Among Veterans, Dole Holds His Fire

By Candy Crowley/CNN

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (CNN, June 29) -- "I feel at home here."

In the contest of campaign Kodak moments, only Bob Dole can lay claim to that one while campaigning, as he did Saturday, among war veterans.

He opened his address to the Texas Veterans of Foreign Wars in Dallas with a salute to those who lost their lives in Saudi Arabia last week. "We love our country. We love our countrymen. And together, we resolve that the murderers who perpetrated this tragedy will be apprehended and punished," he said.

The forum was fertile and friendly political territory for Dole, but mostly he didn't press his advantage. "When we go off to war somewhere, people don't say, 'There goes a Republican,' 'There goes a Democrat.' They say, 'There goes an American soldier,'" he said.

Still, as long as he was off the advance text of his speech, Dole couldn't help himself from making a jab at the latest controversy at the White House: "I'm so dull, I hear somebody at the White House fell asleep reading my FBI file."

Mostly, however, his speech was a philosophical one. The thinking-man's speech is hardly a strong suit for this candidate, but now and then, Bob Dole can do the vision thing. He described an imaginary scene of a VFW meeting in the year 2020, where the veterans were saying, "This is our last meeting. The world's at peace. No more war."

"Now, maybe that's too idealistic," Dole said, "but it's a dream a lot of mothers have, a lot of fathers have, a lot of veterans have."

He also defended the large amount of money the United States spends on defense, at the same time implying that President Clinton lacks the international policy experience to judge how much money the military needs.

"While the Cold War is over, the painful reminder of this week is that the world remains a very dangerous place. We can't just turn off the porch light, lock our doors, cross our fingers and hope everyone behaves," he said.

Aides say Dole deliberately muffled his criticism of Clinton in the last couple of days because the president has complained that it's difficult to do business overseas while getting pummeled back home. Clinton was in Lyon, France, this week to attend the Group of Seven meeting of industrialized nations.

But Dole's decision to back off Clinton came before Vice President Al Gore leveled a blast at Dole's tobacco ties in Tennessee, Gore's home state. Dole ended his day in Tennessee, and as Clinton began his trip home, Dole's unilateral truce officially came to an end.

Dole warned a GOP Unity Rally at Knoxville's old World's Fair park to beware of double-talk from Clinton. "He will look you straight in the eye, and tell you he is for all these things he vetoed for the past three years," he said. "Let's give him six more months, and send him back to Arkansas."

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