Here’s a match-up where I don’t know who to root for: Lieberman vs. Dean.
Last night’s most dramatic confrontation, if you could call it that, came about half-way through the debate when the topic shifted to international trade. Considering that the event was being held in New Mexico, the audience and the moderators deemed this a pretty important issue.
Dean was explaining his position on trade, saying that he believes the U.S. should not have “free and open borders with countries that don’t have the same environmental, labor and human rights standards.”
Lieberman pounced. He said that Dean told the Washington Post just two weeks ago that Dean would demand that China and other countries would enter into trade agreements with the United States only if they adopted “the same labor laws and labor standards and environmental standards” that we have.
Lieberman told the audience that this would be a disaster that could lead America from the “Bush recession” to the “Dean depression.”
Dean, who looked pleased to be the subject of criticism, fired back that he believed international standards, and not necessarily U.S. standards, would work.
“Well, then, that’s a reassuring change of position,” Lieberman said.
So, was this a fair attack on Dean? Did Dean flip-flop on the issue on national television? The answer to both is a definite yes.
The Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt spoke with Dean about the trade issue and outlined the governor’s positions in an Aug. 25 Post column.
Hiatt described his conversation with Dean on trade and standards thusly:
In what would be a radical departure, China and other countries could get trade deals with the United States only if they adopted “the same labor laws and labor standards and environmental standards” as the United States. Whether or not that demand was consistent with WTO rules? “That’s right.” With no concession to their relative level of development? “Why should there be? They have the right to have a middle class same as everyone else.”
To be sure, this is a fairly radical position. Even Dick Gephardt, Labor’s favorite candidate, wouldn’t actually require all of our international trading partners to adopt the exact same labor and environmental standards we have. No one in mainstream American politics recommends such an approach. Ultimately, these countries simply wouldn’t — indeed, couldn’t — adopt our standards and the U.S. would inevitably loose trade agreements with some of our best customers for U.S. products. You don’t have to be a NAFTA-loving free-trader to see the folly of Dean’s recommendation.
Even some of Dean’s fans hoped that the good doctor had just misspoken. He has a tendency of saying something a little crazy one day, and then changing his mind a few days later. Maybe this would be one of those wacky mistakes?
Maybe not. Slate’s Chris Suellentrop spent some time on the campaign trail with Dean over the summer and asked about this point. As Suellentrop explained this morning, “When I asked Dean if he meant just general ‘standards’ or ‘American standards,’ he insisted that he would demand that other countries adopt the exact same labor, environmental, health, and safety standards as the United States.”
Lieberman may be my least favorite Dem candidate, but he was right to go after Dean on this. It’s a laughably absurd proposal. The fact that Dean has endorsed this approach in conversations with several reporters makes it clear that he doesn’t know anything about trade.
Last night, it apparently dawned on Dean during the debate that maybe he was completely wrong. So what did he do? He flip-flopped — on yet another issue — and endorsed international standards instead of explicit U.S. standards.
Politically, this may not matter. Dean’s response seemed to please the audience and Lieberman didn’t appear to score any serious points from the exchange. Most of the public, meanwhile, not only didn’t see the debate, but won’t know that a) Dean has articulated a foolish trade policy that makes no sense, and b) flip-flopped on the issue when he got in a jam.