Newsmax reports that a pair of our leading luminaries from the mainstream press are blazing a trail, and hoping some Democrats will follow it, away from a suicidal anti-war position.
Broadcast veterans Tom Brokaw and Ted Koppel agree that Bill Clinton would have gone into Iraq just like George Bush if he were still president in 2003.
By agreeing on this point on their special Christmas Day joint appearance they put the MSM Stamp of Approval on a novel position now being explored by moderate Democrats -- maybe national security is important. Here is a section of the MTP transcript.
MR. KOPPEL: "...Now, should we be skeptical? Do we have a right to ask critical-- not just a right; do we have an obligation to ask critical questions? And did we fall short of that prior to the Iraq War? That's a perfectly legitimate point, and I think we all have to plead guilty, to one degree or another, to having been, you know, a little bit soft on the administration beforehand.
But in large measure, when the president and his top people tell you, as they did, "Here's our perception of what exists. Here's our perception of the danger to the United States. Here's our perception of a relationship between this guy who has weapons of mass destruction and the group that just blew up the Pentagon and the World Trade Center," I don't know that reporters as a whole can sit there and say, "Oh, hokum. You know, it's just not true." We can raise questions, and I...
MR. BROKAW: Given the absence of hard evidence.
MR. KOPPEL: Hard evidence. Right.
MR. BROKAW: There was not--you know, the French intelligence were sharing the same conclusions with the administration. I thought--I agree with you that I don't think that we pushed hard enough for vigorous debate. I think that on Capitol Hill that the debate was anemic, at best. You had--Ted Kennedy and Senator Byrd, really, were the only ones speaking out with any kind of passion in the Senate, the people who...
MR. RUSSERT: And they were not questioning whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
MR. BROKAW: No. No. No.
MR. RUSSERT: That seemed to be a uniformly held belief.
MR. BROKAW: Right. Yeah.
MR. KOPPEL: Nor did the Clinton administration beforehand.
MR. BROKAW: No.
MR. KOPPEL: I mean, the only difference between the Clinton administration and the Bush administration was 9/11.
MR. BROKAW: Right.
MR. KOPPEL: If 9/11 had happened on Bill Clinton's watch, he would have gone into Iraq.
MR. BROKAW: Yeah. Yeah.
It's their gift to those moderate Democrats who fear their party is headed over the cliff. It's not only the far left Democratic leadership for whom opinion polls rule. Moderates check them as well, and maybe Brokaw and Koppel got a peek, too.
Recent polls say 56 percent of Americans approve of the job Mr. Bush is doing to protect the country from another terrorist attack.
"In shaping alternative policies -- particularly on national security, terrorism and Iraq -- Democrats have to be extremely careful to avoid reinforcing the negative stereotype that has cost us so much in the last two national elections," the recent DLC memorandum said.
Republicans led the Democrats by 40 percent to 36 percent on questions about which party can keep the country safe, 45 percent to 40 percent on which party can be trusted on national security and 48 percent to 38 percent on "which party can be trusted more to fight terrorism," the DLC said...
"The Republicans still hold the advantage on every national-security issue we tested," said Mark Penn, a Democratic pollster and former adviser to President Clinton, who co-authored a Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) memo on the party's national-security weaknesses.
Nervousness among Democrats intensified earlier this month after Democrats led a filibuster against the Patriot Act that threatened to block the measure, followed by a victory cry from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, who declared at a party rally, "We killed the Patriot Act."
Harry Reid apparently didn't get the message, but others have. Moderate Democrats sensing our efforts in Iraq will be successful after all, are inching closer to the bandwagon. By claiming that Clinton would also have invaded, Brokaw and Koppel hope to give them a leg up.
But will there be enough time between now and November? Will moderate Democrats be able to erase all memory of their leadership's burning desire to surrender to the terrorists? Will the Democratice party leadership make a successfull pretense of caring about national defense? Will Koppel and Brokaw publicly campaign for Hillary?