Carnivorous prophets.(On the Right)(presidential candidates)

New York, December 30.

There is a great flurry on the question, Should competing presidential candidates speak about the weaknesses of other contenders? Howard Dean is at the center of the controversy because he chewed out Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic chairman. He told McAuliffe he should have used his good offices to get the other candidates to shut up about him. Everybody is now mad at everybody else but mostly at Dean. One mostly gets mad at front-runners.

I contribute an experience: In July 1987, I brought together in Houston all the Democratic candidates for president, for their first joint appearance. I enlisted as co-host Robert Strauss, who was the most revered, fair-minded (and humorous) Democrat on the national scene. We sat down surrounded by attentive and nervous courtiers and inquisitive members of the press. One of the following men would be nominated in 1988 to challenge the Republican successor to Ronald Reagan.

I had questions written for our Firing Line guests. They were Bruce Babbitt of Arizona, Joe Biden of Delaware, Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, Dick Gephardt of Missouri, Al Gore of Tennessee, and Jesse Jackson and Paul Simon of Illinois.

One of my bright ideas was to begin Hour #2 by asking each candidate to enumerate a weakness of the other candidates. As in, "Sen. Biden, Gov. Dukakis is contending for the same position you are and there are months ahead in primaries for all of you. What is a singular weakness of Gov. Dukakis in winning those?"

My co-chair Bob Strauss leaned over and whispered into my ear, "Brother Bill, you're not going to get anywhere doing this, you watch." Well of course, seasoned politico Brother Bob was correct. Sen. Biden was not about to say anything that drew attention to the weaknesses of Gov. Dukakis. Even if he had suspected, back then, that Dukakis would look silly wearing a helmet while riding in a tank, he didn't say so. Nobody during the entire hour would say anything derogatory about anybody else, stressing only his own superior qualifications and ...