God Rigs Election: It's Bush In A "blowout"

[minsue]

Re: Re: Brazil Fingerprinting All America Tourists

It sounds to me like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I'll give them credit for standing on prinicpal, but I feel kind of sorry for the people in Rio who are loosing bussiness to that principal.

-Colly

Well, sure if you want to be all rational about it! Hopefully, 45 minutes in line won't make too many people change their vacation plans. Farthest I've been is Puerto Vallarta and, if I recall correctly, the lines to get through customs were at least that long. Wouldn't have missed it for the world, though!

- Mindy

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Between terrorist threats and the sluggish econmy people aren't vacationing like they used to. If people get the idea that they will be waiting in line for an hour because the governemnt f brazil is picking on them to protest an unpopular government policy I can see the tourist trade slipping a good deal. Rio is great, but there a re a lot of other destinations that are just as nice and not as unfriendly.

-Colly

 

[Gary Chambers]

Back to my shoes, I am not rich or even comfortable, but I support the party I think does the most for me. In recent months I have become disconcertingly aware of the fact that neither party really does much for me.

-Colly

I don't want to belabour the point, but I'm going to belabour the point.

I agree that no political party can be relied upon to serve its constituents' interests. However, to maintain a core support they all must at least pay lip service to one social cross section or another. I'm not American but this is true of all so called western democracies. In the U.S.A. the Democrats pay lip service to people like you and I, and the Republicans pay lip service to those who wish to use people like you and I to increase their wealth and power at our expense. Therefore, while your political cynicism is understood and shared, I question whether it can ever be employed in your best interests while you consider Republicans worthy of consideration for your vote. It might be different if one ever saw a shred of noblesse oblige in Republican rhetoric and actions, but expectations of that died with Eisenhower. I suggest your energy would be better spent taking firmer control over the party that at least purports to recognise you as an equal.

 

[shereads]

I don't want to belabour the point, but I'm going to belabour the point.

I agree that no political party can be relied upon to serve its constituents' interests. However, to maintain a core support they all must at least pay lip service to one social cross section or another. I'm not American but this is true of all so called western democracies. In the U.S.A. the Democrats pay lip service to people like you and I, and the Republicans pay lip service to those who wish to use people like you and I to increase their wealth and power at our expense. Therefore, while your political cynicism is understood and shared, I question whether it can ever be employed in your best interests while you consider Republicans worthy of consideration for your vote. It might be different if one ever saw a shred of noblesse oblige in Republican rhetoric and actions, but expectations of that died with Eisenhower. I suggest your energy would be better spent taking firmer control over the party that at least purports to recognise you as an equal.

Darling, haven't you heard? Compassionate Conservatism?

 

[Gary Chambers]

Darling, haven't you heard? Compassionate Conservatism?

I think so dearest, a Neil Diamond song isn't it?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I don't want to belabour the point, but I'm going to belabour the point.

I agree that no political party can be relied upon to serve its constituents' interests. However, to maintain a core support they all must at least pay lip service to one social cross section or another. I'm not American but this is true of all so called western democracies. In the U.S.A. the Democrats pay lip service to people like you and I, and the Republicans pay lip service to those who wish to use people like you and I to increase their wealth and power at our expense. Therefore, while your political cynicism is understood and shared, I question whether it can ever be employed in your best interests while you consider Republicans worthy of consideration for your vote. It might be different if one ever saw a shred of noblesse oblige in Republican rhetoric and actions, but expectations of that died with Eisenhower. I suggest your energy would be better spent taking firmer control over the party that at least purports to recognise you as an equal.

The Republican party for a very long time was the party of the middle class in the southeast. Democrats were seen as taxing us (those who worked) and passing the money out as welfare to them (those who wouldn't work, not couldn't but wouldn't an important distinction) Democrats were the ones screaming at the tops of their lungs about the rights of criminals, republicans lamented the damage done and cared about the rights of the victim. Democrats were pc and in being PC damaged our school systems by continually dumbing them down so that underadvantaged kids wouldn't fail. Republicans railed against this and demanded that standards be raised for everyone.

In short the Democratic party was the party of special interests, blacks, gays, the poor, etc. I was raised white, middle class and the only minority I belonged to was a function of my sex at the time. Democrats raise taxes. Democrats waste money. Democrats destroy our schools. Democrats are soft on crime. Democrats are cravan cowards and draft dodgers. Democrats aren't even real Americans. The litany goes on and on until it would bore even Strom Thurmond.

Thats what I was raised hearing and like most kids I took it as gospel. When I got out on my own and began to experience a larger world I had to call into question a lot of what I had taken on faith was the truth. It was and still is a sobering experience. While much of what I was spoon fed as a child I now repudiate utterly, there is still a good deal that I haven't found to be bunk.

My conservatisim hasn't changed, nor has my stance on certain things. The hijacking of the republican party by the religious right was a severe blow to me. The rise of the neo cons has only made things worse. More and more old school consevatives like myself are left without any palateable alternative.

On the one hand you have the Republicans, now ruled by misogynistic bible thumpers and modern day soldiers of fortune. On the other you have the Democrats, still ready to tax and spend and still more concerned with the rights of the accused than the rights of the wronged. There is a balancing act there, that pits some of my most basic beliefs against one another and neither party represents even a majority of them, much less all of them. It's not a very comfortable or happy place to find yourself.

