NO Sister Souljah moment, please!

I disagree with TNR's premise that a Sister Souljah moment is necessary:

we'd be surprised if Dean didn't make a fairly dramatic gesture to establish his moderate foreign policy bona fides shortly after winning the nomination--a kind of Sister Souljah strategy for the post-9/11 world. One can imagine Dean, for example, laying into some fringe antiwar group, whose views, he might explain, were toxic to the debate over foreign policy and ultimately unhelpful to the cause of stabilizing Iraq (now that we're there) and winning the larger war on terror.


The same line is echoed by TEDM. As the TNR piece notes, Dean has indeed said, "There are two groups of people who support me because of the war. One are the people who always oppose every war, and in the end I think I probably won't get all of those people." But is that really a foreshadowing of a SS moment? I don't think so - it looks to me more like a simple statement of fact. And Dean is no peacenik - he has been clear in interviews that he'd have no hesitation in using American force when neccessary.

Again, the problem here is the implicit assumption that Dean has a foreign policy weakness that he needs to patch . This is false. He has an articulate foreign policy vision, and now with Gore's endorsement gains the support and consultation of one of the leading hawkish Democrats (one of the very few to have supported the first Gulf War).

And there's no need to cede the debate on defense and national security to Bush. Bush's record has made the country demonstrably less safe.

What advantage does pulling a SS moment serve, apart from anatagonizing Kucinich and Nader supporters? And undermining the case we need to make that Bush is the one with a foreign policy/defense problem?

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