Jan 25 2004
Who is more presidential — Bush or Dean?
I, for one, do not believe that enough has been made of the Skull and Bones issue. As you read the book excerpt that the link will take you to remember that George W. Bush and John F. Kerry both belong to this secret society.
A member of Senator Kerry’s staff was asked once about Skull and Bones. Her reply was “The senator does not want to talk about that.” I can’t say as I can blame him. I wouldn’t want to talk about it either.
Jan 25 2004
by David Franke It’s always hard to separate our personal evaluation of a political figure from our ideological view – we tend to like those with whom we agree or support, stressing their good qualities, and the reverse with those with whom we disagree. So, since I’m supporting Howard Dean for president, it probably won’t come as a surprise that I like his personal qualities as well. But this is a case where I like him as much for his personal qualities as for his anti-war stand.
To me, he’s the Barry Goldwater of our time – that rare politician who speaks his mind honestly and passionately, without regard for the polls and the political technicians, and often too bluntly or clumsily for his own good. That doesn’t make either of those two men the ideal politician or presidential candidate, but it sure endears them to me on a personal level. It is rare to find a politician who is not scripted. As a right-wing libertarian, I disagree with Dean on virtually every issue, including war (I go further than he does), but I would feel safer with him in the White House than with any of the standard-issue politicians in either party. He could be counted on to repeatedly make the “mistake” of leveling with me and the rest of us, rather than lying and concealing. It’s in his nature. He hasn’t been reconfigured by living or working in Washington, DC.
Which brings us to that “awful” thing he did in his concession speech in Iowa. Am I the only person in America who can’t comprehend what was wrong with it? It was a pep rally with his followers, for goodness sake, and he was letting them know they weren’t going to accept this as a defeat and how much he appreciated what they had gone through together. It wasn’t a tirade of a mad man, it was a real man caught up in the moment, and bonding with his mostly young and very enthusiastic and idealistic fans. As a native Texan, I even liked the whoop at the end. Heck, we whoop more than that at the contra dances I go to every weekend.
Is this what it comes down to – that we accept a president who lies us into war for his hidden agendas, and who harms the American people in countless other ways, because he piously mouths all these platitudes about God and country, and turn against a man who refuses to give a concession speech (which is what the press wanted) and turns it into a pep rally?
We apparently have reached a (downward) stage in American political life where an open show of emotions is forbidden. The one thing I liked about Truman was his emotional honesty; he could never become president today because of that. We (or at least the press, which tells us what to think) want only obsessive politicians, like Kerry. Emotional honesty is “unpresidential.” We want state “gravitas.”
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(David Franke is one of the founders of the conservative movement, having organized (with his college roommate) the first nationwide conservative activist organization in the late 1950s.)
Jan 25 2004
One of the great unsolved mysteries of life in the United States of America is the question – “Why do THEY [foreigners] hate us so much?”
It is a question which the US Press finds impossible to answer for the very good reason that the answer to the question has a great deal to do with the US Press itself.
(snip)
But blacks are not the only victims of the US Press. Anyone who is perceived to be out of the mainstream is denied justice. Presidential contender Howard Dean proved last week that he was human, letting off steam after the Iowa primary with an unmannerly yell, which immediately caused commentators and news anchors to ponderously question whether the man was sufficiently balanced to be president of the United States. They have never questioned however, Mr Bush’s alleged cocaine abuse or his alcoholism or his reported arrest for drunken driving. No, an utterly ersatz gentility prevents them from pursuing these.
They don’t question whether Mr Bush is, as Paul O’Neill says, so disengaged from his job as to be practically absent from important deliberations going on around him, or whether he laid out an agenda for invading Iraq just days after his inauguration. They don’t question his reference to “weapons of mass destruction programme activities” in this year’s State of the Union speech, though last year they cheered him on when he alleged he had incontrovertible evidence of actual WMD (not “programme activities”) on the ground in Iraq. They do not question whether it was his adviser, Karl Rove, who committed the criminal offence of ‘outing’ a deep undercover CIA operative in revenge for her husband’s exposing false White House claims.
The US Press has not seriously considered how it came to be that more than one half of all Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 atrocity.
That fact is the world’s greatest monument to the effect of propaganda, originated by the Bush administration and fed to the American people by a supine and corrupt press. In a country, supposedly served by the world’s most vigorous, irrepressible and irreverent Press, how is it possible that a lie of such magnitude can become established fact, persisting to this day?
