Nation-Building >> Saletan on the debate | return to front page

4. Commander Dean. Dean was clearly focused on coming off as a plausible commander in chief. He referred explicitly to that duty, cited his support for the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 2001 Afghan war, maintained a painfully serious expression throughout the debate, and showed off his foreign-policy cramming by proposing to ask "our allies such as Egypt and Morocco" to contribute troops to Iraq. He succeeded in looking serious, to the point of constipation. I'm not sure that was a net gain. By the way, why does the former governor of Vermont speak better Spanish than the former governor of Texas?

5. Dean vs. me. The current conventional wisdom among Democrats is, if you can't be Dean, the next best thing is to be Dean's assailant. Thursday night, everybody got into the act. Kucinich scoffed that Dean's balanced budgets were easy because "Vermont doesn't have a military." Even Graham, who agreed with Dean that the Iraq war was a bad idea, chose to emphasize that he and Dean opposed the war for different reasons. Lieberman hit Dean hardest, asserting that under Dean's trade policies, "the Bush recession would be followed by the Dean depression." Later, Lieberman criticized "Gov. Dean and others who would adopt so large a [health-care] program that it would force an increase in middle-class taxes." That critique applies more accurately to Gephardt. But attacking Gephardt doesn't get you on the evening news.
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9. The non-Clinton touch. Once again, Lieberman showed the best preparation and worst execution of the Democratic debaters. I cringed when he said of terrorists, "If we don't get together and defeat them now, shame on us." Shame? You mean, on top of getting killed? Then Lieberman followed Edwards' "Hasta la vista" with a laborious and clumsily delivered Spanish sentence that was supposed to convey the same thing but didn't. Then he provoked some dismay in the audience by warning of a "Dean depression," a phrase so full of overkill that it seemed more likely to kill its author. It was almost the only thing in the debate that made Dean smile. And no wonder: He got more applause for answering the punch than Lieberman got for delivering it.