Until baby Bush's renewal of the attack on my reproductive freedoms and his other blatantly misogynistic and homophobic policies I still held more conservative views than liberal ones. Now I find myself between the devil and the deep blue sea. Voting democrat will be a serious threat to the well being of my psyche. They represent so many things I disagree with. Yet I really have little choice, the party I have belonged to since the day I turned 18 has basically declared war on me because of my gender and orientation.

I try to keep an open mind and I strive to keep my debates freindly. I smile and poke fun at myself with as much ease as I poke fun at others. I don't think anyone on these boards realizes how truely painful it is to me to find myself adrift with no party I can claim represents even a good portion of what I believe in.

-Colly

 

[Gary Chambers]

I try to keep an open mind and I strive to keep my debates freindly. I smile and poke fun at myself with as much ease as I poke fun at others. I don't think anyone on these boards realizes how truely painful it is to me to find myself adrift with no party I can claim represents even a good portion of what I believe in.

-Colly

I can’t speak for others as individuals, Colly, but I do understand your pain and I suspect anyone who feels passionately about principles like justice and equality would also understand. In my case I used to be an employee of the New Democratic Party, a Canadian party that I would describe as a self styled cross between Democrats and British Labourites. Gradually that party drifted so far from its populist platform that I was left alienated. These days I lean Green because it seems to present a last desperate hope. In the U.S.A., however, leaning Green just means Shereads risks another dubious chad debacle. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to vote in the U.S.A.

I don’t think any party in North America will get around to behaving equitably on the sexual orientation issue any time soon. Our continent is still far too puritanical to officially accept any sexual behaviour that doesn’t mirror our own. We have members of parliament who are out of the closet and fighting for gay rights. Parliament is polite and tolerant of their debates, but continues to avoid actually bringing anything to a vote. I found Europe was much more grown up in its treatment of sexual issues, even staid old Britain.

Next Thanksgiving Day I’d like to start a new tradition of burning a Puritan’s effigy on a bonfire, like Guy Fawkes Day in the U.K. That kind of irreverent symbolism might wake a few people out of their smug slumber.

Edited to Add: I deeply respect true conservatives. I believe they work toward the same end as true liberals: a better life for everyone. I don't believe conservative methods will work, but I respect a true conservative's devotion to noble ideals and end goals. Unfortunately, true conservatives and true liberals are both endangered species.

 

[shereads]

Next Thanksgiving Day I’d like to start a new tradition of burning a Puritan’s effigy on a bonfire, like Guy Fawkes Day in the U.K. That kind of irreverent symbolism might wake a few people out of their smug slumber.

Someone on my mother's side of the family did us the disservice of researching the family tree. Never a good idea for Appalchian redneck families, but in this case disastrous.

Apparently, we're related to Cotton Mather. Wasn't he a fire-breathing puritan minister of the most miserable sort? It just figures that having spent my early adulthood dealing with the burden of guilt sustained as a child doomed to hell for questioning my Southern Baptist heritage, and having begun to enjoy my middle adulthood thanks to dirty stories and certain luscious body parts, I should turn out to be related to one of inventors and patent-holders of the American concept of hell. ("Now containing 20% more brimstone! Proven hotter and longer-lasting than Europe's Hell.")

I just found out about this, so I haven't researched it yet. Am I wrong? Was Cotton Mather not the hateful minister whose sermons I remember reading in my high school American History classes?

Or does it just not mather?

 

[Edward Teach]

My conservatisim hasn't changed, nor has my stance on certain things. The hijacking of the republican party by the religious right was a severe blow to me. The rise of the neo cons has only made things worse. More and more old school consevatives like myself are left without any palateable alternative.

On the one hand you have the Republicans, now ruled by misogynistic bible thumpers and modern day soldiers of fortune. On the other you have the Democrats, still ready to tax and spend and still more concerned with the rights of the accused than the rights of the wronged. There is a balancing act there, that pits some of my most basic beliefs against one another and neither party represents even a majority of them, much less all of them. It's not a very comfortable or happy place to find yourself.
-Colly

Colly-

I experienced something similar to what you have gone through only I was a registered Democrat with conservative leanings who had become disenchanted with the party and was about to change affiliation to the Republican Party. I was working on a Republican’s reelection campaign against one of Pat Robertson’s men when I discovered that the religious right had gained a disproportionate amount of control over the Republican Party and would stop at nothing to win, including death threats. I didn’t want to be a Democrat and I didn’t want to be a Republican so I registered "unaffiliated." That was several years ago and now I have become so distrustful of the neocons and the religious right that I will not vote for a Republican until I have thoroughly, and I mean thoroughly checked them out.

One of the most troubling things I see today is that many people want to be "on a team" so badly that they blindly espouse a party line without investigating what or whom they are really supporting.

- Ed

 

[shereads]

Nixon wasn't a neo-con. Just a con. A criminal. A madman. A closet anti-Semite. And an asshole.

That was my early experience of Republicans. And i had voted for him before I came to fully understand what all the fuss was about.

 

[Gary Chambers]

Escaped criminals from Europe

Cotton Mather sounds like a typical Puritan reptile. Here's a link:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SAL_BMAT.HTM

These criminals remain a problem. Black Tulip says she wishes more of them could have crammed on the ships to the New World, because they are still causing problems in the Netherlands.

 

[Edward Teach]

Nixon wasn't a neo-con. Just a con. A criminal. A madman. A closet anti-Semite. And an asshole.

