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Military MalpracticeJohn Kerry's hypocritical attack on Howard Dean.

By William Saletan
Posted Tuesday, April 29, 2003, at 4:31 PM ET
Kerry, not always a military man

The doctor-soldier war is on.

Vermont Gov. Howard Dean is the only doctor in the 2004 Democratic presidential field. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry is the only former soldier. When the candidates debate health care or abortion rights, Dean loves to flash his medical credentials. His posters proclaim, "The doctor is in." On issue after issue, he derides Kerry's waffling. In New Hampshire, he's surged into a virtual dead heat with Kerry.

Now Kerry gets a chance to turn the tables. Time's Karen Tumulty reports that two weeks ago in New Hampshire, Dean "suggested that America should be planning for a time when it is not the world's greatest superpower." Dean's exact words were, "We won't always have the strongest military."

Oops! That's a political no-no. Doctors understand mortality, but they don't understand that conceding the mortality of American military supremacy is politically verboten. The Kerry campaign pounced on Dean's gaffe, arguing that when it comes to national security, the soldier is in, and the doctor is way, way out. Dean's statement "raises serious questions about his capacity to serve as Commander-in-Chief. No serious candidate for the Presidency has ever before suggested that he would compromise or tolerate an erosion of America's military supremacy," charged Chris Lehane, Kerry's communications director. "A President Kerry, who will bring the perspective of having served on the frontlines … will guarantee that America has the strongest, best trained, most well-quipped military in history."

The political logic of Kerry's attack is obvious. Dean is the only candidate with momentum and excitement, and he's the only big threat to Kerry in New Hampshire. Discredit Dean, win New Hampshire, and nobody else has the gas to pass Kerry.

But does Kerry's attack make sense on the merits? Not unless he's willing to disqualify himself as well.

On May 19, 1994, five years after Tiananmen Square, Kerry spoke on the Senate floor against linking China's Most Favored Nation trade status to its human rights record. To link the two issues was to ignore "the realities of 1994. It ignores China's power and potential, China's role as a regional and international actor, and our need to have a viable relationship with China," said Kerry. "China accounts for 20 percent of the world's population. Its economy is the fastest growing in the world. … China is a country on the march, a country whose power and influence will grow not only in Asia but in the world at large."

The fastest growing economy in the world? Expanding power in the world at large? Was Kerry tolerating an erosion of America's supremacy?

"China is the strongest military power in Asia," Kerry continued. "We need China's cooperation. We cannot afford to adopt a cold-war kind of policy that merely excludes and pushes China away." Limiting China's MFN status "would make us a bit player in a production of enormous proportions," he warned. "We possess no stick, including MFN, which can force China to embrace internationally recognized human rights and freedoms. We can encourage, we can cajole, we can entreat, we can embarrass the rulers in Beijing but we cannot compel."

Strongest military power? Bit player? Cajole? Entreat? "We possess no stick"?

OK, so that was nine years ago. Has Kerry grown more bullish since then? Not a bit. Outlining his foreign policy views in January, he warned, "In a world growing more, not less interdependent, unilateralism is a formula for isolation and shrinking influence."

Interdependence? Shrinking influence? Are these the words of a defeatist?

Of course not. Kerry wasn't "compromising" or "tolerating" the decline of American power. He was simply describing trends. China has five times our population. Its economy is growing faster than ours. Every empire in the history of the world has eventually lost its supremacy. You don't have to like it. You just have to face facts, or at least prepare for the worst. Good doctors do it all the time.

So do good soldiers. In a USA Today interview on Dean's remark, Lehane said it's "surprising and eye-opening to see a major candidate for president even ponder the possibility of not having the strongest military in the world." How do you like that? John Kerry's spokesman thinks it's irresponsible for a presidential candidate to "even ponder the possibility" of losing our pre-eminence. That kind of rosy dogmatism may not be good medicine or good soldiering, but it sure is good politics.

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William Saletan is Slate's national correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.
Photograph of Sen. John Kerry by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters.
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Remarks from the Fray:

The rightista media took Dean out of context…"Of course we're going to have the strongest military as long as I'm alive, and probably as long as my children are alive," he said today. "But at some point, if we continue to push only military options, we're not going to have the strongest military because other countries will overtake us." Taking Dean out of context to try to taint him with this dreadful aura of Ashcroftian more-patriotic-than-thou crap is bad enough coming from the right. For Kerry to see that as some kind of opportunistic space (for Kerry even to have chosen Lehane as "his guy" is unsettling enough, given that he was a repeatedly lame spokesperson for Gore in 2000) and jump on what has been among the worst of auras now making us all appalled at what Bushism is doing to lightning-rod politics. Kerry out to know better after the absurd misappropriation of his 'regime change' comment, and I am chagrined to see him taking this tack. I would only say that i think it's, alas, symptomatic of what seems to be all of them like racing horses at the starting gate too ready to jump the gun before the biggie debate and firing off reactions way too impulsively.

--zinya

(To reply, click here)


For God's sake, so what if Kerry said what he did in 1994. I cannot believe Salaten dug that up. The whole article was a depressing familiar "gotcha" piece that added nothing important to the public debate. I can hardly believe the petty Al-Gore-itis has already starting in by reporters: the smart-alecky, pointless nitpicking of everything said, the showing off. This is the most important election of my lifetime and I would appreciate if it would be treated as such by the chattering classes. We need information on incredibly important issues, please stop focusing on every utterance since the beginning of their careers that purport to show how lame the candidate is and how suave and knowing the reporter is. Please give me a break with the know-it-all gotcha pieces. What would Kerry do NOW, what are his plans? This is what I need to know - give me depth PLEASE.

--Thebestace

(To reply, click here)


But the real argument is that Dean made a statement that opened himself up to relentless attacks ads by Bush/Rove in 2004 if he wins the nomination. While Kerry may share the sentiment behind the statement, he didn't give a the Republicans a sound bite which if quoted in an attack ad would horrify the key middle of the road undecided voters.

--RufRuf

(To reply, click here)

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