To hear the Democrats vying for the 2008 presidential nomination tell it, their foreign-policy views represent a sharp, even radical break with the course the Bush administration has pursued since 9/11. Upon closer examination, however, the differences between these candidates and President Bush hardly seem as consequential as all that. Full Story »
Posted by Leo Romero
The reporter sees no nuance in the three leading Democratic presidential contenders position on Iraq. But just taking one example of John Edwards. The sentence prior to his "all options are on the table" was "The recent UN resolution ordering Iran to halt the enrichment of uranium was not enough. We need meaningful political and economic sanctions." This he fleshed out in an interview with Ezra Klein in which he talked about carrots and sticks. The carrots being providing nuclear fuel for power plants and help to their struggling economy with help from European banks. The sticks would be economic sanctions, not military. Every President says "but all options are on the table." The point is who do you trust to NOT use nuclear weapons? Who do you trust to understand the consequences of your actions? Is the person a decent human being who will keep us out of danger? So the divide in the Democratic Party is not as great as he thinks it is since polls show a great satisfaction with the contenders on the Democratic side. Not so on the Republican side. Pushing the "Democrats are divided meme" seems to be a recurring one in the New York Times.
