Lies, foibles and misrepresentations of Howard Dean.

Well..he is a physician...

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if you think you're god, and that god speaks to you, does that make you a scizophrenic?

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It's interesting to watch the wingnuts try to find some label to hang on their opposition. For awhile they tried angry man, ooo Dean was angry, oo red-face angry (dangerous) man, yeah well,

When that faded for lack of evidence (kind of like wmd's) they tried bumbler "OO oO he didn't say the exact same words twice! " " arrgh he actually tried to explain himself instead of just saying 'hang'em up or let'er rip or bring it ON!''
(That's the way they like their philosophy, small pieces easy to chew, easy to swallow.)

So now much later in this thread, and I'm sure we'll see and hear it elsewhere, we read the latest incarnation - Deano has a God complex - smear0......

ah well, yes, we are a nation of sound biters, (at least 49% of us are) but couldn't for once, maybe just for a month or so, couldn't the folks at Fox, the hacks at the RNC and conservative sided members of this profound website try to discuss actual issues and not, as they were doing in John Kerry's early campaign days, carping about the price of the candidate's haircuts.

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Joe Nation wrote:

It's interesting to watch the wingnuts try to find some label to hang on their opposition. For awhile they tried angry man, ooo Dean was angry, oo red-face angry (dangerous) man, yeah well,

When that faded for lack of evidence (kind of like wmd's) they tried bumbler "OO oO he didn't say the exact same words twice! " " arrgh he actually tried to explain himself instead of just saying 'hang'em up or let'er rip or bring it ON!''
(That's the way they like their philosophy, small pieces easy to chew, easy to swallow.)

So now much later in this thread, and I'm sure we'll see and hear it elsewhere, we read the latest incarnation - Deano has a God complex - smear0....

Bien dicho Joe!

UPDATE:

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift reports on Howard Dean's appearance at the
Renaissance Weekend in Charleston, S.C., including the surprise appearance of Senator Fritz Hollings:

"Howard Dean is right," declared the silver-haired Hollings, launching into a spirited defense of Dean's assertion that Americans are no safer now that Saddam Hussein has been captured. "Saddam wasn't causing anybody any problem. You have some little smart-aleck announcer on television asking, 'Do you think we're better off with Saddam gone?' What else is gone? We have 456 dead; 11,000 maimed for life, and I don't think it was worth it. I had intended to vote against that resolution [giving Bush the authority to wage war against Iraq], but Rummy and Condi Rice and Cheney said you can't wait until the smoking gun is a mushroom cloud. I thought they had some intelligence, that they knew something."
http://msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3860722&p1=0

-----------------------------------------

Ellen Goodman has a few thoughts along the same lines in today's Washington Post:

Could we rewind the videotape to Dec. 15, when Howard Dean qualified his pleasure at the capture of Saddam Hussein by saying that it "has not made America safer"? Dean was instantly lambasted by his opponents, especially Joe Lieberman, who said the doctor was climbing "into his own spider hole of denial." Well, six days later, after the sort of terrorist "chatter" designed to make your teeth chatter, the country was put on orange alert for a "spectacular" attack rivaling those of Sept. 11. Then six Air France flights destined to fly into the homeland were grounded. And finally, under "emergency rules," our government has required armed guards on foreign flights.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50823-2004Jan2.html

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Joe Nation wrote:

It's interesting to watch the wingnuts try to find some label to hang on their opposition. For awhile they tried angry man, ooo Dean was angry, oo red-face angry (dangerous) man, yeah well,

Well, they're still trying that, Joe:

Quote:

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said Democrats are "reaping what they've sown."

"Their leaders have lined up behind Howard Dean's brand of angry, intolerant politics. They've made their message clear: 'moderates need not apply' and that's a sad trend for a once-great party," DeLay said.

Tom DeLay calling someone -- anyone -- 'angry' and 'intolerant'. Imagine that. Rolling Eyes

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PDid--
You and I know how we're going to vote (I'm assuming), and neither of us are trying to convert one another--

The Dean-hot-head thing is not a smear; it's an observation. Seriously--I'll take off my GOP partywear, if you will get off your (D) High Horse for a minute--

Did you read Dean's attack on Clinton and the middle roaders of your party? Don't you think Dean is burning too many bridges so soon?

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Sofia,

As usual, you and the rest of Dean's adversaries are making too much of his remarks and mischaracterize them as an 'Attack on Clinton'.

I fear it is more than simple wishful thinking.

It's part of a pattern of seizing on anything, any comment etc. that can be used to increase tensions, and foster division between democrats.