That was my early experience of Republicans. And i had voted for him before I came to fully understand what all the fuss was about.

I was extremely torn those years. I am obviously a little older than you, She and I had lived through the turmoil Vietnam. Kent State had a profound effect upon me for several years and I didn't vote either time Nixon ran. I couldn't support either candidate in either election.
- Ed

 

[shereads]

Teach, and anyone interested in having the Nixon tapes put into a coherent timeline and context, I recommend renting "Nixon" starring Anthony Hopkins. It's not an entirely unsympathetic portrait, and Hopkins is so convincing in the role that when there's a clip near the end of actual news footage (Nixon boarding the helicopter for his final White House exit) it's disconcerting - You find yourself thinking, "Nixon didn't look like that. He looked like Anthony Hopkins."

The film portrays him as a self-loathing man whose early life left him deeply scarred. There was an older brother who was intended to go to college - the family had saved enough money to educate only one brother - and his death from tuberculosis made it possible for Dick to attend college instead.

There's a beautiful fictional moment in the White House that had an eerie ring of truth. Hopkins as Nixon is talking to a portrait of JFK (something that White House employees from the time claimed to have witnessed on occasion) and he says, "They looked at you and saw what they wanted to be; they look at me and see themselves as they really are. That's why they hate me."

It's true that the movie is a "docudrama" so you can take vignettes like this one for whatever they're worth in view of your own feelings about Nixon. But there are dozens of Oval Office scenes that are based verbatim on Nixon's tapes, and for those who have only read and heard of the tapes in snippets, there are chilling revelations about the mind of the man who was running our piece of the planet and a few others for years.

 

[minsue]

The Republican party for a very long time was the party of the middle class in the southeast. Democrats were seen as taxing us (those who worked) and passing the money out as welfare to them (those who wouldn't work, not couldn't but wouldn't an important distinction) Democrats were the ones screaming at the tops of their lungs about the rights of criminals, republicans lamented the damage done and cared about the rights of the victim. Democrats were pc and in being PC damaged our school systems by continually dumbing them down so that underadvantaged kids wouldn't fail. Republicans railed against this and demanded that standards be raised for everyone.

In short the Democratic party was the party of special interests, blacks, gays, the poor, etc. I was raised white, middle class and the only minority I belonged to was a function of my sex at the time. Democrats raise taxes. Democrats waste money. Democrats destroy our schools. Democrats are soft on crime. Democrats are cravan cowards and draft dodgers. Democrats aren't even real Americans. The litany goes on and on until it would bore even Strom Thurmond.

Thats what I was raised hearing and like most kids I took it as gospel. When I got out on my own and began to experience a larger world I had to call into question a lot of what I had taken on faith was the truth. It was and still is a sobering experience. While much of what I was spoon fed as a child I now repudiate utterly, there is still a good deal that I haven't found to be bunk.

My conservatisim hasn't changed, nor has my stance on certain things. The hijacking of the republican party by the religious right was a severe blow to me. The rise of the neo cons has only made things worse. More and more old school consevatives like myself are left without any palateable alternative.

On the one hand you have the Republicans, now ruled by misogynistic bible thumpers and modern day soldiers of fortune. On the other you have the Democrats, still ready to tax and spend and still more concerned with the rights of the accused than the rights of the wronged. There is a balancing act there, that pits some of my most basic beliefs against one another and neither party represents even a majority of them, much less all of them. It's not a very comfortable or happy place to find yourself.

Until baby Bush's renewal of the attack on my reproductive freedoms and his other blatantly misogynistic and homophobic policies I still held more conservative views than liberal ones. Now I find myself between the devil and the deep blue sea. Voting democrat will be a serious threat to the well being of my psyche. They represent so many things I disagree with. Yet I really have little choice, the party I have belonged to since the day I turned 18 has basically declared war on me because of my gender and orientation.

I try to keep an open mind and I strive to keep my debates freindly. I smile and poke fun at myself with as much ease as I poke fun at others. I don't think anyone on these boards realizes how truely painful it is to me to find myself adrift with no party I can claim represents even a good portion of what I believe in.

-Colly

The simple fact is, Colly, the Democrats aren't the party of "tax & spend" and haven't been for a very long time. As I vented somewhere out here (either this or the Political on Your Ass thread), the last time discretionary spending rose as sharply as it has from '00-'03 was '89-'91. It has gone up 39% since Dubya took office. The average annual increase during those tax & spend Clinton years was 3%.

It is one of my biggest pet peeves that somehow the Republican party is still seen as fiscally concervative when it hasn't been for at least the last 20 years.

- Mindy, back on my soapbox. another resolution bites the dust.

ps While I DEFINITELY recognize the pain of being alone politically (I'm a Democrat in Arizona for god's sake! ), I truly do think you need to take a good look at what you believe and then an honest look at party platforms. You are not alone politically. You just don't want to let go of your vision of what each party stands for.

 

[shereads]

The unmaking of a liberal candidate by the "liberal press"

Whoa. If this is how the so-called liberal media treat the Democratic frontrunner, I can only imagine what Fox News must be saying about him. Check out this description of the candidate from the Washington Post, quoted by salon.com. Hard to say whether he should run for President or Dark Lord.

