<p>"The telling phrase is “in the end”, which means after all avenues other than war have been exhausted. "</p>
<p>Ah yes, “nuance”, we have come to know that term very well in the last few years, haven’t we. I think the modern political definition of nuance is: appropriate words placed into a statement that allows the speaker to later claim that he meant the exact opposite of how he knew the original words would be taken - just in case. </p>
<p>Between the definition of “is” and “no controlling legal authority” and “in the end” we have had quite parade of qualifying words and phrases lately.</p>
<p>Dean and Clinton - strange bedfellows, indeed! And you must be the first person, fundingfather, to accuse Dean of “nuance” or ambivalence; the more usual criticism is excessive bluntness. The parsing of the non-quote you offered was mine. In any case, from my reading of the Salon article, the writer paraphrased Dean’s comments to reporters who were calling him with questions about, presumably, the foreign policy speech he’d given two days before (and from which I quoted at length). Dean has changed his opinions on various issues more than once, in response to new information - in my view, a sign of intelligence, as opposed to the “stay the course” mentality mentioned by TheDad. But I don’t see any evidence here that he changed his mind in the two days between the speech and the interview.</p>
<p>Do you really see any similarity between what Dean proposed, going to war unilaterally only as an absolute last resort, and what Bush did? The evidence is that Bush was determined to invade Iraq from at least 2001, and if you read the PNAC documents it’s clear that everyone around him wanted to invade Iraq (and several other countries) at least since the late 90’s. </p>
<p>But my original point is that Dean spoke out strongly against immediate invasion of Iraq at a time when it was considered political suicide to do so, and he accurately predicted the disastrous course of events (as, probably, did Colin Powell privately).</p>