Gosh, now why would you want to do that?

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Sofe, if you're referring to this criticism of Terry McAuliffe:

Quote:

"If we had strong leadership in the Democratic Party, they would be calling those other candidates and saying, 'Hey look, somebody's going to have to win here. If Ron Brown were the chairman, this wouldn't be happening.' "

...then I would say that I don't think bridges are being burned.

It does raise a few questions in my mind (and this goes more toward answering you), namely:

--Since McAuliffe is Clinton's hand-picked chairman, isn't this a slap at Clinton?

--Is Dean slapping at Clinton because he figured Wesley Clark has Bill's support?

--If Dean wants to put some distance (that's a guess) between him and Clinton, who or what is he movings towards? Someone or something to the left of where he currently is?

--And if any of that's accurate, is it a good idea to move away from the only Democratic two-term President since FDR?

Just sayin'...

(edited for clarity of expression)

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PDid--
I linked it on pg 4 (Dean Insults Clinton), but here is the text...
------------------------

Dean's populist jihad might do him inClinton alumni, naturally offended, fired back. Bruce Reed, Clinton's former chief domestic policy adviser, called Dean's remark "a cheap shot at Clintonism." (Evidence of hot head getting ass in hot water.~S)

Friday, the Dean campaign denied that Dean had meant to slam Clinton. "If he is the nominee, Governor Dean would ask for President Clinton and former members of his Administration to be a very active part of his campaign," said the campaign. The Dean aide who had written the offending line in Dean's speech, Jeremy Ben-Ami, insisted that the line was "not intended in any way to pick a fight with the Clinton legacy." Rather, it was "intended to pick a fight with the Washington Democrats in power."

Washington Democrats in power? You mean, as opposed to Clinton, the last Democrat who held power in Washington? The guy in whose White House, located in Washington, Ben-Ami worked as a domestic policy adviser? The guy Howard Dean defended against "liberals" when, in 1996, he joined Republicans in supporting welfare reform legislation, aiming simply to limit the damage it might inflict?

Sunday morning, the Deaniacs were at it again. On ABC's This Week, Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi said Dean was running against the Democratic "establishment." Pressed to define the members of this "establishment," Trippi bobbed and weaved. Eventually, he said, "I'm talking about Dick Gephardt, John Kerry, and Joe Lieberman."

You mean, Dick Gephardt, the guy for whose presidential campaign Trippi worked in 1988? The guy who shepherded Clinton's economic plan through the House in 1993 and hasn't held power in Washington since he stepped down as minority leader last year? You mean Joe Lieberman, the presidential candidate who has most fiercely defended and most faithfully extended Clinton's centrist Democratic agenda?
You see what I mean?~S
You get the point. Either all this stuff from the Dean campaign about the establishment is an attack on the Clintonian center, or it's the usual meaningless blather that politicians toss to crowds to make themselves look nonpolitical. Either way, it's fake. I think it's blather, but the more Dean talks about it and applies it to various issues, the more it looks like an attack on the center. And if that's the mission Dean has in mind, Democrats would be well-advised to jump off his truck before he blows it up.Picture that debate next year: On one side, Bush, the Washington Democrats, support for some tax cuts, relief at Saddam's capture, and the belief that by toppling the Taliban, if not Saddam, we're safer today than we were on 9/11. On the other side, Howard Dean

There are three problems with this "clear alternative" approach. One is that it misconceives and underestimates the alternative. As I argued a year ago, being a Clinton Democrat rather than a McGovern Democrat isn't about eliminating the differences between you and the Republicans. It's about choosing those differences. You eliminate differences that create bad policy or bad politics in order to focus the election on differences that create good policy or good politics. War? Yes, if necessary, but with allies so we don't get stuck holding the bag. Tax cuts? Yes, but for the middle class, not the rich.

The second problem is that far from freeing you, the "clear alternative" approach makes you a slave. If you insist on being different about everything, you let your opponent define you by defining himself. He's for war, so you're against it. He's for tax cuts, so you're against them. Pretty soon, you're against Mom and apple pie.
(Sofe here...Its OK to be against Mom and Apple Pie if there's a good reason--but not just because the other guy is for it...which is what we seem to have now.)

The third problem is that it's a demonstrable failure. Three years ago, Al Gore's pollster conducted a survey to show that Gore's "people vs. the powerful" populism hadn't hurt him. The survey showed the opposite. Given a list of 15 reasons to vote for Gore, of which each respondent could choose three, 12 percent of respondents chose "his willingness to stand up to the HMOs, drug and oil companies." Given a list of 16 reasons to vote against Gore, 17 percent chose "his attacks on HMOs, drug and oil companies." For those of you keeping score at home, that's a net loss.