Jan. 13, 2004 _|_ When the Washington Post introduced readers to Howard Dean in a long Page 1 feature July 6, part of a series of "meet the Democrats" candidate profiles, the paper went for the jugular, literally, with a cartoonish, unflattering description to open the article: "Howard Dean was angry. Ropy veins popped out of his neck, blood rushed to his cheeks, and his eyes, normally blue-gray, flashed black, all dilated pupils."

Ropy veins? Yeesh.

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

the salon article continued

Six months later, an extended version of that campaign narrative, polished by Republican talking-points memos and echoed day after day by the mainstream media, remains a constant of the campaign trail: Dean is a sarcastic smart aleck with foot-in-the mouth disease, a political ticking time bomb. The former Vermont governor remains the front-runner among Democratic voters, but he's gotten increasingly caustic treatment from the media, which has dwelled on three big themes -- that Dean's angry, gaffe-prone and probably not electable -- while giving comparatively far less ink to the doctor's policy and political prescriptions that have catapulted him ahead of the Democratic field. Newsweek's critical Jan. 12 cover story, "All the Rage: Dean's Shoot-From-the-Hip Style and Shifting Views Might Doom Him in November," achieved a nifty trifecta that covered anger, gaffes and electability, all three of the main media raps against Dean.


Certainly Dean has an unorthodox political style. Unvarnished and blunt, his pronouncements on domestic and foreign policy are at times controversial, occasionally sloppy and, in any event, deserve press scrutiny. It's obvious Dean has changed his position on some policy matters, such as NAFTA. As a governor he supported the free trade pact; as a presidential candidate he does not. He once suggested raising the retirement age to protect Social Security; now he does not. And Dean's electoral formula is far from certain -- he's the former governor of a tiny Northeastern state, and no one knows how far his Internet base will carry him in a long, brutal national campaign against the well-funded, disciplined Bush machine.

But a look at the last half-year of media coverage -- from the contentious treatment Dean received on "Meet the Press" in late June, through the often harsh Time and Newsweek cover stories last week -- raises the question: Has his anger been so uncontrollable, his campaign miscues so frequent, are his political chances so unlikely as to merit the unrelenting focus on anger, "gaffes" and so-called unelectability that has come to dominate reporting on Dean?

For Dean's top backer there must be a sense of déjà vu in all of this. In 2000, Vice President Al Gore suffered from chronically caustic coverage that clung to all sorts of fictional, Republican-inspired spin about the vice president being an unlikable, untrustworthy exaggerator. Suddenly, as with Gore in 2000, it seems Dean is battling not only his Democratic opponents and Republican Party officials, he's also wrestling members of the media's chattering class who view him with growing unease and even contempt.

Without the Gore press fiasco as a backdrop it might seem as if Dean were simply wading through an inevitable rough patch with the press -- that pundits and reporters are practicing the usual baptism-by-fire, forcing the unlikely front-runner to earn his stripes. That's a legitimate, even expected part of any race for the White House. But watching the striking similarities between the way the D.C. press is covering Dean and how it treated Gore, and contrasting it with the way it has treated President Bush, it's becoming harder to avoid the obvious conclusion: that Democratic presidential front-runners and nominees are held to a higher, tougher standard by the Washington press corps.

Remember how Gore was dogged in the press by often phony, Republican-crafted stories about how he couldn't be trusted? A classic case in point was the "Gore invented the Internet" story. The facts were simple: In March 1999 Gore gave an interview to CNN in which he artlessly said, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." He was referring to his landmark "information superhighway" speech, as well as his well-known leadership in delivering key government funding to help nurture the Net in the '80s and early '90s. For a few days Gore's CNN comments were ignored in the 24-hour news cycle. Then the RNC issued a press release mocking Gore's statement, and soon the urban legend about Gore having claimed to invent the sprawling Internet took root in the political landscape. Almost five years later, even though it's been relentlessly debunked, it's a weed that can't be killed. Just last month it bloomed again when Gore endorsed the Internet-savvy Dean, and Joe Klein, Clarence Page, Jeff Greenfield, and Tim Russert all reached back and dug it up for public consumption. Lazy media habits die hard.

Today, the parallels between the Dean and Gore press coverage are impossible to miss. There's the charge Dean is constantly trying to "reinvent" himself, which Gore was accused of in 2000. That Dean is "angry"; Gore was tagged a "savage campaigner" during the primaries. There's the often nit-picking obsession with the "gaffes" that supposedly bedevil Dean; for Gore the problem was "exaggerations." There's even a tedious debate in the press about whether the New York City apartment Dean grew up in was luxurious, just as pundits went back and forth, in all seriousness, over whether as a boy Gore grew up in a fancy "suite" or just an "apartment" inside Washington's Fairfax Hotel.

New York Times columnist David Brooks recently ridiculed Dean for beginning "a sentence with, 'Us rural people ...' Dean grew up on Park Avenue and in East Hampton. If he's a rural person, I'm the Queen of Sheba." Somebody might want to tell Brooks (or his editor) that Dean has spent half his life living in Vermont, and his wife still practices family medicine in the tiny town of Shelburne (pop: 6,618). Meanwhile, of course, the Andover, Yale and Harvard-educated Bush's claim to a pure Texas pedigree is rarely questioned.

