Yesterday, in a momentary fit of insanity, I defended Bill Clinton in an email to the Mickster.

Here's what I wrote him:

Mickey--

You quoted Bill Clinton as saying "We need to be creating a world that we would like to live in when we're not the biggest power on the block," and implied that it was semantically equivalent to Howard Dean's statement. Now, I'm normally the last person to defend Bill Clinton (or Chris "the weasel" Lehane), but I don't see the two statements as equivalent. Like most of Mr. Clinton's pronouncements, it is somewhat ambiguous and lawyerly.

He's saying that we ought to build a world as though we weren't the most powerful nation in it, even though we are. I don't infer that he's saying that we necessarily may not be in the future (or, of course, that he's not saying that either--as I said, ambiguous). That is, he's making a moral imprecation, not a practical recommendation. Sort of like the Golden Rule.

Dean's statement was much more explicit, and therefore more attackable.

Mark this day--I'll probably never defend Mr. Clinton again (and in fact, I don't agree with his comment, or at least what he actually means by it, which is just more of the transnational gooiness that he and Ms. Albright gave us, and got us into this mess).

Happily, he set me straight. (Sorry, no permalink. It's near the top now, but for archival purposes it's the April 30 posting.)

When provided the full context, I agree that it's clear that Mr. Clinton did mean exactly what Governor Dean said--that we will decline, and we should prepare for it. I'm relieved to know that on the rare occasion that I defend the ex-sinkmeister, that I'm wrong.

This country will someday "decline", just as someday we are all going to die. The problem with statements like Dean's and Clinton's is not a recognition of that fact of life, but they think we should voluntarily hasten that decline along. Dean in particular seems to think that such decline is a good national policy we should embrace. He's running to be for this country was Kevorkian was for medicine.