This is how the Clinton era began with American servicemen dying in some remote, godforsaken place overseas. Critics of the Clinton peace summit warned at the time that it was too risky that any attempt to force a deal on either side might worsen the volatile situation in the Holy Land and that trying to make the Middle East s timetable coincide with the U.S. political calendar was doomed. It is unlikely that even one out of every 10 Americans paid any attention to the warnings. But they are listening now and that spells trouble for Gore. Traditionally when the United States is threatened the country and Congress rally to the president s side.
Partisan dispute is meant famously to stop at the water s edge.
But the domestic codes that accompanied the Cold War have gone the way of that conflict into the dustbin. Foreign missteps are fair game and Democratic and Republican proxies have enjoined battle on the nonstop news channels in the wake of the attack on the Cole. Bush has not needed to enter the fray in earnest. The proxy battles on TV and the body bags have deprived Clinton and Gore of the October Surprise they planned, and Middle East troubles have blocked the vice president from securing the kind of high-profile coverage he needs to reverse the Bush momentum. The bigger worry for Gore isn t that he has just been left without the coup de grace but that the backfire from the Middle East has damaged his campaign.