Dean's real media sin, aside from some clumsy misstatements, seems to be that he's running as an outsider, which always breeds contempt among the Washington press corps. As governor of Texas, Bush pretended to run as an outsider in 2000, but nobody in the news business took the claim seriously. Dean, though, seems bent on it, including taking aim at the Beltway press. When he officially announced his candidacy with a June 23 speech, he asked rhetorically, "Is the media reporting the truth?" And instead of schmoozing reporters on the campaign trail and handing out playground-type nicknames the way Bush did in 2000, Dean treats them professionally, but pushes back when he thinks they're wrong.

By some measures, Dean's media troubles began with his June 22 appearance on "Meet the Press." During the hour-long sit-down, Dean faced off against a clearly combative host, Tim Russert, who prepared for the interview, in part, by asking the Bush Treasury Department to produce what the Washington Post called a "highly selective" analysis of the Democratic tax program, including rolling back scheduled tax cuts. Later in the program came a pop-quiz question about how many men and women currently serve in the military. When Dean said he didn't know the exact number and complained it was like asking him "who the ambassador to Rwanda is," Russert shot back: "As commander in chief, you should know that." Dean estimated there were between 1 and 2 million men and women in active duty; according to the Pentagon, there are 1.4 million.

What a sharp contrast to '99, when Russert had a warm, respectful one-on-one with then-candidate Bush. When the host sprang a specific policy question on Bush about how many missiles would still be in place if a new START II nuclear weapons treaty were signed, Bush answered: "I can't remember the exact number." But unlike his session with Dean, Russert dropped the topic without lecturing Bush that "as commander in chief, you should know that."

Beltway insiders clucked over Dean's June appearance on NBC's mighty "Meet the Press," labeling him evasive and unprepared. But lots of party faithful saw something else -- a candidate who would stand up to biased, big-foot pundits -- and flooded the campaign with contributions that day. Instead of marking Dean's leveling-off point, "Meet the Press" marked the beginning of his ascent to undisputed front-runner status.

In the wake of "Meet the Press," the Washington Post on July 1 reported that a "new contentiousness" was creeping into Dean's press coverage. The paper made that a self-fulfilling prophecy on July 6, uncorking the Page 1 Dean profile that opened with the image of the former governor's bulging veins. In fact, in just two summertime features the Washington Post managed to use the following words to describe Dean: "abrasive," "flinty," "cranky," "arrogant," "disrespectful," "yelling," "hollering," "fiery," "red-faced," "hothead," "testy," "short-fused," "angry," "worked up," and "fired up." And none of those adjectives were used in a complimentary way. In fact the Post, in an Aug. 4 Is-Dean-mean story, took pains to distinguish him from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, whom the paper termed "brilliantly cranky."

Soon the rest of the press was lavishing attention on Dean's temper -- researching it, analyzing it, trying to document it. Both Time and Newsweek's August cover stories on Dean dutifully dwelled on the issue of anger. For Republicans the anger angle fit perfectly with the party's plan to attack Dean personally rather than politically. As was true with Gore in 2000, the GOP spin machine is paying less attention to Dean's policy agenda than to his alleged personality defects: "Arrogance" and "anger" are high on that list.

Picking up on the press's handiwork, RNC chairman Ed Gillespie amplified the theme in September, accusing Democratic candidates of using "political hate speech" in their attacks on Bush. Soon the Bush reelection campaign Web site featured an anti-Dean video dubbed, "When Angry Democrats Attack." More recently, a December RNC press release insisted Dean's "Foreign Policy Attack Based on Anger Not Facts." Bush himself sent out a fundraising letter, asking for help fending off "angry attacks" by Democrats. And last week Rush Limbaugh declared Dean to be "mad," "angry" and "fit to be tied."

Lately, it's been hard to tell where GOP spin ends and independent analysis begins. On Dec. 28, the New York Times wrote, "President Bush's campaign has settled on a plan to run against Howard Dean that would portray him as reckless, angry and pessimistic." Two days later a Times headline described Dean as "prickly." On Jan. 3, the paper ran an entire article about Dean's temper.

And yet the anger issue may be fading, perhaps because reporters and pundits haven't actually been able to uncover Dean's temper. As the Times conceded in its obligatory Dean-is-angry article, nobody has seen him explode during this entire campaign. (The Times did manage to detail, secondhand, how years ago as governor, Dean once slammed his fist on a table.)

Despite being publicly attacked by his Democratic rivals, by centrists at the Democratic Leadership Council, by Republicans, and by pundits (last month Slate magazine compared Dean to a "suicide bomber"), the candidate has kept his cool throughout.

More bad news for that beloved press story line: Seventy-six percent of Democrats consider Dean "likable," according to the latest CNN/Time poll. And among the larger pool of respondents, including Republicans and Independents, by a margin of nearly 2-to-1 they consider Dean to be an "optimist," not a "pessimist." (In addition, 40 percent opt for either "moderate" or "conservative" to describe Dean; just 24 percent pick "liberal.") It's the press, egged on by Republican spin and eager to play the role of hardheaded analyst, that has latched onto this notion that Dean is too passionate to be president.

But with the anger angle on the decline, the gaffe narrative is clearly gaining momentum, with obvious echoes of the press's obsession with Gore's exaggerations. Just as there was with Gore, there is often a nugget of fact that gets a much larger press story going: Dean did, in fact, wind up apologizing for his remarks about "wanting to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks," and he's had to spend a lot of time explaining his comment about believing that if Osama bin Laden is caught, he deserves a trial to determine his guilt for 9/11.

