"These People Frighten Me": The Candor of Mike Gravel

MARGARET KIMBERLY
Counterpunch
Thursday May 03, 2007

During the first Democratic presidential debate a little known candidate, former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, ended up with one of the most memorable lines of the evening:

"And I got to tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me--they frighten me. When you have mainline candidates that turn around and say that there's nothing off the table with respect to Iran, that's code for using nukes, nuclear devices.

"I got to tell you, I'm president of the United States, there will be no preemptive wars with nuclear devices. To my mind, it's immoral, and it's been immoral for the last 50 years as part of American foreign policy."

Of the eight candidates on that stage in South Carolina, only Gravel and Congressman Dennis Kucinich will say that there is no reason for the American people to incinerate the Iranian people with nuclear weapons.

When Senator Barack Obama repeated the lie that Iran is on the verge of attaining nuclear capability only Kucinich would call him out. He politely said that Obama's assertions were in dispute.

Obama: I think it would be a profound mistake for us to initiate a war with Iran.
But, have no doubt, Iran possessing nuclear weapons will be a major threat to us and to the region.

Kucinich: (OFF-MIKE)

Obama: I understand that, but they're in the process of developing it. And I don't think that's disputed by any expert. They are the largest state sponsor of terrorism...

Kucinich: It is disputed by...

Obama: ... Hezbollah and Hamas.

Kucinich: It is disputed.

Obama: And there is no contradiction, Dennis, between...

Kucinich: It is disputed.

Obama: Let me finish.

Kucinich would have been correct if he had called Obama a liar. Gravel is right, most of the Democrats are very frightening indeed.