What Was The Question?

Looking for debate info, I found this:

Asked what she would do if two American cities were simultaneously attacked, Clinton let 'er rip. "Having been a senator during 9/11, I understand the extraordinary horror of that kind of attack," she said. "I think a president must move as swiftly as is prudent to retaliate. That doesn't mean we go looking for other fights. Let's focus on those who have attacked us and do everything we can to destroy them."

It was at least the second time in the debate that Clinton referenced her experience as a Senator during and after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks -- an effort to show she has been in the trenches fighting terrorism and its aftermath for years.

Edwards, who was asked that same question, emphasized the importance of diplomacy -- changing the way that the world looks at America. "We have more tools available to us than bombs," Edwards said.

Richardson went a step further, advocating an immediate military retaliation.

Can someone give me a better account of what the question was? I mean, military retaliation against whom? I mean, there was no military retaliation after the terrorist attacks in Madrid and London for the very good reason that there was nowhere to retaliate. Having deposed the Taliban from ruling Afghanistan, we can't respond to a new al-Qaeda attack -- even a big one -- by deposing the Taliban again. So what are we talking about here? Presumably not just lashing out at random.

Comments

The question was basically thus: Lets say, heaven forbid, that we just learned that two American cities were catastrophically attacked during this debate, and we know that Al Qaeda was responsible. What would your response be?

Posted by Abe | April 26, 2007 10:26 PM

No one knows, because the question was terrible. All that it said was that the attack was definitely the work of Al-Qaeda.

Posted by Don Zeko | April 26, 2007 10:28 PM

Presumably not just lashing out at random

Post-punk, indeed.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | April 26, 2007 10:31 PM

Abe states the question well. I would just add that Brian Williams emphatically conditioned the question on the premise that "we know without a doubt that al Qaeda is responsible" (maybe not those words exactly, but close).

BTW, the "debate" was a joke. 8 candidates in an hour and a half format is simply unworkable. There were questions with numerous parts that were to be responded to in "one sentence;" lame gotcha questions; a piss poor moderator; and, if I heard correctly, the local S.C. questioner actually called Hillary Clinton "ma'am" at one point.

Posted by Brian | April 26, 2007 10:31 PM

Oh, and Mike Gravel is a super-entertaining lunatic.

Posted by Brian | April 26, 2007 10:34 PM

Londonk more so than Madrid - but both instances, really - were more homegrown terrorism than the 9/11. The London bombers were all British citizens.

The Spanish government - and other European governments - rounded up (or attempted to - some of them killed themselves on the verge of being arrested) those who were involved.

So it depends on the attack and the attackers. Right now, there is no "State sponsor" of Al Qaeda, as there was during 9/11 (the Taliban) and during the '98 embassy bombings/Cole (Sudan).

Maybe they were anticipating that there might be another Al Qaeda state sponsor in the future? Or maybe they didn't think it through since it was an off the cuff live t.v./debate response.

Posted by SoCalJustice | April 26, 2007 10:35 PM

Another terrorist attack would provide multiple opportunities for senseless retaliation. Nuking Missouri and Texas would be a good start.

Posted by steve duncan | April 26, 2007 10:37 PM

How's about this for an answer: "Well, it's rather a low bar to set, but I'd CATCH Osama bin Laden before I went off an invaded a country that didn't have ties to terror or weapons of mass destruction."

Posted by anonymous | April 26, 2007 10:38 PM

Matt, your ignoring the most important question, admitedly you had to watch the post debate coverage, but when and how did Kucinich get such a hot wife?

Posted by Eric | April 26, 2007 10:40 PM

Any answer that fails to begin with "I would NOT read a children's book for 7 minutes" gets no credit.

Posted by sherifffruitfly | April 26, 2007 10:45 PM

Eric,

Exactly! Apparently running for president (even as a fringe candidate) has its benefits. Which raises another question: Why is Kucinich running again? His wife better watch out -- I think he is trying to trade up.

P.S. Shortly after the debate the cameras caught what looked like Kucinich's wife removing his hand from her butt. Classic.

Posted by Brian | April 26, 2007 10:46 PM

Matt, your ignoring the most important question, admitedly you had to watch the post debate coverage, but when and how did Kucinich get such a hot wife?

I think he met her on the 2004 campaign trail.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | April 26, 2007 10:48 PM

when and how did Kucinich get such a hot wife?

Totally not a surprise.

Liberal chicks are hot--all that vegetarian eating is good for you. And years of having sex makes liberal women more relaxed, which has a beautifying effect.

And liberal men are much much MUCH better in bed.

Posted by anonymous | April 26, 2007 10:49 PM

Actually--if you'll cast yourself back in your mind to the aftermath of 9/11--it really probably would be necessary to do something in retaliation. Politically, it would be suicide not just for the President but for his/her party to not retaliate. But there's a substantive reason as well. Unfortunately, the age-old testosterone-driven pissing match is still a vital part of international relations. Our response would be gauged, by our friends and enemies alike, as either "strong" or "weak," and a certain amount of "strength" must be displayed.