But looking at just one staple of the gaffe stories -- Dean's remarks to radio host Diane Rehm about the "theory" that Bush was warned about 9/11 -- shows the way the media has sometimes colluded with the RNC and Republican pundits to distort Dean beyond recognition. When Rehm asked Dean in a Dec. 1 interview why he thought Bush wasn't more forthcoming with the commission investigating the terrorist attacks, Dean replied, "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."

For days Dean's 9/11 comments drew little or no press attention. Reminiscent of Gore's Internet legend "gaffe," it wasn't until the RNC research department stepped in, and conservative outlets hyped the incident, that the story took root in the mainstream press. Dean gave the interview Dec. 1, and it was ignored until Dec. 5, when Charles Krauthammer hyped it in his Washington Post column. On Dec. 7, Chris Wallace pressed Dean about the comment during an interview on "Fox News Sunday." On Dec. 9, the RNC issued a press release ("Dean Sinks to New Low"), hoping to spark more interest in the story. On Dec. 11, Republican-friendly columnist Robert Novak weighed in, citing Krauthammer's column approvingly and condemning Dean for having "neither apologized nor repudiated himself for passing along this urban legend." By Dec. 18, the 9/11 episode had been embraced by reporters, serving as the Post's lead example in a huge Page 1 story about Dean gaffes. Today, the episode is routinely included in media shorthand accounts of Dean verbal miscues.

But if December represented a kind of zenith in Dean-gaffe reporting throughout the media, the Washington Post still managed to stand out, with a month-long negative focus on the Democratic front-runner in its news and Op-Ed pages as well as in lead editorials. It began with Krauthammer's Dec. 5 column, when the columnist, eager to prove Dean mentally unstable, was reduced to doctoring TV transcripts in hopes of transforming humorous banter into paranoid ravings. One week later, Post columnists Richard Cohen and David Broder teed off on Gore on the same day for endorsing Dean. Cohen belittled Gore for having "knifed [Sen. Joe Lieberman] in the back," while Broder dubbed the endorsement "one of the more eccentric developments in modern political history."

_The Post signaled the arrival of gaffes as a big-time theme when the paper went Page 1 on Dec. 18 with an exposé examining Dean's history of "making statements that are mean-spirited or misleading." Worse, huffed the Post, "he made allegations -- some during his years as governor -- that turned out to be untrue." But just as with the Gore exaggeration scandal, some of the paper's proof seemed thin. The story cited a mundane back-and-forth disagreement between Dean and Rep. Gephardt over their competing healthcare proposals, the sort of dispute that's a staple of every presidential campaign, as well as a 6-year-old comment Dean once made about a Vermont farmer who may have had too many cows in his barn. Dean dutifully apologized to the farmer.

That very same day, the editorial page uncorked what ABC News' the Note dubbed "a button-popping, eye-bugging anti-Dean editorial." In it, the Post leveled the ultimate insider insult, labeling the candidate's views on foreign policy "beyond the mainstream," with the paper hinting that Bush's new policy of preventive wars was the new American mainstream. (The next day Dean told reporters voters can believe him "or they can believe the Washington Post.")

Ten days later, the Post flipped the coin on the Dean-is-angry angle and, in an argumentative article, mocked Dean's optimistic campaign call for a return to '60s idealism. The same day, yet another unsigned editorial appeared, informing readers, "We are troubled by aspects of Mr. Dean's character and personality."

Then on Dec. 31, Post columnists rang out the year with a double-fisted round of Dean bashing. "At long last, the revelation I've been waiting for: the reason why -- beyond the prospect of epic, McGovernesque defeat -- I feel so uneasy about Howard Dean," wrote Marjorie Williams. (The answer was he's a doctor.) On the same page came was this nearly identical, McGovern-referencing lead from Harold Meyerson: "I've got this Howard Dean problem, and it's not that I think he's George McGovern. Actually, I think he's John Wayne." (Apparently Post columnist E.J. Dionne never got the memo about Dean; he continues to defend the Democratic front-runner.)

One staple of news and opinion stories that cast Dean as headed for a McGovern-style drubbing is a fair-seeming grounding in Democrats' worries that Dean can't win. But it's worth noting that such stories almost never name these Democrats -- except the other candidates for the nomination -- who are allegedly wringing their hands over Dean. For its 2,800-word cover story last week, Newsweek found just one for an on-the-record quote: former Clinton aide James Carville. Syndicated columnist Novak filled an entire Dec. 22 dispatch about the "Dean dilemma" by referring vaguely to "thoughtful Democrats," "a sage Democratic practitioner," "a party loyalist" and "Democratic savants," all anonymous, who were all sick about Dean's surge. Novak never bothered to tell readers if any of those unnamed Democrats had ties to Dean's campaign competitors.

And yet, with all the focus on electability, most stories seem short on data that proves their thesis. Last week's Time story on Dean seemed to bury its lead, waiting until the 23rd paragraph in a 27-graph story to inform readers that, according to the magazine's own new polling data, Dean trails Bush by just six percentage points in a head-to-head matchup. That, despite a recent wave of good news for Bush on the economic and foreign policy front. It was a key fact that undercut the guts of the Time story (and every other Dean feature of late), which dwelled on doomsday scenarios for the Democrats if Dean is nominated. Others polls have shown the race to be less competitive, but the most recent Newsweek survey conducted Jan 8-9 found Dean trailing Bush by eight percentage points. That's hardly the making of an automatic rout, considering exactly four years ago Gore trailed Bush by 17 points, according to a January 2000 CNN poll.. In the end, of course, Gore earned more votes than Bush.

