CONCORD — This Wednesday, the Kerry campaign gathered heavy
hitters on national security issues together to rail against the
policies of George W. Bush and to endorse John Kerry as the best,
sane alternative. Distinguished guests included retired Marine
Corps General Stephen Cheney, Medal of Honor recipient Captain Paul
Bucha, former Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers, and Kerry
foreign policy adviser Nancy Stetson. The panelists took turns
giving gracious speeches about their experience with Kerry, both in
war and in government, and explaining why they had chosen to
support him.
That is until former Ambassador Joe Wilson got a hold of the
microphone. Before he uttered a single word, Wilson seemed out of
place. His longish, surfer guy hair clashed with the closely
cropped cuts of the military men on stage. A crass purple tie swung
like a pendulum over his dark trying-too-hard-to-be-hip suit.
Wilson spoke for a full 20 minutes before he got around to even
mentioning John Kerry. He began by rehashing the whole “sixteen
words” Niger plutonium fiasco with a gusto the media, the general
public, and even Democratic presidential candidates had long ago
lost. Along the way, he romanticized his own role in shining the
light on the way the American people and international community
were “lied into war.”
“When it became apparent after several months that the
administration was continuing to stonewall and simply was not going
to tell the American people the truth, I felt a civic
responsibility to write a 1,500 word article, a modest piece
entitled, ‘What I Did Not Find In Africa,’” Wilson explained. Less
modest is Wilson’s spread in Vanity Fair, in which he
details his sexual history and poses for glossy photos with his
wife, the mysterious Valerie Plame, with a head scarf and dark
glasses.
It was, of course, Plame, not Wilson’s article, which gained him
national prominence, when her cover as a CIA “operative” was blown
by columnist Robert Novak late last summer. It’s a fact that seems
to rankle Wilson. He told the crowd that his canned obituary used
to begin with a line about being the last American diplomat to meet
with Saddam Hussein before the first Gulf War. But the current one
now reads “Mr. Valerie Plame, the husband of the spy who was
exposed by her own government.”
“Or outed by her own government, or whose name was leaked by her
own government. She’s not really into being exposed and she’s not
into being outed,” he continued. Wilson is still in shock over the
whole ordeal. He understood that the government would “diss” him,
he said, “But I didn’t know they would diss my wife, too.”
Wilson then tore into the invasion and occupation of Iraq; a
strange move for someone on hand to endorse a candidate who voted
for, and continues to support, that policy. Wilson admitted Saddam
Hussein had “hegemonic ambitions” and continued to seek weapons of
mass destruction, but he tut-tutted that diplomacy was the only
reasonable course in this case. “Basically, if you have to make
war, you have to make smart war for the right reasons, not dumb
war,” he said. “Frankly, the invasion, conquest, occupation of Iraq
was not the brightest idea we ever had.”
Wilson then held up some nonviolent models for “regime change.”
Cuba was “a good example,” he said. Also: “I think you can make a
good argument that the government of Germany under chancellor
Schroeder was a target of regime change in the lead up to recent
elections there. And certainly this administration has harbored
regime change ambition towards my home state of California, which
they succeeded in doing.”
The more he talked, the worse it got. The military guys started
craning their necks. “So we do have examples of regime change
policies and successfully pursuing them without having to put
130,000 troops massed on the Nevada-California border ready to
march into Sacramento,” he concluded finally.
When he did get around to talking about John Kerry, it was
strictly in the context of Joe Wilson. Though not a combat veteran
“I have been in enough wars to probably warrant some sort of
status,” Wilson said. “But like him, or like me, John Kerry also
spoke truth to a hostile power.” Wilson agreed with “everyone who
says it is infuriating that it takes John seven minutes to clear
his throat before he starts talking,” but he had had “plenty of
fraternity brothers in my life” and had no need of a frat brother
as “my president.”
The showboating continued during the Q&A period. One woman
asked a question of the entire panel and Wilson took the
microphone, explaining, “Well, I have to tell you, since you were
looking at me…” The ranking military members on the panel were
quite annoyed, so when the next question came up and Wilson asked
“Do you want me to take that one?” he wasn’t even acknowledged. The
microphone was passed around over his head to literally everyone
else on the panel.
At the close of the forum, Wilson couldn’t help but take to the
microphone one last time. “One thing I understand about leadership
is…if you don’t have any followers, it’s hard to call yourself a
leader,” he said.
Silence followed.
Joe Schmoe
Despite the fact that John McCain will be in New Hampshire to
campaign for George W. Bush, Joe Lieberman continues to publicly
wish for some of “McCain’s magic dust.” A recent Lieberman
television ad relays the following message: “Something’s
happening,” an announcer intones. “McCain supporters are backing
Joe Lieberman.”
In the lead-up to the primary, Lieberman supporters are holding
“McCainiac” house parties. “The Independents are going to play a
very important, even decisive role in this primary,” Lieberman told
the AP. “We’re going to combine Democrats and Independents and do
what we’ve been saying all along. Surprise the pundits and get off
to a great start in New Hampshire.”
Er, how to put this? Yes, McCain beat George W. Bush by 18
points in New Hampshire four years ago, but he was out of the race
a month later, smarting from his wounds. One might question the
wisdom of Lieberman basing his entire strategy on a failed campaign
whose candidate is not even endorsing him.
