but also a towering figure in 20th century American political life, particularly in the first phase of the Cold War when his name was almost a shorthand for liberal anti-communism and Cold War Liberalism. The key book here is The Vital Center, published I believe in 1949 --- a phrase and concept of high moment, before it got cheapened in the 1990s to refer to mere political centrism.

In any case, as you can probably see, Schlesinger is a rather big deal to me. So toward the end of the whole event, after most folks had left, I saw Schlesinger and two women standing off to one side. And I thought, this is my chance. How can I let it go by?

So I walked over to where the three were talking and planted myself there like a schoolboy and waited.

And I waited, and waited a bit more until they, a touch awkwardly, turned their attention to me. When they did, I introduced myself and told him what a great admirer I was of his and what an honor it was to meet him and so forth. When I did this I explained that in addition to my semi-reputable work as a blogger I was also a trained historian with a Ph.D. in American history and the works.

Now normally I never mention this, or say such things. And I’m half embarrassed to mention to you that I did. But given Schlesinger’s merit in the profession, and my limited window of opportunity to play up my admiration, I thought I’d make an exception for myself in this one case. I probably figured that I’d be making clear that I knew who he was, that my admiration wasn’t just a pleasantry, or perhaps, candidly, that I wasn’t just some yahoo.

To be polite Schlesinger’s wife asked me to explain to them just what a blog is. And though I get this question pretty often, it turns out to be a rather challenging one if the people you’re trying to explain it to don’t necessarily have a lot of clear web reference points to make sense of what you’re saying.

I ended up telling them that it was something like political commentary structured like a personal journal with occasional reporting mixed in.

Now, as I was explaining and watching the looks on everyone’s faces it was incrementally becoming clear to me that this was playing rather like saying that something was like a washing machine structured like a rhinoceros with the occasional sandwich thrown in. And, as Schlesinger himself had said rather little through all this, it was also dawning on me that being one of the four guests of honor at this little event was providing no guarantee against making a bit of a fool of myself.

So we let the brief conversation come to a merciful end and they started to walk away. And, as he was turning to leave, Schlesinger said, “Are you Joshua Micah M ….”

“Yeah, that's me.”

“You work for Charlie Peters [i.e., for The Washington Monthly]. I’m an admirer of your journalism.”

Then they walked away.

My day was made.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 15, 2004 -- 02:51 PM EDT // link)

Lieberman picks up on Drudge's line about Clark's September 2002 testimony.

Here's the lede from the just-released Lieberman press release ...

LIEBERMAN STATEMENT ON CLARK IRAQ TESTIMONY Drudge: Clark made the case for war against Iraq

MANCHESTER, NH -- Joe Lieberman issued the following statement in
response to the Drudge Report's discovery of congressional testimony
from September 2002 in which Wes Clark made the case for war in Iraq.
The report provides evidence directly contradicting Clark's repeated
claims that he has been "very consistent" on the war "from the very
beginning."

Statement by Joe Lieberman

"Yesterday, Wesley Clark attacked me for pointing out his multiple positions on the war in Iraq. It is no longer credible for Wesley Clark to assert that he has always had only one position on the war - being against it. His own testimony before Congress shows otherwise.

"He may think it is 'old-style politics' to point this out, but the only thing old here is a candidate not leveling with the American people. If we want to begin anew and replace George Bush, we need to level with the American people, which is what I have done in this campaign and throughout my career. You may not always agree with me but you will always know where I stand."

Woe to the Democrat who uses Drudge as a clip service!

I don't know if the Lieberman folks looked at the actual testimony -- as opposed to the drudged version -- before sending out this press release. But you can, in the post below.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 15, 2004 -- 02:19 PM EDT // link)

Elaine Kamarck is basically a founder of the New Democrat movement, long associated with the DLC and other similarly-inclined groups. Here she is in Newsday today coming out for Dean.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 15, 2004 -- 01:30 PM EDT // link)

Ahhh, imagine that. More Drudgitprop.

You may have noticed that Drudge has a blaring headline: "WES CLARK MADE CASE FOR IRAQ WAR BEFORE CONGRESS; TRANSCRIPT REVEALED" (... followed by all the 'world exclusive' silliness.)

And following that, needless to say, are some highly cherry-picked clips out of testimony he gave on September 26th, 2002, during the lead-up to war. (The panel's testimony was structured as Clark versus Richard Perle, the other witness on the panel that day.)

