ORANGE ALERTS AND THE DEMS

It's interesting to watch how the Dems running for president react when the Bush administration raises the Homeland Security threat indicator. It's an indicator of how serious each candidate is about the threat of terrorist strike, how much credibility each candidate gives to the administration, and how straight each candidate may be with the American people if they had to make the call to raise the alert at some point.

Take this week's raised threat level. Most Americans probably reacted with a mixture of yawns and "Now what?"s. That's how I reacted--ok, another notch up, but what can I do about it? Not much, so I'm going to live the way I already did--another round of Cheetos and Cohibas.

Most of the presidential wannabees said raising the threatcon was the right thing to do, though most of them also found some way to work in a criticism. Sen. John Edwards, for instance:

"I have to say, in fairness to the administration, I understand what they're doing," Mr. Edwards said. "I mean, if they get some information, that may indicate that there may be some kind of an attack. But the reality is, if you're not telling people specifically what they should do, it's hard for the information to be useful."

Fair enough critique, though an easy response would be to ask "So, should the administration wait until it has more specific information before raising the threatcon?" If it does, it may never raise the threatcon, since such information may never come--the nature of intelligence is that it's usually fairly vague. Or if the administration actually tells people what to do, they might actually do it--remember all the duct-taping a while back? Where did that get us? Would the Edwards administration raise the threat level based on vague but increased chatter, or wait? What would it do? Reporters either never ask this question, or the contenders find ways to wiggle out of it, but I'd like something more useful from Edwards that a little warm air blown up my backside.

Sen. Kerry:

"When the threat of terrorism is increasing, I'll do more than simply issue an orange alert," Mr. Kerry said in a statement. "As president, I'll make sure that towns and cities don't have to bear all the burden of increasing security, a price tag that can weigh in at several million dollars a day."

Again, fair enough, but there's a hole: Cities and states have wide discretion over how they spend their dollars. During the 90s, most cities and states went on wild spending sprees, increasing entitlements to levels unsustainable when lean economic times come, and in 2000 they came. Isn't that why cities and states may be strapped for cash now, Mr. Kerry? What would your administration do to get them to reprioritize their spending so that it lines up with today's dangerous environment? Precious little, if his Bush critique is any guide. Rep. Dick Gephardt's criticism followed Kerry's line of thinking, tacking toward the training that he believes first responders miss when they go on alert. But, can't the raised alert function as training? It depends on how the local jurisdictions handle it, a fact lost on presidential aspirants.

Sen. Joe Lieberman was the sole Dem running to replace Bush who offered uncritical praise for raising the threatcon. Honorable, but it probably won't generate much traction with the party's rabid anti-Bush wing that seems to find fault with Bush for breathing. But with his eye on the center, that's probably fine with Lieberman.

Then there's Howard Dean:

Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont who was criticized for saying Saddam Hussein's capture had not made America safer, declined to comment Monday morning when asked by a reporter about the change in alert. But a few hours later, a voter asked: "If we're all safer" because of the capture, why the orange alert? Dr. Dean grinned.

"I don't know," he told several hundred people in Exeter, N.H. "I'm not the guy who's in charge of orange alert."

First declining to opine, then dodging the question while insinuating that he liked the illogical link his supporter made between the increased alert and the capture of Saddam Hussein, front-runner Howard Dean offered the least serious response to the increased threatcon. He grinned, then brushed the question aside. I think it's fair based on his response to wonder whether Dean takes the terrorist threat seriously at all, or has done any deep thinking about it. He lends the Bush administration the least benefit of the doubt, raising some questions about Dean. Would President Dean (shudder) tell the American people that there's a possible threat out there, or assume the capture of one man should diminish that threat for all time? One could be forgiven for distrusting Dean's seriousness about terrorism based on his response to issues like this. He just doesn't seem to spend any time thinking about any picture bigger than winning the presidency, and therefore has not come up with any plans or ideas for combatting terrorism. In fact, it's fair to wonder whether Dean really believes we're at war, or should be. He is, after all, the same Howard Dean who thinks theories that Bush knew about 9-11 beforehand are "interesting." He may believe in his heart of hearts that the entire war is a phony enterprise.

And then there's Gen. Wesley Clark, who incidentally has a brewing conflict of interest scandal for those of you playing along at home. To his credit, Clark didn't criticize the Bush administration for raising the alert since he hasn't had access to the intelligence that led to the decision. But he did go on to criticize the entire war from a strategic point of view.

"But that doesn't change the reality," General Clark said. "We knew who attacked this country on 9/11 and it was not Saddam Hussein. It was Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network."

"We should have gone after that network and we should have gone after it directly instead of taking half the United States Army and putting it in Iraq and using $150 billion and distracting us from our world leadership in the war on terror," he said. "It was a strategic mistake. I just hope that we'll be able to protect this country and we don't have more Americans who will suffer as a result of the president's bad leadership."

We did go after the network directly--did Clark miss the Afghanistan war? We're still going after the network directly, financially, diplomatically and militarily. Is Gen. Clark unaware of just how complex the war really is, or is he just talking out of his hat?

Today we have roughly 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, a force dedicated to hunting down Osama bin Laden and his minions, who could be there or in Pakistan or, according to Mansour Ijaz, in Iran...or dead. We have 130,000 troops in Iraq, and tens of thousands of other troops scattered around in peacekeeping missions, hold-the-line missions in South Korea, Germany and so forth, not to mention the bulk of our military, which is cooling its heels right here in the USA. Surely Gen. Clark knows all this. Does Clark think the US military is insufficient for the job of hunting down one guy and his coterie of fanatics while taking on a parallel threat nearby? Or does he no longer think Saddam was ever a parallel threat? Recall that pre-war (and pre-presidential candidacy as a Democrat), a very Republican-sounding Clark was gung-ho for the war and praised the Bush administration's leadership and skill in prosecuting it. If Clark no longer thinks Saddam was any threat to the US, he has changed his stance on the war 180 degrees and should acknowledge this change and explain it. In any case, if the US military is not big enough for the job, that's a separate issue from whether the Bush administration should have taken out Saddam in the first place. It's a related question, but it's not the same question. Supposing he believes Saddam was a threat (a very mainstream position even among Democrats until we actually removed Saddam from power), if the military isn't big enough, would Clark increase its size before taking on Saddam, or would he have just left Saddam alone? And given the fact that the military is, today, stabilizing a Saddam-free Iraq and hunting Osama bin Laden at the same time, why does Clark think it isn't up to doing both jobs? His criticism seems hollow and at odds with the facts--we are walking and chewing gum simultaneously, even as he says we can't and shouldn't. And for a bonus, we're blockading North Korea as well, an anti-terrorism trifecta that netted Libya and has Iran at least moving within striking distance of reasonable discourse. Surely Gen. Clark has noticed all this. Col. Gaddafi sure has. Could it be that a tinhorn Libyan dictator has a better picture of US military capabilities than the former Supreme Commander of NATO? A scary possibility, if we take Clark at face value.

Of course, the alternative view is that Clark is just offering standard boilerplate political criticism meant to distinguish him from president he wants to replace. Fine. He has distinguished himself from an administration that seems to be rolling up the terrorist threat fairly well, and has the domestic economy screaming toward record growth at the same time. Clark can distinguish himself from that record all he wants, but it's not likely to do him much good.