To be sure, part of this winter's negative press barrage stems from the media's natural push to create a closer, more interesting horse race as votes in Iowa and New Hampshire approach, just as the press worked hard to prop up Sen. Bill Bradley's long shot against Gore in 2000.

On Monday, the Wall Street Journal breathlessly uncovered "signs of shakiness in front-runner Howard Dean's once commanding lead." The proof? A new poll by John Zogby that showed Dean leading Rep. Dick Gephardt by just two points in Iowa. But every pol knows Dean has never held a commanding lead in Iowa, which has always been considered a tossup state, since Gephardt hails from neighboring Missouri. The Journal also vaguely reported that "a separate poll showed retired Gen. Wesley Clark inching closer to Mr. Dean in New Hampshire." Since the paper doesn't bother to say which poll it's citing, perhaps it was the most recent American Research Group tracking survey, which does indeed show Clark inching up ... and still trailing Dean by 16 points. That's not to suggest Dean has the nomination wrapped up. He doesn't. But for some reason the Journal, out to prove Dean's commanding lead is gone, fails to reference his 16-point lead.

After his defeat in 2000, a bitter-sounding Gore talked to the New York Observer about the media's rightward drift, and the way reporters piece together negative narratives for Democrats: "Something will start at the Republican National Committee, inside the building, and it will explode the next day on the right-wing talk-show network. And then they'll create a little echo chamber, and pretty soon they'll start baiting the mainstream media for allegedly ignoring the story they've pushed into the zeitgeist."

In Dean's case, it's a little more complex: Sometimes the narrative starts with the mainstream media and gets picked up by the RNC, sometimes it's the other way around. What's beyond debate is that there's a media echo chamber -- and its focus has been on Dean's flaws. And if the trend continues, more voters may agree with Gore about the rightward bias of the media. In a remarkable poll released Monday, the Pew Research Center found that 29 percent of Democrats think campaign coverage is tilted toward the GOP, up from 19 percent in 2000. If Dean is the nominee and the media trend continues, you can expect that number to jump again sharply by 2008.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

The simple fact is, Colly, the Democrats aren't the party of "tax & spend" and haven't been for a very long time. As I vented somewhere out here (either this or the Political on Your Ass thread), the last time discretionary spending rose as sharply as it has from '00-'03 was '89-'91. It has gone up 39% since Dubya took office. The average annual increase during those tax & spend Clinton years was 3%.

It is one of my biggest pet peeves that somehow the Republican party is still seen as fiscally concervative when it hasn't been for at least the last 20 years.

- Mindy, back on my soapbox. another resolution bites the dust.

ps While I DEFINITELY recognize the pain of being alone politically (I'm a Democrat in Arizona for god's sake! ), I truly do think you need to take a good look at what you believe and then an honest look at party platforms. You are not alone politically. You just don't want to let go of your vision of what each party stands for.

Democrats tax and spend like it's going out of style. I live in NY, I see it on a practically daily basis. Back home every tax increase that came along was championed by the democrats. Unless they changed their colors they still tax and spend. Democrats have solidly opposed tax relief to anyone. G.W.'s plan gives 2/3s of the breaks to 10% of the population, but at least that 1/3 that is left does people a little good here and there. If the dems had had their way even that minor relief wouldn't have occured.

I don't know what descretionary spending is, I will admit my ignorance.

Democrats have been stuck with the tax and spend label because they earned it. I twould take a lot of evidence to convince me they no longer deserve it and even then it would be contrary to what I see here in NY every day.

-Colly

 

[minsue]

Democrats tax and spend like it's going out of style. I live in NY, I see it on a practically daily basis. Back home every tax increase that came along was championed by the democrats. Unless they changed their colors they still tax and spend. Democrats have solidly opposed tax relief to anyone. G.W.'s plan gives 2/3s of the breaks to 10% of the population, but at least that 1/3 that is left does people a little good here and there. If the dems had had their way even that minor relief wouldn't have occured.

I don't know what descretionary spending is, I will admit my ignorance.

Democrats have been stuck with the tax and spend label because they earned it. I twould take a lot of evidence to convince me they no longer deserve it and even then it would be contrary to what I see here in NY every day.

-Colly

Sorry, Colly. I definitely can't speak for your local politicians. I hope they're not as insane as ours. Our Republican Governor & Legislature passed a law giving rebates to anyone who purchased a vehicle that was converted to be able to use alternative fuels. In many cases, the rebates were actually MORE than the cost of the vehicle & conversion combined. There was nothing in the law about actually using these fuels. After hundreds of millions of dollars worth of claims came in for huge SUVs with a tiny tank that could accept enough compressed natural gas to get it about 5 miles, they repealed the law (retroactively) and denyed all claims that weren't already in the process of being paid. The state is still fighting the resulting lawsuits and, partially due to the backlash, Arizona now actually has a Democrat in the Governors office. But I digress....

Discretionary spending is the approximately 1/3 of the budget that isn't Medicare & Social Security. It's everything else.

The main issue I have with the phrase "tax & spend" is the spend part. Yes, W did push through a massive tax cut and yes, a small part of it did relieve the middle class. In order to do so he pissed away an unprecedented THREE TRILLION dollar projected surplus and plunged us back into deficit spending. That is not, IMO, fiscally sound. Raising the spending by 39% in 3 years sure as hell isn't fiscally conservative. His father raised the budget at nearly the same rate. The only politician in recent history to actually balance the budget was Clinton. Damn "tax & spend" Democrat!

