Truth or gaffes?
Howard Dean's Democratic rivals are yapping at his heels for two statements he has made that supposedly indicate how unsuited he is for the presidency. What are the two beyond-the-pale Dean quotes?
First, Dean told a New Hampshire newspaper that he believes Osama bin Laden should receive a fair trial. Here are Dean's words: "'I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found,' Dean said in the interview. 'I will have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials.'"
So I scratch my head and wonder, for those people who find this comment outrageous, what's the alternative? Assuming bin Laden is captured at some point -- and not killed during combat as he is being captured -- what do those who object to Dean's statement propose to do? Do we lynch the guy? Shoot him like a dog? Carry his head around on the end of a pole?
When the U.S. captured Nazi war criminals at the end of World War II, we didn't summarily execute them -- we put them on trial. Surely that respect for legal process and rejection of vigilantism is part of what we're fighting for in the "war on terror."
In subsequent comments Dean has said that he feels, as I imagine the great majority of Americans do, that bin Laden deserves the death penalty -- but after a trial, not before. Anyone who reads the candidate's words can see that this is what he means, and it's surely not a controversial position. But the media's anecdote-manufacturing machine has somehow turned this incident into a "gaffe." Dean said something he wasn't supposed to say. And the other Democratic candidates are seizing the incident as ammunition.
The other statement that Dean is being pilloried for is this one: "'The capture of Saddam is a good thing which I hope very much will keep our soldiers in Iraq and around the world safer,' Dean said. 'But the capture of Saddam has not made America safer.'"
What am I missing here: Can anyone seriously argue with that statement? Did Saddam in his tunnel pose Americans any kind of threat? Tactically, in the field in Iraq, it's an open question whether his capture will help improve things: Maybe the ex-dictator was running the Iraqi attacks from his hole in the ground, maybe he wasn't. That's important for our troops and for Iraqis -- and Dean gives it its due. But in terms of the big issue of our day -- protecting Americans at home from more terror attacks a la 9/11 -- the capture of Saddam was and is irrelevant. The war in Iraq wasn't a war on the people who perpetrated 9/11. The terror alert is "orange," international air traffic is being disrupted, and, we're told, the threat of a terror attack is higher now than at any time since 9/11.
So how was it, exactly, that America got safer when Saddam was hauled into the daylight? And how is it, exactly, that Dean's pointing this out is a "gaffe"?
More questions: Why are Dean's rivals playing into their Republican opponents' hands by portraying either of these statements as out-of-bounds outrages? And why is the political press -- like this Sunday New York Times piece -- playing along?
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