BoatBanter.com - View Single Post

On 19 Dec 2003 09:31:05 -0800, (basskisser) wrote:

Please, righties, read with an open mind:

Please read the article attached with an open mind.

From Jon Carrol:

An acquaintance of mine, Ted Webster, has thought of a fine bumper
sticker. Goes like this: "If Dean Is Too Liberal Why Don't We All Just
Shoot Ourselves?"

Yes, the dangerous radical who threatens our very way of life is the
last in a long line of zany socialistic Vermont governors. They're
almost Canadian. Leftie Dean cut state income twice and cut the state
sales tax entirely, and increased prison terms for felons.

He is also, of course, opposed to an unprovoked invasion of a foreign
country. He is opposed to lying about the reasons for the attack. This
used to be an honorable opinion. In the past, opposition to war often
came from people who'd served in the previous one. That opinion was
treated seriously, even when it was wrong. Franklin Roosevelt thought
it was necessary to convince the American public that war against the
Germans and Japanese was a good idea. His main opposition came from
conservative Republican senators. Everyone understood why they did not
want to get involved in a European struggle -- the horror that was
World War I was less than 20 years in the past. Vietnam is almost 30
years away; you'd think we might at least entertain the notion that
fighting a war half a world away is a bad idea.

So it used to be OK to hold an opinion different from that held by the
president of the United States. Now doing so leaves you open for
accusations of treason, which is how Howard Dean got to be the
fighting liberal. Swell.

Howard Dean said the United States was rendered "no safer" by the
capture of Saddam Hussein. This is of course true; no one seriously
disputes it. It may be that the capture of Saddam Hussein makes
American soldiers in Iraq safer, although it's too soon to know that.
Let us hope it does; if Iraq turns into a grinding war of attrition,
we'll be chin deep in the Big Muddy with rain predicted.

I'm not sure whether you were watching television when Dean made his
statement. It was like a bomb going off. Commentators could not
believe their ears. The look on their faces was precious. It was all,
"Am I going to lose my job for allowing that on the air?" Those guys
and gals seem to be a little nervous.

So here we all were, rejoicing over the bad dental work and scruffy
appearance of the onetime dictator, and here Dean was raining on our
parade. Typical Vermont behavior -- Calvin Coolidge was no fun at
parties either.

So let's review briefly why the capture of Saddam Hussein does not
make America any safer. On Sept. 11, 2001, there was an unprovoked
attack on American cities. It shortly emerged that this attack was the
work of radical Muslims, what we now call "Jihadists" to differentiate
them from the vast majority of non-radical non-murderous Muslims.

Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a secular nation. Its women were
unveiled; the sexes mingled freely in public places; Shariah was not
the law of the land. Thus and therefore, it is unlikely that Iraq had
anything to do with the Sept. 11 attacks, despite the administration's
attempt to dig up at least one meeting between someone and someone
else somewhere.

It is generally agreed that Osama bin Laden was responsible for those
attacks. Bin Laden is now almost certainly holed up in Pakistan, our
wonderful ally and great good friend. In other words: The guy who
actually attacked us is getting a free ride (and also helping in the
effort to destabilize Afghanistan, our other client state in the
region), while a guy who had nothing to do with attacking us is in
custody.

So what Howard Dean said is not radical or remarkable or innovative. I
mean, he's an interesting guy, and I might even find myself voting for
him, but he's not Roosevelt or anything. He just hasn't signed on to
the Official Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz worldview, which makes him a
suspicious character indeed.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One really interesting thing about Bush is his iron discipline at news
conferences. No matter what the question, he says what he came into
the room to say. It doesn't even need to make sense.

And then there is this from the Washington Post, not a reputed conservative
newspaper:

Dean's Remarks Give Rivals Talking Points
His Readiness to Lead Is Questioned
By Jim VandeHei and Jonathan Finer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 18, 2003; Page A01

BURLINGTON, Vt. -- Howard Dean's penchant for flippant and sometimes false
statements is generating increased criticism from his Democratic presidential
rivals and raising new questions about his ability to emerge as a nominee who
can withstand intense, sustained scrutiny and defeat President Bush.

Dean, for instance, recently spoke of a "most interesting theory" that Saudi
Arabia had "warned" Bush about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Although
Dean said he does not believe Bush was tipped off about the assaults that killed
nearly 3,000, he has made no apologies for raising the rumor.

"How is what I did different from what Dick Cheney or George Bush . . . did
during the time of the buildup of the invasion of Iraq?" the former Vermont
governor said Tuesday night aboard his campaign plane. "There were all these
theories that they mentioned. Many of them turned out not to be true. The
difference is that I acknowledged that I did not believe the theory I was
putting out."

Bush this week called the theory an "absurd insinuation."

Dean's remarks, his critics say, are in keeping with his history of making
statements that are mean-spirited or misleading. He has distorted his past
support for raising the retirement age for Social Security and slowing
Medicare's growth. He has falsely said he was the only Democratic presidential
candidate talking about race before white audiences. And he made allegations --
some during his years as governor -- that turned out to be untrue.

After saying at his last gubernatorial news conference that he was sealing his
official records to avoid political embarrassment, Dean now says he was joking
and is not sure what is in the files.

When Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) unveiled his health care plan in April,
Dean, through his campaign, belittled the lawmaker's record on the subject. Dean
later walked away from the statement, saying it did not reflect his views. But
this fall, in debates and TV ads, Dean has resurrected the criticism, accusing
his congressional rivals, including Gephardt, of producing only rhetoric on
health care in comparison to his record in Vermont.

In recent days, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) said Dean lacks the "credibility"
to be president and accused him of misleading voters about past remarks on Iraq.
One example cited by Kerry's campaign: Dean recently said, "I never said Saddam
was a danger to the United States. Ever." But in September 2002, Dean told CBS's
"Face the Nation": "There is no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the
United States. The question is: Is he an immediate threat?"

With polls suggesting Dean is pulling away from his rivals, they are stepping up
their criticisms on several fronts, including foreign policy, government
experience and credibility. Dean spokesman Jay Carson, asked about the
challenges to his boss's veracity, said Wednesday: "That's all they do now:
attack Howard Dean."

Last week, after Dean denied providing a tax break as governor that benefited
Enron Corp. -- which a published report showed he did -- Gephardt said: "Once
again, Howard Dean refuses to admit the truth. You can't beat George W. Bush if
you can't tell the truth about your own record."

Tricia Enright, a Dean spokeswoman, called the quarrel a difference of
"interpretation." Dean, she said, restructured the Vermont tax code for scores
of companies and did not provide a specific break to Enron.

To be sure, plenty of presidential candidates have bent facts and stretched
figures to sharpen a point or blunt criticism. And interviews this year suggest
that many voters give Dean high marks for speaking his mind.

"To a great extent, the public does not give a damn" about the claims against
Dean, said former representative Tony Coelho (D-Calif.), chairman of Al Gore's
2000 campaign. Voters want straight-talking leaders, he said, and former
governors such as Dean have "a tendency to say what they think without having
everything checked out before they do things."

On Tuesday, when several rivals criticized him for saying America is not safer
after Hussein's capture, Dean did not back away. "You know me; if I think
something's true, I say it," he told reporters. But critics note he sometimes
says things that are not true.

In January, Dean told an abortion rights audience about a young patient he
believed had been impregnated by her father. He was explaining why he opposes
parental notification requirements for girls and young women seeking an
abortion. But Dean later told Jake Tapper of Salon.com that he learned several
years ago that "her father was not the father of her child; it was more
complicated than that."

Carson said Wednesday that Dean's January anecdote "wasn't misleading at all.
The story illustrates the downside of [mandatory] parental notification, and is
an example from the life experience of the governor."

Some of Dean's opponents in his gubernatorial campaigns say he was prone to
misleading statements then.

In a 1998 debate, Dean and GOP candidate Ruth Dwyer argued over new regulations
for large farms in Vermont. Dwyer told of Bristol farmer Bob Hill, who struggled
to build a barn for his 600 cows while complying with the state's strict permit
requirements.

The next day, Dean told the Associated Press he had "done a little research on
that farmer. He's in violation of the natural resource conservation service
laws." Dean later acknowledged he was wrong and apologized to Hill.

Several Vermont legislators from both parties who served while Dean was governor
said they rarely found cause to question his honesty and chalked up his
controversial comments to misspeaking. "He could be trusted and knew better than
to lie to us," said Cheryl Rivers, a former Democratic state senator who
sometimes clashed with Dean. "Yes, he would shoot from the hip, but it was not
deliberate or malicious."

But lately, as he courts liberal Democrats nationwide, Dean has distorted
portions of his record as governor, when he was generally considered a centrist.
He has repeatedly denied siding with Republicans such as then-Speaker Newt
Gingrich (R-Ga.) in 1995 in calling for slowing Medicare's annual growth from 10
percent to 7 percent, even though he told a Vermont newspaper he "fully
subscribed" to the idea.

Vermont Abenaki Indian leaders said they were outraged last month to see Dean
onstage at a Native American conference in Albuquerque. For more than a decade,
they said, his administration vigorously opposed their quest for state and
federal recognition, contending the Indians might make land claims and bring
casinos to Vermont.

Dean drew raucous applause from his New Mexico audience when he endorsed the
benefits of tribal gambling establishments. "Needless to say, to hear him say
onstage in Albuquerque that he was in favor of gaming for federally recognized
tribes came as a big shock to a lot of people in Vermont," said Jeff Benay, a
Dean appointee who heads the Vermont Governor's Advisory Council on Indian
Affairs and who has advised Dean's campaign.

Carson, responding Wednesday to the Abenaki issue, said: "It would be
inappropriate for the state to recognize them before the federal government
does."

The dust-up over the Saudi question began Dec. 1, on WAMU-FM's nationally
syndicated "Diane Rehm Show," when Dean was asked why Bush was suppressing
information from a commission looking into the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The most interesting theory that I've heard so far -- which is nothing more
than a theory, it can't be proved -- is that he was warned ahead of time by the
Saudis," Dean replied. "Now who knows what the real situation is? But the
trouble is by suppressing that kind of information, you lead to those kinds of
theories, whether they have any truth to them or not, and they get repeated as
fact."

When asked a few days later on Fox News why he said it, Dean said, "because
there are people who believe it. . . . I don't believe it . . . but it would be
nice to know." A campaign aide said Dean heard the rumor from various people on
the campaign trail.

John
On the 'Poco Loco' out of Deale, MD