Gephardt's moxie
The newspaper where I formally worked, The New York Sun, continues to write newsy stories (unlike CNN), living up to its reputation as the newspaper world's "little engine that could." The lovely Luiza Savage, who is travelling with Democratic presidential candidate Richard Gephardt, reports out an interview in which Gephardt asserts that he would toughen up America's stand against its putative Middle Eastern "ally," Saudi Arabia. A snippet:
In an interview with The New York Sun, Mr. Gephardt said he would not rule out economic sanctions or the threat of military force against the kingdom, which he accuses of financing terrorists.
“What I would do as president is lead a world alliance to try to change their behavior. I don’t pretend that would be easy. I don’t advocate that we could easily get that resolved. But I think we’ve got to try,” he said.
“I believe that the Saudis — in part because they have the greatest amount of oil in the world and we are dependent on oil — they have misused and supported terrorism with a lot of that money. They also support schools that train people to be terrorists,” he said.
Asked whether he would use economic sanctions or the threat of military force to pressure the kingdom, Mr. Gephardt would not rule out any options.
Good for Dick Gephardt. I have long thought the Bush administration to be vulnerable on its mollycoddling of the House of Saud. But most Democrats are too pussilanimous to speak up on it, fearful of coming down "to the right" of Bush on the issue. Looks like there's at least one Dem with the intestinal fortitude to do so.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 1:30 AM
