Was It "Courageous" For Dean To Oppose The Iraq War? [View All]

I've heard that term tossed around here quite a bit. That Dean made a bold, courageous stance by opposing the war with Iraq.

Personally, that's not exactly how I see it.

People get on Kerry because he voted for that resolution and say he wanted to have it both ways. Some (like me) believe that it was a political calculation designed to not fall into a "too liberal pacifist to be president" trap that Bush and Rove had set up for him and the other Democrats running from the Senate and House.

But Dean's opposition to the war was probably just as political as Kerry's support for it.

Dean was a nobody. A no name. An ex-governor of the second smallest state in the union who had launched a bid for the presidency with a staff small enough to fit in a phone booth.

Then came the war. And Dean, seeing that nearly all his fellow challengers had supported the war, decided to go against it. And he got on the Democrats who supported it as hard as he did Bush, who authorized it.

Meanwhile, lost in all the hooplah was a little footnote that Dean himself provided in the last candidate forum about his support for the 1991 Persion Gulf war.

A war which John Kerry, incidentally, opposed.

So maybe it's cool to say that Dean was right to oppose the war. I certainly believe he was.

But to say that it was a "courageous" or "bold" thing to do is just wrong. He was a fringe candidate whose candidacy would never have gotten off the ground without his opposition to the war. He HAD to oppose it to set himself apart.

That's just as much a political calculation as Kerry supporting the war. Neither stance was particularly bold or courageous, but this is modern day politics - nothing is bold or courageous anymore.