"THEY CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS"

Bill Bennett has a word to say on Iraq, Vietnam, Rwanda and the Democrats.

The Democrats need to get their story and their policy together. This week, Bill Clinton wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post lamenting that he did not act sooner in Rwanda, trying to stop the genocide there that claimed 800,000 lives. Kennedy, knowing of Saddam Hussein's slaughter, torture, and aggression that led to the gruesome and vile deaths of hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Muslims, berates our efforts to oust Hussein.

My question for the Democratic Party: Was Iraq a Rwanda that we intervened in to prevent from becoming a living hell? Or, is it Vietnam, where we regret the deaths of so many because we tried to intervene and save the South Vietnamese? They can't have it both ways - Iraq is either a mission we salute based on past inaction we regret, or it's a mission we denigrate based on past action we lament.

President Bush speaks with one voice on this. Clinton and Kennedy do not. That is for them to solve. In the meantime, we carry on with the honor and dignity our mission deserves.