According to the accounts of the media themselves, they did not believe Saddam was involved in 9/11. The only people who did were apparatchiks attached to the administration, notably Dick Cheney. In fact, even Bush himself was forced to deny that there was any such connection, but the misapprehension persists.
(snip)
I don’t believe that the majority of world opinion hates the United States or Americans in general. To be in that bag would be to be crazy. But, as thousands demonstrated in Mumbai over the last days, there are many who detest the actions of the US and the malign results on people abroad.
Now, in the US itself, the capitalist revolution has begun to eat its own children, wiping out jobs, degrading pride of workmanship, destroying the community of feeling which existed between craftsmen and their employers.
It is this development which upsets people like Howard Dean and the thousands of ‘un-clubbable’ people who will vote for him. The American Press, like those it serves so slavishly, needs to cast the beam out of its own eyes before it begins attending to the motes in others.
Jan 23 2004
by Dick Meyer, CBS News I’m not being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, honest. But I don’t think Howard Dean’s “I Have A Scream” performance was weird, troubling, scary, revealing or nuts. I don’t think it was a big deal in any way, shape or form. I thought it was standard pump-up-the-troops campaign stuff.
What I do think is bizarre is the hubbub it caused.
Caveat 1: I recognize that many people saw Mad How and saw a man coming unglued, a weirdo out of control, and their perceptions were not filtered by the punditocracy (my mother-in-law, for one influential example). They don’t want his finger on the trigger. We differ, that’s what makes horse races, that’s cool.
Caveat 2: The Scream is now a fact of political life. And it’s hurt Dean badly. That’s not going to change. It tapped into a long-simmering feeling among Dean-watchers (ok, the Washington press establishment) that he has a poor temperament for the White House; that’s he’s a hothead, a bully, a chesty, argumentative, inflated, pushy guy you wouldn’t want in your poker game.
Caveat 3: I’m biased. Not because I like Dean, but because I have defended his right-to-gaffe several times. I’ve been extremely critical of some of his policies and propaganda, but I can’t bear the press’ preoccupation with bloopers and gaffes, like Dean’s Confederate flag remark. This is where I am contrarian. Not only is gaffe-itis petty and unenlightening, it turns our politics into boring oatmeal. It commands our politicians to be scripted actors. Dean wasn’t that and I always thought that was his most likable feature and the key to his attraction.
It’s another fact of life that Dean gave the late-night comedians great material. The Dean Scream jokes are terrific, as is the gag picture someone just e-mailed of the offending Dean choking a cat.
But the press corps’ decision that the Scream was serious is a bit more disturbing. One of the many character flaws common to the species ‘reporter’ — one that I have in spades — is an exaggerated pleasure in the fall of the mighty. There is some of that happening with Dean right now. I don’t get too worked up about the media “making” or “creating” stories; there is no way for that not to happen in modern government and politics. But this time I do think Dean is getting a very bad rap.
From what I have heard, the reporters in the room when Dean allegedly wigged out didn’t think there was anything odd about it. It seemed appropriate and unremarkable. He was talking to some 3,000 volunteers, many young, who had worked devotedly for his campaign. He wanted to keep them pumped and he did what politicians and coaches do at pep rallies.
I’ve looked at the tape many times and that’s how it plays for me. Sure, if he had done it during a State of the Union speech or an appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations, it would have been crazy. But this was a rally. So spare me.
I’ve seen a lot of politicians do a lot weirder things. I’ve seen Ronald Reagan completely space out an answer during a presidential debate. I’ve seen Bush the Elder rumble on about how moose like to rub up to the Alaskan pipeline for, shall we say, gratification. I’ve heard Bush the Younger speak absolutely incomprehensible, illiterate gibberish on important issues. I’ve seen Bob Dole get really, really mad. I’ve listened to Newt Gingrich’s college lectures. I’ve seen Tom DeLay fly to Texas when a gunman entered the Capitol. I’ve seen Bill Clinton drag his poor wife onto primetime television to defend himself.
I wish Dean hadn’t renounced the Scream. His wife said it was “silly” and I think that’s about the full extent of it.
One final gripe: the other thing I really like about Dean is that he thus far has refused to indulge in the “my personal tragedy” game. He doesn’t trot out stories of his son’s illness, his mill worker dad, his salvation from demon rum. He shouldn’t. He’s running for president. I admire him for that. I was not pleased to see him submit his wife to Diane Sawyer, though Mrs. Dean was charming.
