Who shall be the candidate?: Dean? (seen as trustworthy/passionate and good bio) Clark? His stance on the war with Iraq is defended here. The defense leaves a bit to be desired -- believing (wrongly?) that Iraq had dangerous WMDs, he supported the resolution to give the President bargaining leverage that with "patience and diplomacy" would have got the UN on to do something about it. On the other hand, if he was given the choice in Congress (that is, let's play pretend) to actually vote for the war in the Winter of 2003, he would not have done so. This seems to be a variation of the standard line: "I supported giving the President authority, but didn't like how he handled it, and boy am I pissed (shocked) about it!"

In reply to one request for my opinion of Wes Clark, I offered some caveats: "I don't know about Clark ... he's having some trouble gaining traction, though some are pretty impressed by him. His personality is a bit rough, his lack of domestic political experience (and for some, his military career) is troubling, and he did come kinda late to the (Democratic) party. I'm not really comfortable with him yet, but he's intriguing, his foreign policy bona fides are real, and in actuality he has handled the politics of the military and so forth enough to make his lack of domestic experience somewhat besides the point. His stance on the war kinda was tricky, but maybe you are right that he can sell it best out of all of them."

Currently, I'm boning up on some party history. After Christmas, I plan to go into "primary mode," so I am better able to decide who to support come March. Clearly, I have some work ahead of me ... and, no, Dean's current frontrunner status is not the only deciding factor for me. Not for someone who was one of three who supported Anderson in the grade school poll in 1980. I will probably therefore toss out various thoughts on some candidates over the next few months.

Did The FU France/Germany/Russia?: Many, including somewhat surprisingly the conservative de facto administration organ aka The Weekly Standard, was upset when the Pentagon released a policy barring those who did not support the U.S. invasion of Iraq from getting reconstruction contracts (the actual teeth of the bar was unclear). A primary reason was that it might hinder our attempt to get such nations to forgive or restructure Iraqi debts, an effort that arguably is starting to pay dividends. Or maybe not.

Does this mean the pressure was a good idea? As replies to that suggestion noted (see first link), it's unclear if the "pressure" was the reason for the French making noises about choosing to play ball. Also, I wonder how such heavyhanded tactics (mixed in with the President sneering at concerns international law was being violated) will affect future efforts, in this area or others. Bullying often works, but there are dark sides to it.