Word: bennette
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...then there is the damage the candidates inflict upon themselves by fawning over the interest group sponsoring the event. The smartest thing I ever heard anyone say at one of these travesties was William Bennett's instruction to the audience at the Christian Coalition cattle show in 1995. Bennett told the faithful that "if these candidates don't tell you something that makes you feel uncomfortable or forces you to think, if they demand nothing from you, then you should give them nothing...
Every one of the Republicans failed Bennett's test that day, so it isn't only Democrats who are spineless wimps when it comes to these nonevents. Furthermore, this is not the worst bunch of Dems I've ever seen. They are not dwarfs (well, some of them aren't). But they are not quite giants either. Take the case of Senator Joe Lieberman, the only candidate who passed the Bennett test at the Children's Defense Fund. He celebrated the American victory in Iraq, a war he has favored from the start, and he celebrated the success of Bill...
...Every one of the Republicans failed Bennett's test that day, so it isn't only Democrats who are spineless wimps when it comes to these nonevents. Furthermore, this is not the worst bunch of Dems I've ever seen. They are not dwarfs (well, some of them aren't). But they are not quite giants either. Take the case of Senator Joe Lieberman, the only candidate who passed the Bennett test at the Children's Defense Fund. He celebrated the American victory in Iraq, a war he has favored from the start, and he celebrated the success of Bill...
...might be argued that former Vermont Governor Howard Dean also passed the Bennett test, but he only did so under duress. He was asked about a quote from 1996, in which he heaped slag upon the Children's Defense Fund's founder, Marian Wright Edelman, for being one of those "liberals" who wrongly opposed the welfare-reform bill. He retracted the slag - Edelman, a study in demure imperiousness, was seated in the front row - but not the sentiment. He said he embraced welfare reform in Vermont and implied that he did it better than Clinton. But then, to hear Dean...
...roads, schools, hospitals and schoolbooks in Iraq. "And it is time that they do the same thing here ..." But it is easier for Republicans, who are inaccurately assumed to be adults, to be fiscally irresponsible than it is for Democrats. So the candidates would do well to remember Bennett's advice: their credibility will probably rest on the promises they refuse to make, the inconvenient truths they choose to tell...