The Political Winds of War
It is absurdly early in the '08 campaign for pivotal moments, but Sen. Hillary Clinton's handlers were convinced they spotted one at the Democrats' first presidential debate, in South Carolina. Answering a question about how he would react to another Qaeda strike, Sen. Barack Obama talked about the lack of disaster preparedness in New Orleans and the need for reliable intelligence. He said that he would carefully target "some action to dismantle" the terrorists' network, but do so without the "bluster and bombast" that would "alienate the world community." The one thing he did not explicitly mention: the use of military force. Asked the same question by moderator Brian Williams of NBC, Clinton morphed into the commander in chief as aggrieved New Yorker. "I understand the extraordinary horror of that kind of attack," she said. "I think a president must move as swiftly as is prudent to retaliate." In Clinton's staff holding room at South Carolina State, there were smiles and high fives.
Obama's stolid reply and Clinton's saber-rattling illustrate an inherent Democratic tension. The party wants to pay homage to their increasingly vocal antiwar base. Yet they know—and nobody knows this better than Clinton—that they risk defeat if they fail to shake the notion that they are naive about the world's dangers and innately reluctant to use force of arms.
War is hell, Sherman remarked, and it is also playing havoc with the politics of 2008. Both sides are being buffeted by the winds of Bush's war. Democrats are flummoxed; Republicans apocalyptic—not the best recipe for a substantive campaign, even by the low standards of campaigns.
Uncertain about the future, Republicans are choosing to focus on fear. Under the Democrats, Rudy Giuliani says, we will "wave the white flag" of surrender in Iraq, and cut back domestic surveillance and border security. The country will be "safer with a Republican president." Democrats, he said, "do not seem to get the fact that there are really dangerous people who want to come here and kill us." Expect to hear a lot more of this from Giuliani and his fellow Republicans at their first debate this week, in Simi Valley, Calif. "Rudy is foreshadowing the whole campaign," says Dan Schnur, a GOP consultant. "Everybody knows what we will say in '08. The issue will be: what do Democrats say?"
That isn't clear. Against whom, precisely, would Hillary "retaliate" in a world of stateless villainy? After a mild start, Obama ended the debate in South Carolina on a bellicose note, insisting that Iran's nuclear ambitions were so dangerous that we could not rule out going to war over the issue. Had the debate lasted another round, he might have worked his way up to suggesting an invasion of Cuba.
Actually, if the candidates in either party are searching for a role model, they need to look no further than the site of the GOP debate: the Ronald Reagan Library. For all of his rootin'-tootin' rhetoric, Reagan was cautious about military force. In 1982, after sending Marines on a fateful, deadly mission to Lebanon, he took a second, closer look at the carnage of the Middle East—and called the troops home with all deliberate speed. There's a lesson there—and maybe, in the long run, shelter from the prevailing winds.
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Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief. He is the author of "Living Politics," a column that began on MSNBC.COM and Newsweek.com and that now also appears in the print magazine. An award-winning reporter and writer, Fineman also is an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing regularly on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "TODAY." The author of scores of Newsweek cover stories, Fineman's work has appeared as well in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic. His 2008 national best-selling book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," was released in paperback by Random House in the spring of 2009.
One of the nation's leading political reporters, Fineman has interviewed every major presidential candidate from (then-vice president) George H.W. Bush in 1985 to (then senator) Barack Obama early and often in the 2008 campaign cycle. His current work focuses on the Obama Administration and its top officials, as well as on Congress and politics throughout the country. Although based in Washington, Fineman travels widely in the U.S. and has covered politics and other events in 49 of the 50 states.
Fineman's work has produced many milestones and awards. A cover story in November 2001 featured President George W. Bush's first extensive interview after 9/11. Another cover, "Bush and God," was part of a series of articles that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. His reporting has helped Newsweek win many honors from the Magazine Publishers Association and the American Journalism Review. Other awards include a "Page One" from the Headliners Club of New York, a "Silver Gavel" from the American Bar Association and a "Deadline Club" from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In 2006 he received the Alumni Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
As a reporter and writer, Fineman ranges widely. Besides campaign-year covers, other projects have included: race and politics, the impact of digital technology on society, the influence of Hollywood on politics, the rise of the religious right and of conservative talk radio. He has interviewed business leaders such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Steve Case and Robert Rubin and entertainment figures such as Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Jay Leno.
Although now under exclusive television contract to NBC, Fineman over the years has appeared on major public affairs shows, such as Nightline, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose and the NewsHour. He was a regular panelist on Washington Week in Review on PBS (1983-95) and on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday (1995-98). He worked with Ted Koppel on Nightline specials, and has been a guest on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman began his career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, covering the environment, the coal industry and state politics before joining the newspaper's Washington bureau in 1978. He moved to Newsweek in 1980, was named chief political correspondent in 1984, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1993, senior editor in 1995 and senior Washington correspondent and columnist in 2008.
Fineman holds an A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. His legal education included a year as a visiting student at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received Watson and Pultizer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and has traveled to more than 40 countries, among them China, Vietnam, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the West Bank Palestinian Territories.
Fineman is married to Amy L. Nathan, a senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission. They live in Washington with their two children, Meredith and Nicholas.
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