Foreign Policy, and why it should matter in 2004
(but probably won't)

When it comes to foreign policy, the American people typically feel that Republicans do a better job. (pause for pessimistic head-shaking)

That's why a man who abandoned his commitment to our nation's military in a time of war was able to win the hearts and minds of military folk over a man who had volunteered to take the place of some poor, probably minority, draftee from New Jersey and actually served in Vietnam.

That's why every time the Whopper says "We have found weapons of mass destruction," referring to hydrogen trailers or scrap metal buried under rose bushes for twelve years, it gets replayed over and over and over, but no one listens to Robert Byrd.

But Howard Dean--my man!--made a speech Wednesday to the Council on Foreign Relations that makes Colin Powell look like the puppet he's become. Makes Condi Rice look like a sputtering lawn sprinkler. Makes, by leaps and bounds, the Whopper look like a bitter, small-minded weasel.

I'm getting a little tired of Dean's referring back to Harry Truman, mostly because it saddens me no end that it was Truman who dropped the only nuclear bombs ever exploded in wartime. But, darn it, Harry Truman was a good Democrat, and Dean could not really pick a better model (and he needs to establish that for himself--too many people are going for "McGovernesque").

Many moons ago, Dean laid out his position that "One reason America has been targeted by terrorists is that our nation is the preeminent world power. With this power comes great responsibility. Our actions are important in themselves, but also as a model for what we may expect--and demand--of other nations. As a result, no country has a bigger stake than we in establishing and enforcing the highest possible norms of international behavior." He continued that theme with his CFR speech, going back to Truman:

Fifty-five years ago, President Harry Truman delivered what was known as the Four Point speech. In it, he challenged Democrats and Republicans alike to come together to build strong and effective international organizations; to support arrangements that would spur global economic recovery; to join with free people everywhere in the defense of human liberty; and to draw upon the genius of our people to help societies who needed help in the battle against hunger and illness, ignorance and despair.

This was at the very beginning of the cold war. [. . .] At that moment of maximum peril, President Truman went before the world to spell out not only what America was against, but much more importantly, what America was for [. . .] because he had faith that if America were true to her own principles and values, we could in the long run defeat any foe, no matter how deadly.

He believed that if America reached out to others in friendship and with respect, our strength would be multiplied and that more and more countries would support our policies not because we told them to, but because they wanted to.

Harry Truman believed that a world in which even the poorest and most desperate had grounds for hope would be a world in which our own children could grow up in security and peace--not because evil would then be absent from the globe, but because the forces of right would be united and strong.

Harry Truman had faith as I have faith, and as I believe the American people have faith, that if we are wise enough and determined enough in our opposition to hate and our promotion of tolerance; in our opposition to aggression and our fidelity to law; we will have allies not only among governments but among people everywhere.

Such an alliance can never be beaten.

And the creation of such an alliance will be my goal if I am entrusted with the presidency of the United States. Because, this is what will keep America strong. This is what reflects the best in the American people. And this is the core of the national security message that I will be carrying to all of America throughout this campaign--that I am committed to working constructively with friends and allies around the globe to help people in every corner of every continent to live in freedom, prosperity and peace.

I hate to quote at length (I like the sound of my own voice too much), but lay that side-to-side with the Whopper's foreign policy, which pretty much seems to be the 800-pound gorilla story.

But will the Democrats win on foreign policy? No. Dean's speech here--like John Edwards's economic policy speech last week--will never make it into the public consciousness, even though, in a very real and very urgent sense, they affect the public more deeply than just about any other issues. Instead, the usual line of Republicans are better at foreign policy will dominate, and the Democrats might get play out of the economic downturn. That economic play, however, will not involve Edwards's grand ideas of reform; rather, it will be the brutal truth of four or five million jobless and many millions more uninsured and uncertain about their futures, merely rebelling against the status quo in hopes of something better.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, what I like about Dean is his smarts--he thinks through an issue and offers a considered opinion (which is why the short form--like "Meet the Press"--is not his best form). But the public doesn't always want that; they want a doer, not a thinker. But the doer we have now has done us wrong, and the kind of cultural shift Edwards talks about in his speech, that Dean talks about in "The American Restoration" and the CFR speech, is what we need. However, cultural shifts do not happen easily or quickly. So the common themes perpetuate, and in the end, foreign policy won't win it for the Democrats, even though, by all rights, it should.