."Dean's jihad is even crazier than Gore's. It's almost completely undisciplined. Three weeks ago on a national radio show, Dean brought up the "interesting theory" that Bush had been warned beforehand about 9/11. Last week, Dean defended that remark by telling reporters, "I acknowledged that I did not believe the theory I was putting out." When the Washington Post exposed several Dean comments that didn't fit the facts, Dean scoffed that voters could believe him "or they can believe the Washington Post." No word yet on whether voters must choose between believing Dean and believing the Los Angeles Times, which issued a similar analysis of Dean's whoppers last Thursday.-
-------------
Do you see the pattern of Dean pissing off people, newspapers, the DLC, the centrists of his party, Clinton and just about everyone he comes into contact? Can you see how someone could easily say he is a hot-head--and not be partisan in the comment?

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Bolds always look confrontational. No attitude intended. I think I'll start using italics.

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Sofia wrote:

Do you see the pattern of Dean pissing off people, newspapers, the DLC, the centrists of his party, Clinton and just about everyone he comes into contact?

No, I don't think there's a piss-pattern, Will Saletan's strident comments notwithstanding.

A lot of what Dean says speaks directly to the frustrations of Democrats -- thus his popularity.

Sofia wrote:

Can you see how someone could easily say he is a hot-head--and not be partisan in the comment?

Nope. "Hothead" is an ad hominem. Believe it or not, Dean hasn't done anything (yet) to lose any votes among Democrats.

What you are observing is good old-fashioned differences of opinion among friends (those don't exist on the right, so I'm not surprised they're hard for you to recognize :wink: ).

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Sofia wrote:

Did you read Dean's attack on Clinton and the middle roaders of your party? Don't you think Dean is burning too many bridges so soon?

From what I understood Dean was saying that under Clinton, the Dems had become masters of 'preventing things from getting worse' - and Democrats should want more than that again. Something like, we wanted to prevent things from getting worse, stem the tide, in order to then start realising our own dreams again - and while Clinton succeeded in the former, he did less so in the latter, and thats what I'm standing up for now. I'm not quoting here - thats just what I got from what he's been saying.

Thats all fairly common practice, though - go anywhere in Europe where Labour's been too long in government (Holland, for example Wink

, and you'll hear new faces in the party saying the same things. In the personality-fueled politics of US primaries, the personal aspect of such criticism is of course more magnified still, but unless the Clintonites have very fragile egos, I'm sure they'll get over it - it's too normal a tide-swing kinda thing.

I do think some Clintonites are genuinely alarmed about Dean's electability, though. So am I, but the opinion polls have lately consistently shown Dean doing as well or better than his 'moderate' rivals, so perhaps we shouldn't. In any case, I dont think the alarm will keep them from supporting him once he ends up the one running - rather the opposite. It's their jobs, too, in the elections, after all.

I dont know about the Clintons themselves, though. Like most, I'm assuming that Hillary wants to run for president in 2008 - and we know the Clintons are not exactly scrupulous when it comes to their self-interest. Basically, its not in Hillary's interest for Dean to win. So I'm not expecting them to knock themselves out.

I'm sure most of the MOR Dems (including most Clintonites) will support Dean if the alternative is letting Bush win. But when you look at the extremes - say, Lieberman's supporters and Dean's supporters, I can't really see those instantly flocking to the other's camp after the primaries. The differences are too big (but they would have been without the personalised rhetorics, too).

Thats what Dean was saying: he wasn't saying he was going to tell his supporters to boycott the Dems if someone else won, but he did point out that they can probably not be automatically expected to just transfer their allegiance like that - they are different from most candidates' supporters. That was interpreted as blackmail, and since he could have expected that it would be, it was a bad political move, but he was still just pointing out the glaringly obvious. So many of his legions are political newbies, youngsters, people who dropped out when the choice was Bush/Gore ... is there anyone who does expect them to just collectively join Lieberman2004? Again, Dean was just being too darn honest for his own good. And yeh, probly works vice versa, too, with Lieberman's core supporters (not) going to Dean.

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When I hear "hot-head", by the way, I think of someone who loses his temper, has no self-control, gets angry without being able to check himself. Someone who flares up.

What the article signals seems more like a very deliberate strategy on Dean's part, which succeeded quite niftily in mobilising a swathe of Dem voters that were practically up for grabs. As PD says, the frustrations he voices run deep in the Democratic grassroots.