Rather than get into the particulars, here's the statement Clark delivered, with the portions quoted by Drudge in bold. And you decide whether they accurately capture Clark's meaning and what Clark's testimony actually was.

Thank you, sir. There's no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat. I was in the joint staff in October of 1994. I think the date was -- I think it was the 8th of October. It was a Thursday morning. The intelligence officer walked in and said, "Sir, you're not going to believe this. Here are the pictures. You can't be believe it. This is the Republican Guard. They're right back in the same attack positions that they occupied four years ago before they invaded Kuwait and here are the two divisions and there are signs of mobilization and concerns north, and we can't understand it." And General Peay was the commander of CENTCOM. Shalikashvili, I think was, visiting Haiti at the time with Secretary of Defense Perry, and we rushed together, we put together a program. General Peay deployed some 15,000 American troops and aircraft over to block it and after a few days, Saddam Hussein recognized what a difficult position he put himself in and withdrew the troops. But, we had not expected it. It was an unanticipated move. It made no sense from our point of view for Saddam Hussein to do this but he did it. It was signaled warning that Saddam Hussein is not only malevolent and violent but he is also to some large degree unpredictable at least to us.

I'm sure he has a rationale for what he's doing, but we don't always know it. He does retain his chemical and biological capabilities to some extend and he is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn't have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we. Saddam might use these weapons as a deterrent while launching attacks against Israel or his other neighbors. He might threaten American forces in the region. He might determine that he was the messenger of Allah and simply strike directly at Israel, or Israel weighing the possibilities of blackmail or aggression might feel compelled to strike Iraq first. Now, Saddam has been pursing nuclear weapons and we've been living with this risk for over 20 years. He does not have the weapons now as best we can determine. He might have the weapons in a year or two if the control for the highly-enriched uranium and other fissionable materials broke down. I think his best opportunity would have been to go to his friend Slobodan Milosevic and ask for those materials during the time of the Kosovo campaign, since there was active collusion between the Serbs and the Iraqis, but apparently if he asked for them he didn't get them because the Serbs have turned them over for us.

If he can't get the highly-enriched uranium, then it might take him five years or more to go through a centrifuge process or gaseous diffusion process to enrich the uranium, but the situation is not stable. The U.N. weapons inspectors who, however ineffective they might have been and there's some degree of difference of opinion on that, nevertheless provided assistance in impeding his development programs. They've been absent for four years, and the sanction regime designed to restrict his access to weapons materials and resources has been continuously eroded, and therefore the situation is not stable.

The problem of Iraq is not a problem that can be postponed indefinitely, and of course Saddam's current efforts themselves are violations of international law as expressed in the U.N. resolutions. Our President has emphasized the urgency of eliminating these weapons and weapons programs. I strongly support his efforts to encourage the United Nations to act on this problem and in taking this to the United Nations, the president's clear determination to act if the United States can't -- excuse me, if the United Nations can't provides strong leverage for under girding ongoing diplomatic efforts.

CLARK: But the problem of Iraq is only one element of the broader security challenges facing our country. We have an unfinished worldwide war against Al Qaida, a war that has to be won in conjunction with friends and allies and that ultimately will be won as much by persuasion as by the use of force. We've got to turn off the Al Qaida recruiting machine. Now some 3,000 deaths on September 11th testify to the real danger from Al Qaida, and I think everyone acknowledges that Al Qaida has not yet been defeated.

As far as I know, I haven't seen any substantial evidence linking Saddam's regime to the Al Qaida network, though such evidence may emerge. But nevertheless, winning the war against Al Qaida and taking actions against the weapons programs in Iraq, that's two different problems that may require two different sets of solutions. In other words, to put it back into military parlance, Iraq they're an operational level problem. We've got other operational level problems in the Middle East, like the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Al Qaida and the foundation of radical extremist fundamentalist Islam, that's the strategic problem. We've got to make sure that in addressing the operational problem we're effective in going after the larger strategic problem. And so, the critical issue facing the United States right now is how to force action against Saddam Hussein and his weapons programs without detracting from our focus on Al Qaida or our efforts to deal with other immediate mid and long-term security problems.

I'd like to offer the following observations by way of how we could proceed. First of all, I do believe that the United States diplomacy in the United Nations will be strengthened if the Congress can adopt a resolution expressing U.S. determination to act if the United Nations can not act. The use of force must remain a U.S. option under active consideration.