That's one of the things Bush did correctly after 9/11, along with his commendable words asking Americans not to discriminate against American Muslims. He picked a form of retaliation that was relatively measured and directly related to undermining those who conducted the attack, and with a side bonus of getting rid of one of the world's most oppressive regimes.

I live in the Deep South, and a lot of people down here were calling for us to nuke Iraq and Iran after 9/11. Going after Afghanistan in a muscular fashion shut 'em up at least a little bit. It scares me to think of American post-9/11 politics if there had been no military response.

I don't want to go too far here. If what I've said seems to indicate that there always must be a military response to terrorist attack, that's not what I mean. But I do think that there are reasons that close to mandate at least some sort of military action in response to a massively successful terrorist attack. The President's task is to uphold our dick-size-comparison bona fides and slake the crowd with sufficient red meat without committing an Iraq-war-level blunder that just makes things worse instead of better.

Posted by Trickster | April 26, 2007 10:51 PM

The question was about Al Queda specifically, and the correct answer was that Al Queda doesn't have the capacity to arrange simultaneous attacks on two American cities, and one might as well ask what they'd do if the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

Posted by Sam L. | April 26, 2007 10:53 PM

but when and how did Kucinich get such a hot wife?

That's probably exactly what Bill Clinton was thinking after the debate.

Kidding.

Here's the official propaganda:

How We Found Eachother

Posted by SoCalJustice | April 26, 2007 10:54 PM

"when and how did Kucinich get such a hot wife?"
I asked a coworker from Ohio, who actually worked in a health food store that Kucinich frequented. He said that Kucinich was always dating hot younger women. I asked him how, and he suggested the fact that he was vegan, and was politically powerful. Neihter of which make any sense to me.

Posted by justaguy | April 26, 2007 11:00 PM

Kucinich obviously has powers of persuasion when it comes to women. But, on the political front, not so much.

Of course, if given an option between those two, I'd go the Kucinich route. He's clearly the real winner on that stage

Posted by Goosen | April 26, 2007 11:11 PM

The question about the simultaneous terrorist attack on two cities, as I recall, was not just "What would your response be?" It was something like "How would you change the US military posture?" I thought it was a weird formulation of the question, and seemed to throw all of the candidates off their game a bit.

What does "changing the US military posture" mean? Was the answer supposed to be something like, "I'd go from a posture of not killing certain heretofore unidentified bad guys, and shift rapidly to a posture of killing those bad guys?"

I wasn't sure exactly what Williams was after here, but it was clearly supposed to provide some sort of opening for each candidate to throw down some hard guy commander-in-chiefliness. It was perhaps also designed as a kind of "Kitty Dukakis question." Perhaps the point was to reveal a stark difference between the average reasonable Democrat and the typical hard right, jingo knuckle-dragger, since I guess the most popular right-wing talk radio responses would be something like:

"I'd declare martial law and call out the troops to prevent a third or fourth city from going down."

"I'd stand down the Nice Guy Brigades and deploy the Special Delta Kappa Whup-ass Devil Forces."

"I'd eradicate the Arab race."

"I'd nuke the fucking crap out of someone ... anyone."

"I'd ask my intelligence services to find out who did it, and then while they were working on that I'd turn Iran into a parking lot."

"I'd arrest all the liberals and put them in detention camps - and then I'd execute them."

"I would distribute assault weapons to the entire citizenry."

"I would bring back the rack, convert the Muslims to Christianity, and then send them all to Jesus."

Posted by Dan Kervick | April 26, 2007 11:16 PM

You could look up a transcript of the debate, you know.

Posted by Dimmy Karras | April 26, 2007 11:22 PM

So your sayin we should volunteer for the Kucinich campaign soon while there still is one to meet hot liberal women, then we can switch to whoever we actually support.

Posted by Eric | April 26, 2007 11:26 PM

Actually, it was even worse than you think, Matt. But you had to stick around to watch the post-debate panel hosted by Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann.

Howard Fineman, one of the panel members, concluded that Hillary had won the entire debate because she was the only one to talk about retaliation in a forceful manner. Obama, by contrast, was deemed by him the loser, because he only talked about first responders (we don't want another Katrina) and working with allies to determine the appropriate response. Andrea Mitchell nodded in agreement, and Joe Scarborough added a vocal second. It took almost a full minute before someone thought to ask "retaliate against who?", at which point Fineman tried to backtrack and say "oh no, I know that, I was only suggesting this is how Republicans and other voters would think." It was really pathetic.

Posted by Alex | April 26, 2007 11:28 PM

the correct answer was that Al Queda doesn't have the capacity to arrange simultaneous attacks on two American cities

If that's true, then GWB must have been doing something right since 2001, when al Qaeda did, in fact, commit simultaneous attacks on two US cities.