Of course he's getting into a problem of logic, in the end, I mean: he's not attacking Clinton or anything - just "the Washington Democrats". Thats just not a logical proposition. But its not something he cant necessarily get away with. Candidates always attack the Washington establishment, and it usually goes down well no matter how long the candidate has himself been working there ;-).

On the other Q - McCain ran on something of an insurgent platform within the party as well. You can say, thats what did him in. But if he had made it, do you think it would have stopped him from getting the Republican establishment's support?

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here's the perspective of The Berkshire Eagle, from Pittsfield Mass. in John Kerry's home state:

'Get Howard Dean'

Howard Dean is the front-runner for the Democratic nomination because he's not afraid to act like a Democrat. He talks about the things that matter to working people.... And he gives it to the Republicans with the bark off....
[Primary voters are] angry because the Republicans are getting away with murder and the Democrats have spent most of the last three years on the ropes. This explains why the Beltway boys, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, John Edwards and Richard Gephardt, are not doing so well in the polls and are having trouble raising cash. They're the ones who rolled over and played dead while George W. Bush looted the Treasury, turned the government over to polluters and profiteers and took advantage of 9/11 to attack civil liberties and launch a half-cocked invasion of Iraq....

Mr. Dean is beating them fair and square.... He's done it with an average contribution of less than $100, enlisting hundreds of thousands of dedicated supporters with a pathbreaking Internet campaign that holds the promise of bringing back grassroots organizing and breaking the stranglehold of big money in presidential campaigns.

Mr. Dean is breaking all the rules, and he seems to be getting away with it, much to the horror of the Democratic establishment and the so-called liberal commentariat. They have transferred their anger at Mr. Bush to Mr. Dean, and are savaging him at every opportunity, pouncing on every misstep, and there have been a few, distorting his record as governor of Vermont and calling him every dirty name from Michael Dukakis to George McGovern.... No doubt Karl Rove is laughing at all the money he is saving on opposition research as he takes copious notes.

In their desperate attempt to stop Mr. Dean, party leaders may wind up weakening their chances in the fall. If he emerges damaged from the primaries, or falters and gives way to a weaker candidate like Wesley Clark or John Edwards, George W. Bush may be able to thank a few Democrats in his victory speech.

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/Stories/0,1413,101~6267~1868013,00.html

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Quote:

When I hear "hot-head", by the way, I think of someone who loses his temper, has no self-control, gets angry without being able to check himself. Someone who flares up.

G.W. Bush anyone?

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hobitbob wrote:

Quote:
When I hear "hot-head", by the way, I think of someone who loses his temper, has no self-control, gets angry without being able to check himself. Someone who flares up.

G.W. Bush anyone?

You mean like when he went up to editor Al Hunt, on a reception (or what was it), and hissed, "You ******* son of a bitch. I saw what you wrote. We're not going to forget this", at him, in front of his wife and family?

It's true, that was a long time back ('88) - but I dont think Dean ever did anything like that, no.

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nimh wrote:

And yeh, probly works vice versa, too, with Lieberman's core supporters (not) going to Dean.

TNR's &c. disagrees with me:

Quote:

How else to explain the speed with which Dean appears to have recovered from the nosedive he took in a similar poll taken after Saddam's capture? (A CNN poll conducted between two and three days after the capture showed Dean trailing Bush 59 to 37; [the most recent poll has him trailing Bush only 51 to 46 again]) And how else to explain the fact that while Dean and Lieberman represent the Democratic field's ideological extremes (at least rhetorically; substantively we'd argue that Dean and Lieberman aren't that far apart, with the obvious exception of the war), both appear to match up equally well against Bush. These things only make sense when you realize that the polls aren't picking up Democrats' support for Dean or Lieberman per se. They're picking up the fact that any big-name Democrat will do reasonably well against Bush, and that Dean and Lieberman just happen to be the most recognizable Democrats out there.

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nimh wrote:

hobitbob wrote:
Quote:
When I hear "hot-head", by the way, I think of someone who loses his temper, has no self-control, gets angry without being able to check himself. Someone who flares up.

G.W. Bush anyone?

You mean like when he went up to editor Al Hunt, on a reception (or what was it), and hissed, "You <a href="http://www.able2know.com/disclaimer.php#3b4">****</a> son of a bitch. I saw what you wrote. We're not going to forget this", at him, in front of his wife and family?

It's true, that was a long time back ('88) - but I dont think Dean ever did anything like that, no.

Actually, I would include "Bring it on," in this list of comments. Sad

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Lies, foibles and misrepresentations of Howard Dean.

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