Such congressional resolution need not, at this point, authorize the use of force. The more focused the resolution on Iraq, the more focused it is on the problems of weapons of mass destruction. The greater its utility in the United Nations, the more nearly unanimous the resolution, the greater its utility is, the greater its impact is on the diplomatic efforts under way.

The president and his national security team have got to deploy imagination, leverage, and patience in working through the United Nations. In the near term, time is on our side and we should endeavor to use the United Nations if at all possible. This may require a period of time for inspections or the development of a more intrusive inspection regime such as Richard Perle has mentioned, if necessary backed by force. It may involve cracking down on the eroding sanctions regime and countries like Syria who are helping Iraq illegally export oil enabling Saddam Hussein to divert resources to his own purposes.

We have to work this problem in a way to gain worldwide legitimacy and understanding for the concerns that we rightly feel and for our leadership. This is what U.S. leadership in the world must be. We must bring others to share our views not be too quick to rush to try to impose them even if we have the power to do so. I agree that there's a risk that the inspections would fail to provide evidence of the weapons program. They might fail, but I think we can deal with this problem as we move along, and I think the difficulties of dealing with this outcome are more than offset by the opportunities to gain allies, support, and legitimacy in the campaign against Saddam Hussein.

If the efforts to resolve the problem by using the United Nations fail, either initially or ultimately, then we need to form the broadest possible coalition including our NATO allies and the North Atlantic Council if we're going to have to bring forces to bear. We should not be using force until the personnel, the organizations, the plans that will be required for post conflict Iraq are prepared and ready. This includes dealing with requirements for humanitarian assistance, police and judicial capabilities, emergency medical and reconstruction assistance and preparations for a transitional governing body and eventual elections, perhaps even including a new constitution.

Ideally, the international/multinational organizations will participate in the readying of such post conflict operations, the United Nations, NATO, other regional organization, Islamic organizations, but we have no idea how long this campaign could last, and if it were to go like the campaign against the Afghans, against the Taliban in which suddenly the Taliban collapsed and there we were.

We need to be ready because if suddenly Saddam Hussein's government collapses and we don't have everything ready to go, we're going to have chaos in that region. We may not get control of all the weapons of mass destruction, technicians, plans, capabilities; in fact, what may happen is that we'll remove a repressive regime and have it replaced with a fundamentalist regime which contributes to the strategic problem rather than helping to solve it.

So, all that having been said, the option to use force must remain on the table. It should be used as the last resort after all diplomatic means have been exhausted unless there's information that indicates that a further delay would represent an immediate risk to the assembled forces and organizations. And, I want to underscore that I think the United States should not categorize this action as preemptive. Preemptive and that doctrine has nothing whatsoever to do with this problem. As Richard Perle so eloquently pointed out, this is a problem that's longstanding. It's been a decade in the making. It needs to be dealt with and the clock is ticking on this. Obviously once initiated, a military operation should aim for the most rapid accomplishment of its operational aims and prompt turnover to follow on organizations and agencies, and I think if we proceed as outlined above, we may be able to minimize the disruption to the ongoing campaign against Al Qaida. We could reduce the impact on friendly governments in the region and even contribute to the resolution of other regional issues, perhaps such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iranian efforts to develop nuclear capabilities and Saudi funding for terrorism. But there are no guarantees. The war is unpredictable. It could be difficult and costly and what is at risk in the aftermath is an open-ended American ground commitment in Iraq and an even deeper sense of humiliation in the Arab world which could intensify our problems in the region and elsewhere.

The yellow light is flashing. We have a problem. We've got to muster the best judgment in this country. We've got to muster the will of the American people and we've got to be prepared to deal with this problem, but time is on our side in the near term and we should use it. Thank you.

I didn't want to clutter up the site with the entire transcript of the session, which runs fairly long. But if you're interested in getting a good sense of what Clark's position was on the war, I'd highly recommend you read the extensive questioning of Perle and Clark by the congressmen and women on the panel, in which they both elaborated on their views. This is where Drudge's other text-bites come from. You can read the entire transcript here.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 15, 2004 -- 10:22 AM EDT // link)

Surprising numbers out today. Zogby has Kerry not simply surging but actually in the lead in Iowa: Kerry 22%, Dean 21%, Gephardt 21%. Especially in a daily tracking poll a point difference means less than nothing (note to statisticians: don't even say it). But this does square with what a lot of people have been saying about Kerry's move in the state.