But in the weeks before Iowa a couple of articles and op-ed pieces criticized Dean for not being “autobiographical” enough. If there’s one thing we don’t need more of in politics, or any forum of public life, it’s more autobiography. We pundits always point how manipulative politicians are when they do sob stories, and now we’re attacking Dean for not doing them. We can be such rats.
Similarly, we constantly bemoan how scripted politics has become, and then we jump on any gaffe or misstatement, as with Dean. We can be such rats.
Politicians can, too, of course, including Howard Dean. But on the charge of disqualification for office because of insane screaming, he’s innocent.
Jan 23 2004
The top U.S. official in charge of the hunt for Iraq’s banned weapons of mass destruction has resigned, saying he believes the country no longer has any large stockpiles of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. But the hunt for such weapons is not ending
After nearly eight months of searching, David Kay, head of the U.S. government’s Iraq survey group, stepped down Friday, telling the Reuters News Agency he does not think Iraq has any of the banned weapons the Bush administration said posed a threat to the world and triggered the U.S.-led invasion last March. Mr. Kay had served as a U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s.
In announcing the Kay resignation, CIA Director George Tenet chose Charles Duelfer to succeed him. Mr. Duelfer, a former State Department official, was part of the United Nations team responsible for dismantling Iraq’s banned weapons programs during the 1990s when Saddam Hussein was still in power.
But he is among those who have expressed doubts about whether Iraq still has stockpiles of such weapons, telling interviewers earlier this month the inability of David Kay and his 1,400 member team to find them probably means none are there.
But as he prepares to head back to Iraq, he says he is willing to keep an open mind and remains committed to following the evidence wherever it leads.
The Bush administration continues to say illegal weapons will eventually be found in Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney told National Public Radio this week more time is required to look through what he called every “cubby hole and ammo dump” and other places where they could be found.
How much more of our money are they planning to spend on this wild goose chase? Even if they find a little something now, is anybody going to believe it was planted?
Jan 23 2004
by Russ Baker The so-called Dean “meltdown,” the claims that his campaign is finished, and his forced contrition are all symptoms of how debased the political dialogue has become.
It’s true that Dean yelled at his Monday night rally in Iowa. And so what? Basically, at a pep rally, he yelled like a football coach. This is described as being “unpresidential.” But says who? Besides, what’s the definition of ‘presidential?’ Isn’t giving insulting nicknames to world leaders unpresidential? Isn’t sending hundreds of American soldiers to die for uncertain and misrepresented ends in Iraq unpresidential—or worth considering as such? Isn’t having an incredibly poor grasp of essential world facts and an aversion to detail and active decision making unpresidential?
As far as I can tell, the worst Howard Dean has done is to try to be himself. (And, when criticized for that, to show some willingness to alter his demeanor.) But neither of those is good enough for a media that smells a good story—allegedly about personality, much more interesting than issues.
We saw and see nearly every news outlet playing the footage of the rally again and again. We see headlines in the less-cautious papers about Dean “imploding,” and gleeful spin from Republican strategists that Dean is “finished.”
From Slate magazine (“Mean Dean Loses Steam”) to The New York Post (“Dean’s Ballot-Box Conspiracy Theory”), it’s all about painting him as unseemly, unstable and irrationally angry, rather than focusing on his ideas. And yet, carefully scrutinized, virtually everything the man has said accords with the beliefs and understanding of a significant portion of the American populace, and, significantly, of what has been reported in the media.
But once something like this “meltdown” story gets started, the media go into a kind of inexorable black hole, and the pull is so great it becomes hard for thinking journalists and editors to resist. And not just journalists. It takes extraordinary mettle for anyone in the limelight to resist this. Once the howl of the pack gets loud enough, questioning the seriousness of Dean’s so-called ‘problems’ becomes tantamount to downplaying allegations against Michael Jackson.
Sometimes it’s hard to remember, but presidents aren’t primarily dinner party hosts or recruiting posters for perfection. They’re supposed to be smart people who can make intelligent choices, mostly in private, that serve our interests. And they’re supposed to be human.
