By The Prowler on 9.20.02 @ 12:04AM
Will it be Unpatriotic Gore?
GORE FUERTH
So much for Al Gore being his own man. On Monday,
Gore will speak in San Francisco before the Commonwealth Club of
California, in a speech his people are touting as the former vice
president's take on Iraq and other foreign policy issues.
But again Gore's timing couldn't be worse. Already every major
Democratic presidential candidate has laid down his take on what
President Bush and the U.S. should do with Iraq, and almost all of
them, from Lieberman to Edwards to Gephardt (let's forget the
milquetoast Daschle and peacenik Gov. Howard Dean
of Vermont), have taken a more hawkish stand than Gore himself took
earlier this year in a speech before the Council of Foreign
Relations.
At that point Gore indicated that his approach to Iraq would be
very different from Bush's, even though Bush's team had to lay out
a clear plan to take out Saddam. Now that Bush has, Gore's problems
have only multiplied. Not only will he have to clarify his own
muddled record on Iraq going back to eight feckless years under
Clinton-Gore. He'll also have to say something that the American
people haven't already heard on at least four other occasions in
the past two weeks. And he'll have to make those points better than
Edwards and Lieberman, both of whom spoke more eloquently than Gore
ever can.
This is where being his own man comes into it the equation.
Whereas in the past few months Gore has been drafting speeches with
his own, let's call it, "unique" take on issues, for the
Commonwealth Club address Gore has been huddling with his old
foreign policy guru Leon Fuerth, who served as his
national security adviser in the White House.
The fact that Fuerth is apparently so involved would indicate
that Gore, while generally being supportive of action against Iraq,
will take Fuerth's position: that quick, unilateral action would be
potentially difficult for the U.S., thus putting American lives in
harm's way, and that the administration should instead use U.N.
inspections and internal Iraqi political operatives to press the
issue of a government overthrow.
"He's in a real spot," says a former Gore adviser. "Most of his
competitors in 2004 have already come out in, at the least, general
support of the President's position. If he does simply that, he
looks like a follower, not a leader. But I can't believe he'll
stray so far into Fuerth's orbit that he looks like he doesn't
support his country's position at all. He knows that his putting
full faith in the U.N. won't wash with the American public."
BARON FIELD
Word out of Texas is that Fred Baron, who was a
key adviser and fundraiser for both Bill Clinton
and Al Gore in their presidential campaigns is signing on with Sen.
John Edwards' PAC and loosely confederated
presidential exploratory committee.
"Gore wanted him back real bad," says a former Gore 2000
campaign staffer. "He was lobbying Baron hard to stay out of the
race until things firmed up, but it doesn't look like that's going
to happen."
It shouldn't come as a big surprise that Edwards won out. After
all, Edwards is practically family to Baron. They are both trial
lawyers.
topics:
Foreign Policy, Bill Clinton, Law, Iraq