(Also, with the numbers that close, I'd want to hear more both about the ground organization of each candidate and how regionally concentrated their support is in the state.)

Meanwhile ARG's New Hampshire tracking poll has Dean 29%, Clark 24%, Kerry 15%.

The common denominator seems pretty clear: Dean's support is falling -- not precipitously, but measurably -- and at least some Dean supporters appear to be going to his near rivals in each state.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 14, 2004 -- 06:22 PM EDT // link)

With Clark rising in the polls, Dean is back to accusing Wes Clark of being a Republican.

According to Reuters, today he said that he thought Clark was a "good guy, but I truly believe he's a Republican ... I do not think somebody ought to run in the Democratic primary and then make the general election a Republican primary between two Republicans."

If Clark is a Republican, why did he vote for the Democratic presidential ticket in 1992, 1996 and 2000?

If the issue is Reagan or Nixon, those two won pretty handily (at least for reelection). To win, any Democrat will need lots of Democrats who pulled the lever for them too.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 14, 2004 -- 05:24 PM EDT // link)

Briefly on this matter of Dean and 'unilateral' action in Bosnia. I'm running late on a few deadlines at the moment. So I don't have time to go into this at length. But I don't think this is much of a contradiction, except possibly on the most superficial level.

The tenor of the whole Iraq debate has tended to make a fetish out of the narrow meaning of unilateral and multilateral. Both have their place. And I don't think it's a contradiction on Dean's part at all to say we should not have waited for NATO to conduct air operations in Bosnia and yet also mount a critique of the president's approach on Iraq.

Remember that in Kosovo, we knew the Russians would veto our plan. So we didn't go to the UN, but went with NATO instead. As Fareed Zakaria aptly noted almost a year ago, the US never got UN approval for any of its three major military engagements in the 1990s. And few significant players suggested that it was necessary for us to do so.

So why all the hollering now over Iraq? Some on the right suggest that this is because of animosity toward president Bush or a rise in 'anti-Americanism.' But it's not. It's because the US has begun playing by very different rules in the last three years. It has moved from being a dominant power which most often works through a sort of informal consensus to one that increasingly seeks to act through dictation. We've become impatient with the minimal restraints on our power created by our participation in various international institutions and agreements -- ones which actually serve to magnify our power. And nations around the world -- not to mention publics -- have increasingly looked to the UN as a brake on US power.

In short, the issue is not so much whether you get sign off from the UN or NATO on every particular thing you do. It's a question of the totality of one's approach to allies and the rest of the nation's of the world. By that measure, the whole situation in the Balkans and the current one in Iraq could scarcely be more different.

This is a big issue and one that deserves more discussion. It's also worth noting that getting our key European allies on board in the Balkans did play a big role in the long-term success of those operations -- and the diplomatic isolation which eventually played a key role in Milosevic's fall. And perhaps Dean has himself made too much of a fetish out of the word 'unilateralism' without fleshing out the critique more fully. But basically this issue with Dean and 'unilateral' action in Bosnia just strikes me as more silly word-game gotcha. Nothing more than that.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 14, 2004 -- 11:01 AM EDT // link)

I have a luncheon I'm going to at noon, so just a quick update on where things seem to stand in Iowa and New Hampshire. One of the campaigns has tracking numbers out of Iowa which shows each of the top three -- Dean, Gephardt and Kerry -- clumped to within a point or two. And today's Zogby poll seems to point in the same direction Dean 24%, Gephardt 21%, Kerry 21%.

As things run down to the wire, you hear a lot of things, many of which aren't confirmable. But I know that several days ago one very high-level Iowa Democrat (one who hasn't endorsed anyone) told folks that he thought that if the caucuses were held then (late last week) that Kerry would probably beat Gephardt and possibly even win the whole thing.

I don't think anyone has any really solid clue what's happening. But it does give you a sense of the fluidity of the race -- and not just the Dean-Gephardt contest we've all been focusing on.

Meanwhile, the ARG tracking poll in New Hampshire shows some more movement after several days when everyone seemed to stay in place. Dean 32%, Clark 22%, Kerry 13%.