Ed Muskie probably wouldn’t have been a bad president, nor would George Romney or John McCain, all of whom got slammed for showing quintessentially human traits on the campaign trail. Muskie didn’t like his wife being attacked; Romney admitted to having been “brainwashed” on Vietnam (obviously less so than those fellow GOPsters who couldn’t admit their mistakes), and McCain was charmingly blunt if occasionally brutish. As each could attest, candor isn’t a priority in this society. People want to hear what makes them feel good and safe and strong, no matter the reality.
As for Dean, one doesn’t need to take sides to see that the treatment of this man is unbecoming of the media. It’s also going to be seen in retrospect as colossally one-sided, not in any way balanced by comparable scrutiny or criticism of his rivals.
If anything, this affair is a kind of test. Dean seems too tough a customer to back out after such a setback. And the fact remains that he essentially still holds exactly the same constituency he did before. If his supporters keep their eye on the ball, if Dean refuses to be distracted or rattled, and if the media somehow manage to restrain their headlong rush into tabloid-land, this country may yet have a meaningful conversation on what really matters.
Jan 22 2004
Jan. 22 — At a critical point in his presidential campaign, Howard Dean and his wife, Judy Steinberg Dean, spoke to ABCNEWS’ Primetime‘s Diane Sawyer about the future of his campaign, their relationship, and his often-discussed anger.
Asked about the guttural shout he gave during his concession speech at the Iowa caucuses on Monday, Dean said: “I did it. I own it. I’m not perfect. It’s done.
“I’m not a perfect person,” he said. “My attitude is that it’s done. And now we gotta get back to running for president.”
It was the first time in Dean’s long political career that his wife, Dr. Judy Steinberg Dean, spoke on television. Judy Dean said she hadn’t heard very much of the now-infamous sound bite. But she said she understood what happened.
“I think he had already told me where he was, and what he was doing,” Judy Dean said. “I heard him say he had a lot of kids working for him, who had worked really, really hard for him, and the outcome wasn’t what they had hoped for, and he wanted to pump them up. I mean, maybe he did a little too much, but that’s what he wanted to do.”
Sawyer asked the couple about the common perception that Howard Dean is the candidate most driven by anger.
“We’ve been married 23 years, and he is very easy to get along with,” Judy Dean said. “I can’t remember the last time [he got angry].”
The former Vermont governor said the image of him as an angry candidate began last March because of the passion of his campaign. Recently a story has been circulating about how the police were called at a hockey game his son attended in the mid-1990s, but Dean said “a lot of this stuff is urban legend.”
There was “no fighting,” Dean said. “It was nothing of that sort.”
He said his record in public service should attest to his even temperament. “Have I ever blown up? Yep. Have I ever blown up at a staff member in 12 years? Never.”
However, he conceded that his speech on Monday was not presidential. “Not for a moment,” he said.
As a counterpoint, he said: “Last time I went to a hockey game, my son got an assist on the first goal, I went ‘yahoo,’ and jumped up in the air. That’s presidential? Probably not. So, I’m a dad, I’m a human being, I’m going to keep being a dad and a human being.
“I am who I am,” said Dean. “And, I am going to be who I am? I’m the outside-the-Beltway guy. I don’t play by the same rules [as] the people inside the Beltway. I put my heart on my sleeve. I let people know who I am.”
In light of Dean’s disappointing third-place showing at the Iowa caucuses, and his much-talked about yell, there have been concerns that he is trying to stage a comeback with a public relations event — a “stand by your man” interview such as the one Bill and Hillary Clinton gave when Clinton faced allegations of infidelity.
Dean has also previously said that he would not drag out his wife to use as a prop in his campaign. However, the candidate said, “I do think people do have to understand Judy, because understanding Judy has something to do with understanding me.”
Judy Dean said she has given interviews before — but they have never been on television, and they were mostly conducted from Burlington, Vt., where the couple live.
“I am kind of private, and I have a son in Burlington I like to stay with, and I have a medical practice which I love,” she said. “It’s really important for me, and Howard knows it’s important to me. But, I also love Howard, and I think he would make a terrific president.
“If I can help him, I will. And that doesn’t mean he’s going to disrupt my life, disrupt my patients, my son, but if he calls on a Saturday, and I’m not on call that weekend, I’ll be out there Sunday,” she said.
Dean said he thinks it would be easier for him politically if his wife was out on the campaign trail with him, but he doesn’t wish she was.
