SWEET 16

Gephardt's 16 Words (William Kristol, July 24, 2003, washingtonpost.com )

"George Bush has left us less safe and less secure than we were four years ago."
--Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), July 22 [...]

I suppose it's technically possible that things could turn out worse for the Iraqi people, or for us, post-Hussein (though I'd be happy to take that bet, and I'm
sure the Bush campaign would too). But Gephardt has laid down an extraordinarily clear marker for judging the Bush administration: He claims we're less safe and less secure than we were four years ago.

Is this the case? Were we safer and more secure when Osama bin Laden was unimpeded in assembling his terror network in Afghanistan? When Pakistan was colluding with the Taliban, and Saudi Arabia with al Qaeda? When Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq? When demonstrations by an incipient democratic opposition in Iran had been crushed with nary a peep from the U.S. government? When we were unaware that North Korea, still receiving U.S. food aid, had covertly started a second nuclear program? When our defense budget and our intelligence services were continuing to drift downward in capacity in a post-Cold War world?

Are we not even a little safer now that the Taliban and Hussein are gone, many al Qaeda operatives have been captured or killed, governments such as Pakistan's and Saudi Arabia's are at least partly hampering al Qaeda's efforts instead of blithely colluding with them, the opposition in Iran is stronger, our defense and intelligence budgets are up and, for that matter, Milosevic is gone and the Balkans are at peace (to mention something for which the Clinton administration deserves credit but that had not happened by July 1999)?

When Mr. Gephardt was on the NHPR morning call-in show, the host, Laura Kinoy, asked him if there was anything that President Bush deserved credit for. He hemmed and hawed, was prompted again, and finally said that he comforted people right after 9-11. It's hard to see what political advantage such extremism could possibly convey. Just tick off a few things--education bill, signing CFR, war in Afghanistan--and say, "But we can do much better." You'll appear more reasonable, even generous. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 24, 2003 8:05 PM