As always, the inevitable disclaimer. Tracking polls are notoriously volatile and often show 'trends' that are the result of low sample numbers on given days. Still, over time, they give some sense of where things are going. And I think Dean's move back on to the offensive shows that his people are seeing the same thing.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 14, 2004 -- 12:40 AM EDT // link)

Apparently the ARG pollsters were on to something.

This from tonight's WMUR from New Hampshire: "Attorney General Peter Heed said someone has been calling voters who are unaffiliated with a party and telling them that they can't vote in the primary -- which is untrue. Heed said his office has received complaints from town and city clerks as well as undeclared voters who said they are being told they cannot vote."

-- Josh Marshall

(January 14, 2004 -- 12:32 AM EDT // link)

Some things are worth listening to again and again ...

DIANE SAWYER

(Off Camera) When you take a look back, Vice President Cheney said, "there is no doubt Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction." Not programs, not intent. There is no doubt he has weapons of mass destruction. Secretary Powell said "100 to 500 tons of chemical weapons." And now the inspectors say that there's no evidence of these weapons existing right now. The yellow cake in Niger. George Tenet has said that shouldn't have been in your speech. Secretary Powell talked about mobile labs. Again, the intelligence, the inspectors have said they can't confirm this, they can't corroborate. Nuclear, suggestions that he was on the way on an active nuclear program. David Kay, "we have not discovered significant evidence of ... "

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

Yet.

DIANE SAWYER

(Off Camera) Is it "yet"?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

But what David Kay did discover was they had a weapons program. And had that -that -let me finish for a second. Now it's more extensive than, than missiles. Had that knowledge been examined by the United Nations or had David Kay's report been placed in front of the United Nations, he, Saddam Hussein, would have been in material breach of 1441, which meant it was a causis belli. And, look, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a dangerous person. And there's no doubt we had a body of evidence proving that. And there is no doubt that the President must act, after 9/11, to make America a more secure country.

DIANE SAWYER

(Off Camera) Again, I'm just trying to ask, these are supporters, people who believed in the war who have asked the question.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

Well, you can keep asking the question. And my answer's gonna be the same. Saddam was a danger. And the world is better off because we got rid of him.

DIANE SAWYER

(Off Camera) But stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that he could move to acquire those weapons still.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

So what's the difference?

DIANE SAWYER

(Off Camera) Well ...

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

The possibility that he could acquire weapons. If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger. That's, that's what I'm trying to explain to you. A gathering threat, after 9/11, is a threat that needed to be dealt with. And it was done after 12 long years of the world saying the man's a danger. And so, we got rid of him. And there's no doubt the world is a safer, freer place as a result of Saddam being gone.

DIANE SAWYER

(Off Camera) But, but, again, some, some of the critics have said this, combined with the failure to establish proof of elaborate terrorism contacts, has indicated that there's just not precision, at best, and misleading, at worst.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

Yeah. Look, what, what we based our evidence on was a very sound national intelligence estimate.

DIANE SAWYER

(Off Camera) Nothing should have been more precise?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

I, I made my decision based upon enough intelligence to tell me that this country was threatened with Saddam Hussein in power.

DIANE SAWYER

(Off Camera) What would it take to convince you he didn't have weapons of mass destruction?

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

Saddam Hussein was a threat. And the fact that he is gone means America is a safer country.

What's the difference?

That says it all.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 13, 2004 -- 10:17 PM EDT // link)

Everybody's giving Paul O'Neill a hard time now for partly backing down on some of his accusations against the president.

But this misses the point entirely. Look what an improvement this is! John DiIulio barely made it 24 hours after the horsehead showed up in his bed before he was telling the world he "sincerely apologizes and is deeply remorseful."

The O'Neill story's been out there for like a week and it's two days since the 60 Minutes interview and even now he's not taking it all back! I think what we've got here is a little rope-a-dope. O'Neill needs to give them a little but it's not yet a full Kamenev moment. More like Bukharin? I'll have to go back and review the testimony.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 13, 2004 -- 05:54 PM EDT // link)

Hilarious. At about 5:40 PM on Tuesday evening and there's a back and forth with Peter Beinart and Deborah Perry from the Independent Women's Forum arguing about the O'Neill stuff on CNN.

Beinart raised the quite apt point that members of the Bush administration gave Bob Woodward classified documents for his highly flattering book about the lead-up to the war (did I mention it was highly flattering?). So why wasn't there an investigation then?

