Word: gop
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...certainly good for the Democrats that elections aren't decided on foreign policy matters - and not only because the GOP has the formidable Condie Rice in its corner. Bill Clinton in '92 even made a selling point of the fact that his experience was in domestic, rather than foreign, policy. And after eight years of a skittish, improvisational and haphazard U.S. foreign policy unkindly called "ad hoc-racy" by its critics, Al Gore should hope the same holds true today. Then again, some of the GOP's own record and positions don't exactly reinforce its criticism of the Clinton...
...convention speech, Rice took a couple of sideswipes. She warned that the U.S. can't afford to become the world's 911 number - a reference to what GOP heavyweights see as the administration's inconsistent and misguided policy of "humanitarian intervention." Valid criticism, perhaps, although it's also worth remembering that the defining humanitarian debacle of the '90s - the death of 18 U.S. soldiers during a botched raid on a Somali warlord in Mogadishu -occurred in the course of a mission bequeathed by the Bush administration...
...money, once again, although it's never made entirely clear how a GOP administration might have handled the situation differently given that the only viable political challenge to Yeltsin came from the communists. Rice is even more scathing on last year's Kosovo campaign, which may exemplify what Republicans complain has been a Clinton-era habit of using the military to send messages rather than fight wars, eschewing the principle of that the U.S. should avoid military action at all costs but deploy with sufficient commitment to put victory beyond doubt once the military option is exercised. Besides wreaking havoc...
...action than lofty humanitarian principles that can be easily made to look hypocritical when Washington is prepared to start an air war in support of the Kosovars but can't lift a finger in support of the Chechens, the Sierra Leoneans, Rwandans and others. While not precluding "humanitarian intervention," GOP thinkers say these need to be based on a sound political strategy and a deep understanding of the underlying political conflict in each situation, and with an exit strategy that doesn't leave the situation a shambles...
...PoliticalFest" is running all week at the Philadelphia Convention Center (don't let this misnomer throw you - the brand-new downtown hall was deemed too cramped to host the GOP shindig, which was installed instead at the more capacious First Union Center in South Philly). I walked over to the hall Monday, took a deep breath, and headed inside...