Posted by Al | April 26, 2007 11:29 PM

I say we go after Freedonia and Sylvania.

Posted by Rufus T. Firefly | April 27, 2007 12:19 AM

I dunno who "Brian" is, but in the debate that I watched, the dark horse candidates all made better, more concrete arguments than the front-runners. (Well, except for Dodd -- what he's trying to accomplish I can't fathom.) Kucinich made some terrific points. And Gravel is the first national-level politician I've heard who actually tackled the Great Unmentionable -- the increasing militarization of all aspects of our public life. He also mentioned non-proliferation efforts that the U.S. should undertake, which sounded a lot better than Obama's pleasing bromides.

About that last -- Gotta say, I've had a lot of hopes for Obama, but if he keeps leaning so hard on the platitudes, I can't see doing anything like volunteering for his primary campaign.

Posted by sglover | April 27, 2007 12:20 AM

Al, have you seen any tigers around lately?
...No?
Wanna know why?

Posted by Leinad | April 27, 2007 12:23 AM

I dunno who "sglover" is, nor do I care to. But, unhinged yelling about the other candidates scare the "bejesus" out of you is not a sign of a serious candidate. I believe most sensible people would consider such a candidate a "joke."

Don't know where the Kucinich stuff comes from. Never commented about him. That said, he has no chance. Everyone knows he is not a serious candidate. As an aside, anyone who did any serious research into his background would realise that he isn't exactly what he portrays himself to be.

Posted by Brian | April 27, 2007 12:27 AM

Correction, I did make a joke about Kucinich running to snag another hot wife. Obviously nothing someone with basic reading-comprehension would think was a serious comment about his performance at the debate.

Posted by Brian | April 27, 2007 12:29 AM

Excellent point, Al. Bush invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban. This, as I understand it, destabilized and decentralized AQs command structure, which of course makes it harder to catch or eliminate them completely, but also makes it much harder for them to arrange the kind of large scale coordinated attack that we saw on 9/11. As far as I can tell, that is where we are today.

Some people would say that was a good deal. Given the instability in Afghanistan, the failure to eliminate the Taliban, the growth of the drug trade, and the degree to which it is straining our relationship with Pakistan, I'm still sort of undecided. I'll go out on a limb and assume that you think it was.

Posted by Sam L. | April 27, 2007 12:31 AM

Don't know where the Kucinich stuff comes from. Never commented about him. That said, he has no chance. Everyone knows he is not a serious candidate.

Wow, really?

The point is that Kucinich and Gravel both performed the valuable function of prodding the frontrunners left.

Posted by sglover | April 27, 2007 12:42 AM

Wow, that Gravel is kind of hilarious. I hope he stays in the race for a long time.

Anyway, is there a reason the guy shouldn't have called Hilary "ma'am"? I mean, "Senator" is the proper title, but if he called Biden "Sir," would that be wrong?

Posted by too many steves | April 27, 2007 1:38 AM

she probably wouldn't run and hide like bush did.

Posted by merlallen | April 27, 2007 4:40 AM

Losers. The correct answer is obvious: I would pray. I would pray for guidance, for hope and for strength. And The Good Lord would let me know whom to nuke.

Posted by abb1 | April 27, 2007 9:55 AM

The correct answer is "Bomb Iran". Oh, and Syria. Maybe Lebanon, too. And then blame countries who had nothing to do with anything for supporting the terrorists and bomb them, too. If the bombing of Iran, Syria and Lebanon already addressed this matter, I would next go on vacation and pretend to be the defender of the free world.

Posted by PGS | April 27, 2007 10:34 AM

Right now, there is no "State sponsor" of Al Qaeda, as there was during 9/11 (the Taliban) and during the '98 embassy bombings/Cole (Sudan).

Pakistan sponsors Al Qaeda, more so than Sudan ever did to the best of my knowledge.

Occupying Pakistan is out of the question. The population is over 150 million, and only the looniest neo-cons could expect them to welcome 'liberation'.

The U.S. could invade the tribal areas, extending the Afghan quagmire into Pakistan. A probable consequence would be the fall of the present government and its replacement by one more hostile to the U.S.

Posted by David Tomlin | April 27, 2007 12:30 PM

Jeez, was Brian Williams channelling Bernie Shaw with this Kitty Dukakis type question...?

Posted by Steve in Sacto | April 27, 2007 1:24 PM

"So what are we talking about here? Presumably not just lashing out at random."

Bomb Canada.

Posted by Petey | April 27, 2007 2:25 PM

Here is what Hillary said;

"If we are attacked and we can determine who was behind that attack, and if there were nations that supported or gave material aid to those who attacked us, I believe we should quickly respond."

Posted by DonB | April 27, 2007 2:42 PM

When I heard about that question, my immediate response was "Well, the first thing I'd do would be to put down the copy of The Pet Goat."

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