Wow, Gibson sounds kind of discouraged, doesn't he? Good!

The impartial moderator?

I especially enjoyed how Bush stepped all over Gibson's attempt to shut him down while Kerry allowed Gibson to take the wind out of his sails a couple of times.

I do still appreciate Gibson's unexpected grilling of Kerry on the medal throwing some time ago, however. "Hey, what is this, a cream puff morning show or the RNC?!"

I confess to having a soft spot for Dick Gephardt, a throwback to an age when anti-communist red-blooded patriots like George Meaney held sway over Big Labor.

A demostration of the sad state of the democrat party. They cannot nominate someone like Gephardt.

Gephardt would have been Bush's worst nightmare in the general election, as he is credible on security issues, and opposes the current trend in economic policy which has legitimate points of criticism. He is also no great liberal on social issues. The MSM probably hates him more than they hate Bush, much as the 1948 Progressive Party directed all its fire at Truman and none at Dewey.

He was the only prominent Democrat with that mix of issue positions, and now he is no longer prominent.

Bush would have eaten Gephardt alive during the election, and the good people of Iowa were right to toss him out on his can.

Gephardt could have done well in states with a heavy union presence, such as Michigan, but his economic-growth-killing protectionist impulses have no place in an economy that generates a third of its activity through world trade.

Not to mention, he has decades of Congressional votes that he'd have to attempt to defend.

Michael,

He would have forced Bush to defend an economic policy which has not worked for many Americans in any tangible way, and in fact many of us either have been outsourced or know people who were and who are not finding a new equivalent position. Now, we can argue till the cows come home about whether the economic changes in America are good or bad, but you cannot argue that millions of Americans are worse off today as a result of NAFTA and other trade agreements.

Gephardt is an ambitious man with no reason to be.

Once he turned his back on the pro-life movement, his national aspirations were doomed.

Bart:

We're all better off because of free trade. Union guiys wouldn't have gotten to keep their boondoggle jobs just because of protectionism.

Agree. A few people -- perhaps less than one million, perhaps more -- have been harmed by NAFTA and global trade talks. All the rest of us, nearly 290 million, have benefited. That's the flaw in Gephardt's argument.