If all of this has proven anything, it has proven that Howard Dean will not be a scripted president like George W. Bush. At the very least we’ll know he’s being honest and that he is telling the truth. I don’t know that I can really say that about any of the other candidates. We all know it can’t be said about Mr. Bush.
Jan 22 2004
Tonight is Howard Dean Night on television:
Jan 22 2004
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean has raised $590,000 since his damaging Iowa loss, his campaign reported Wednesday night.
He isn’t the only candidate to turn their performance in Iowa into new campaign money. Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards, who finished one-two in that state’s precinct caucuses, each took in tens of thousands of dollars over their Web sites within hours of the voting.
Kerry, of Massachusetts, challenged donors to help him raise $365,000 over the Internet on Tuesday and met the goal by day’s end. Edwards, of North Carolina, raised at least $250,000 online by Tuesday evening.
Dean’s new money, most of it raised on the Internet, may help him recover in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, but also could be used to buy advertising and boost his candidacy in later states while he focuses attention here.
Overall, Dean has raised more than $41 million in the race, more than any other Democratic candidate.
Jan 22 2004
MANCHESTER, N.H., Jan. 21 — Senior aides to Howard Dean took several steps on Wednesday to overhaul his candidacy, including softening the tone of his speeches and eliminating high-voltage campaign rallies in favor of dignified appearances where he would present himself as a mature ex-governor with a command of health care and the economy.
The moves came as senior advisers expressed concern in interviews that Dr. Dean’s candidacy was imperiled after a third-place finish in Iowa and a roaring, raucous concession speech that many opponents have held up as evidence that Dr. Dean is unfit to be president.
The advisers said they had concluded that the portrayal of Dr. Dean as a candidate unhinged would make it impossible, at least for now, to run advertisements attacking their opponents here, a significant restriction for any candidate in a tough race. Dr. Dean and his wife, Judith, have also agreed to do their first joint television interview, which will appear Thursday night on ABC’s “Prime Time.”
Evidence of a new Dr. Dean was on display Wednesday morning in Manchester, where the candidate, speaking softly and haltingly, highlighted his proposed overhaul of the campaign finance system, in what aides described as their first effort to change the subject of the campaign discourse.
The new steps were mapped out in a series of meetings that continued Wednesday in Burlington, Vt., where the governor went to recover from a cold that left him hoarse and looking beleaguered.
“I don’t buy into the notion that somebody did it to us, but somehow we got caught in the mutually assured destruction of a harsh, negative, vitriolic campaign that created very negative images of Howard at the very time that he needed to humanize himself,” said Steven Grossman, the chairman of the campaign and a former Democratic national chairman, as he began a seven-hour round-trip drive from his home in Boston for the meeting in Vermont.
Representative Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey said that in a conference call with members of Congress and Dr. Dean’s staff on Tuesday night, he said Dr. Dean “has to get away from the negative attacks.”
“He has to be positive, talk about the future, don’t talk about others,” Mr. Pallone said. “Don’t even defend yourself against attacks by others.”
Dr. Dean’s advisers said they had been deluged with advice from all the camps that make up the unusual alliance of the Dean campaign — from their young Web-based supporters to senior members of Congress to his growing legion of paid consultants — about what their candidate should do. Several advisers said they were increasingly concerned that he could face a loss in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday that could be devastating.
“I told him to be a minipresident; not to be so hot, to tone it down,” said one of his most prominent supporters, who did not want to be identified as sharing his private advice to Dr. Dean. “I said, `In the future, if you want to stir up the crowd, have somebody else do it for you.’ ”
Representative Robert Menendez of New Jersey said he had told Dean aides that Dr. Dean “needs to do more of the uplifting, motivational, substantial vision of where he would take America.”
“Put him in the type of circumstance where he is not just pumping the crowd, but is engaged in a conversation with the electorate that reflects his intellect and concern for people,” Mr. Menendez said.
Dr. Dean’s aides said they were taking that advice, and said that would become increasingly clear over the next day. Late Wednesday night his aides noted that despite the disparaging publicity from the loss in Iowa and his exuberant postcaucus performance, Dr. Dean had raised $590,000 in contributions since Monday.
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Howard Dean is the man we need to be our next president. He has the vision and the intelligence that is so sorely lacking at this time in the top levels of our government. His campaign up to this time has served its purpose well. It rallied the troops behind him. I am glad that now the campaign will be switching more toward showing him as the president we all need so desperately.