Deborah responded that this was a case "where the Bush administration was working with" the reporter. (That's what I caught by ear and remembered for the few moments it took me to put the dog down and grab the computer.) In other words, when it's a compulsively friendly reporter who's working with the White House on an adoring book, then they can give out classified documents at their discretion. But when it's unfriendly, you go to the slammer!

(Late Update: Here's the actual quote from the transcript: "But, again, that was the Bush administration working with Bob Woodward in terms of what they were willing to...")

Deborah, I want to thank you on behalf of all of us for that unwitting moment of candor! I'd like to encourage you to also defend the White House on the Plame matter.

(We can leave aside for the moment that there's no reason to believe the O'Neill docs were actually classified. The classification system is a little more formalized and complex then just putting 'secret' across the top of a document.)

-- Josh Marshall

(January 13, 2004 -- 02:49 PM EDT // link)

I don't know quite what to make of this article on Wes Clark by Chris Suellentrop. Chris runs through a number of statements Clark has made on the campaign trail and, with those quotes, advances the argument that Clark, as much as Dean, has a "propensity for speaking imprecisely off the cuff."

There's a pretty widespread tendency in the mainstream media to say that Clark makes off-the-wall claims about the war on terrorism or the Iraq war. (A frequent example is the claim that the civilians at the Pentagon had a list of countries in line for regime change after Iraq.) It's more accurate to say that Clark has a habit of making points that many in high political circles consider impolitic, impolite or simply in poor taste to bring up.

Case in point, there was a list -- if by list we mean a list of countries that many in the Pentagon (civilian side) were pushing to hit next after Iraq. I know this. Most every reporter who covers the Pentagon knows this. And yet the bully-boys try to intimidate people out of saying it.

But back to Chris.

Here's Chris' quote number two.

Chris prefaces it with this headline question: "Bush 'never intended' to get Osama Bin Laden?"

And here's the quote.

We bombed Afghanistan, we missed Osama Bin Laden, partly because the president never intended to put the resources in to get Osama Bin Laden. All along, right after 9/11, they'd made their mind up, I guess, that we were going to go after Saddam Hussein. That's what people in the Pentagon told me. And they capped the resources, stopped the commitment to Afghanistan, and started shifting to prepare to go after Saddam Hussein

Is it just me, or is the story here that Chris completely distorts what Clark said? What's 'imprecise' about this statement. Provocative? Critical? Yes. But imprecise?

(I have to say that each of the quotes Chris mentions seems in same category to me.)

Clark didn't say Bush didn't intend to get bin Laden. He said he never intended to deploy the necessary resources because he placed a higher priority on the impending war in Iraq.

Now the president and his advisors could and probably would respond that they mobilized sufficient resources for both aims. But the fact that bin Laden and many of the other key targets were not captured at least makes it reasonable to argue that the forces were insufficient. (Indeed, reporting on the particulars backs this up too.)

These are the sorts of points and arguments that should be at the center of the national campaign, whichever Democrat secures the nomination -- the balance of resources mobilized to combat al Qaida and Iraq, and which was more central to the country's security.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 12, 2004 -- 08:11 PM EDT // link)

So now the White House has pilloried Paul O’Neill as a sorry doofus and, by all appearances, launched a punitive investigation against him.

How about denying any of his claims or those in Suskind’s book?

Just a thought ...

And will O'Neill go the way of John DiIulio and Nick Smith? Where's the document they want him to sign? And who writes them?

From the archives, DiIulio's Kamenev moment: "John DiIulio agrees that his criticisms were groundless and baseless due to poorly chosen words and examples. He sincerely apologizes and is deeply remorseful."

Yikes, I'd hate to make enemies out of these guys. Or, wait ...

-- Josh Marshall

(January 12, 2004 -- 07:45 PM EDT // link)

Number of days between Novak column outing Valerie Plame and announcement of investigation: 74 days.

Number of days between O'Neill 60 Minutes interview and announcement of investigation: 1 day.

Having the administration reveal itself as a gaggle of hypocritical goons ... priceless.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 11, 2004 -- 07:54 PM EDT // link)

Oh, they can do better than that, can't they?

CNN's headline story on the O'Neill story reads: "Cabinet members defend Bush from O'Neill"

And then, when you click through, it turns out the cabinet members are Don Evans (the president's Texas crony and political fixer) and John Snow (O'Neill's tepidly respected successor at Treasury).

None of the bigs? That's all? No Colin? We're Rummyless?