- Mindy

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Sorry, Colly. I definitely can't speak for your local politicians. I hope they're not as insane as ours. Our Republican Governor & Legislature passed a law giving rebates to anyone who purchased a vehicle that was converted to be able to use alternative fuels. In many cases, the rebates were actually MORE than the cost of the vehicle & conversion combined. There was nothing in the law about actually using these fuels. After hundreds of millions of dollars worth of claims came in for huge SUVs with a tiny tank that could accept enough compressed natural gas to get it about 5 miles, they repealed the law (retroactively) and denyed all claims that weren't already in the process of being paid. The state is still fighting the resulting lawsuits and, partially due to the backlash, Arizona now actually has a Democrat in the Governors office. But I digress....

Discretionary spending is the approximately 1/3 of the budget that isn't Medicare & Social Security. It's everything else.

The main issue I have with the phrase "tax & spend" is the spend part. Yes, W did push through a massive tax cut and yes, a small part of it did relieve the middle class. In order to do so he pissed away an unprecedented THREE TRILLION dollar projected surplus and plunged us back into deficit spending. That is not, IMO, fiscally sound. Raising the spending by 39% in 3 years sure as hell isn't fiscally conservative. His father raised the budget at nearly the same rate. The only politician in recent history to actually balance the budget was Clinton. Damn "tax & spend" Democrat!

- Mindy

LOL,

A balanced budget is usless when most of the items that are huge expenditures are 'off budget" items.


-Colly

 

[minsue]

LOL,

A balanced budget is usless when most of the items that are huge expenditures are 'off budget" items.


-Colly

If you want to lead the charge to reform Medicare (real reform, not the current won't-help-anyone-and-will-bankrupt-the-system reform) and Social Security, I'll be right there by your side. We probably won't agree on HOW it should be reformed, but what the hell we can fight the good fight together!

- Mindy

 

[Colleen Thomas]

If you want to lead the charge to reform Medicare (real reform, not the current won't-help-anyone-and-will-bankrupt-the-system reform) and Social Security, I'll be right there by your side. We probably won't agree on HOW it should be reformed, but what the hell we can fight the good fight together!

- Mindy

I thinksocial security should work like the postal system. the money should be invested by a third party administrator who may only take his pay if the investments perform up to a certain standard. Congress should be unable to touch the money no matter how cash strapped they are. People should not be able to draw from it unless they have paid into it, with the exception of children, the disabled and legal immirangts who need a helping hand once they relocate.


Medicare I can't answer for you. It's such a mess.

-Colly

 

[minsue]

I thinksocial security should work like the postal system. the money should be invested by a third party administrator who may only take his pay if the investments perform up to a certain standard. Congress should be unable to touch the money no matter how cash strapped they are. People should not be able to draw from it unless they have paid into it, with the exception of children, the disabled and legal immirangts who need a helping hand once they relocate.


Medicare I can't answer for you. It's such a mess.

-Colly

I agree with you on both counts. Does this mean you're a liberal or am I a conservative?!? I'm so confused!!

Wait! I just realized I must still be a liberal because, while I don't have the faintest idea how to fix Medicare at this point, I would support a universal health care system.

- Mindy, breathing a sigh of relief that my commie-pinko-liberal status is still intact.

 

[shereads]

COLLY: Re Paul O'Neill

He lost his credibility with me when he went to work for this shyster to begin with. However, if the book is supported with 19,000 pages of meeting transscripts and internal memos, O'Neill's personal credibility is hardly an issue.

To his credit, one of the first stories I read about the book, The Price of Loyalty, before its publication, acknowledged that O'Neill has never considered himself an enemy of Pres. Bush and was unhappy that so many reviewers were picking up on that phrase.

Have you considered that he might have been being kind when he said likened W's cabinet meetings to "a blind man in a room full of deaf people?" Perhaps the reality is worse.

 

[shereads]

I think Social Security should work like the postal system.

Good god, Colleen. You think employees in the Social Security Administration should periodically freak out and spray their offices with automatic weapons fire?

Would this be termed "going social?"

At any rate, you two are talking about Social Security like it's some kind of federal program. How many times (two, on record) does our President have to explain to you that that's not the case?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I agree with you on both counts. Does this mean you're a liberal or am I a conservative?!? I'm so confused!!

Wait! I just realized I must still be a liberal because, while I don't have the faintest idea how to fix Medicare at this point, I would support a universal health care system.

- Mindy, breathing a sigh of relief that my commie-pinko-liberal status is still intact.

You are still safe Comrade mindy

-Colly

 

[Colleen Thomas]

COLLY: Re Paul O'Neill

He lost his credibility with me when he went to work for this shyster to begin with. However, if the book is supported with 19,000 pages of meeting transscripts and internal memos, O'Neill's personal credibility is hardly an issue.

To his credit, one of the first stories I read about the book, The Price of Loyalty, before its publication, acknowledged that O'Neill has never considered himself an enemy of Pres. Bush and was unhappy that so many reviewers were picking up on that phrase.

Have you considered that he might have been being kind when he said likened W's cabinet meetings to "a blind man in a room full of deaf people?" Perhaps the reality is worse.

You forget luv,

Personal credibility means a lot to me

-Colly