-- Josh Marshall

(January 11, 2004 -- 03:12 PM EDT // link)

Well, this battle in Iowa is truly going down to the wire.

Today Zogby has a poll out with Dean 25%, Gephardt 23%, Kerry 14%, Edwards 13%. And Zogby says Edwards was picking up steam through the three days of interviews.

Those numbers are somewhat countered by two other polls out in the last two days which have the Dean/Gephardt spread at 7% (LA Times) and 5% (Quad-City Times/KWQC). But clearly it's pretty tight.

At various points over the three-plus years I've run this site I've commented on the quality of Zogby's polls (here's one of the first things I ever wrote about him, an article in Slate from almost four years ago). Zogby's polls do often pick up on trends well in advance of their appearance in other polls. But almost as frequently he seems to pick up on trends that turn out not to exist. So to the extent that you can personify methodology I see him as ingenious but erratic.

That's I suppose just a roundabout way of saying that I don't know quite what to make of his very tight margin between the two top contenders.

More generally, however, the closeness of these margins and the broader dynamics of this race, I think, tell us that we don't know what's going to happen on Caucus eve.

The Caucus system works by a sort of snowbound version of the uncertainty principle. The particulars are so detailed that I'm sure to get some part of it wrong. But basically how the caucuses work is that everyone shows up and they divide into groups based on candidate preference. But if your candidate has less than 15% of the attendees then your guy (or gal) is out.

(Presumably, at the beginning of the evening someone gets out an envelope, counts who's there and does some quick math to determine how many people get you over 15%. I'd be ruled out for that job.)

Once your candidate is out you have to pick another.

Now, the numbers we're seeing are statewide. And the demographic gap between, say, the Gephardt and Dean voters is great enough that in particular caucus locations the spread is apt to be very different. However, you don't have to look too long at the numbers to see that there are some candidates with not insubstantial support that are going to get knocked out on the first round at many locations.

To put it succinctly, in many caucuses, the issue is going to be less whether Gephardt and Dean are separated by 2% or 6% as who the Kerry and Edwards supporters go to on the second round.

Before you flame me with your emails, I'm not trying to prejudge Kerry's and Edwards' chances. But you can see the level of uncertainty that plays into the calculus.

On the face of it, it would seem this volatility would work against Dean since the race has been polarized between Dean as the outsider vs. anti-Dean Washington candidates. If you're for Kerry, who has made opposition to Dean an increasing focus of his campaign, do you switch to Dean or to Gephardt, if Kerry falls under 15% if your caucus? The latter seems more logical to me. But so many factors must play in to this that I'm not sure 'logic', especially from a thousand miles away, gets you very close to the truth.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 11, 2004 -- 01:15 PM EDT // link)

Something a lot of us have been saying for a long time. This from Time's article on O'Neill ...

"The biggest difference between then and now," O'Neill tells Suskind about his two previous tours in Washington, "is that our group was mostly about evidence and analysis, and Karl (Rove), Dick (Cheney), Karen (Hughes) and the gang seemed to be mostly about politics. It's a huge distinction."

Politics and ideology.

-- Josh Marshall

(January 11, 2004 -- 12:02 AM EDT // link)

From an AP story running this evening ...

At the town hall meeting in Rochester, a woman asked Dean why he was complaining about his rivals' attacks, but distributing fliers against Clark. Dean said he wasn't aware of the fliers and the decision was made by local staff. But he said he would be happy to defend them.

"If the fliers said that General Clark was originally for the war and now is against it, that's accurate," Dean said. "If the fliers said that General Clark said it was perfectly fine to let our software jobs to got to India and replace them with other jobs, he did say that. There is a difference in attack ads and just pointing out the facts."

This point about the Iraq war is simply false. I hesitate to call it a lie because I don't know if Dean knows it's false, though he should.

The falsity of the claim is well-known to anyone who closely followed the debate over Iraq in the lead-up to the war and particularly Clark's role in that debate.

There's a lot of foolishness being peddled to the effect that Clark is claiming he's an "anti-war" candidate when he's not. (This is the upshot of the flyers Dean campaign workers are distributing at Clark rallies.) This is a very loaded term. One can believe this whole enterprise was badly misconceived and handled even worse and not have that sentiment diminished by not singing folk songs.

And why doesn't Dean know his campaign workers are distributing these flyers? Everyone else has known for like a week.

-- Josh Marshall



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