BeldarBlog

Poodles and other first-class bitches

Australian blogger Tim Blair is a favorite of mine, and this post — savaging Maureen Dowd's latest insult to America's "Coalition of the Willing" allies in Iraq, among whom Australia is nobly prominent — is particularly good. 

As of my linking it, Blair's post is up to 137 comments, quite a few of which also are pretty good.  Who knew that so many in Oz still remember the Battle of the Coral Sea?

I've blogged recently about just how slimey MoDo is, and also about how much it bugs me when the President's opponents dis our allies.  But Maureen Dowd's post-State of the Union column yesterday is a new alignment guaranteed to annoy the hell out of me and most of the rest of the civilized world (with the conspicuous and near-sole exceptions of France and Germany):

You wonder how many votes he [Bush] scared off with that testosterone festival: the taunting message, the self-righteous geographic litany of support? The Philippines. Thailand. Italy. Spain. Poland. Denmark. Bulgaria. Ukraine. Romania. The Netherlands. Norway. El Salvador.

Can you believe President Bush is still pushing the cockamamie claim that we went to war in Iraq with a real coalition rather than a gaggle of poodles and lackeys?

A gaggle of poodles and lackeys?  I know this crap was published on an "opinion" page.  But just how far would someone have to go to deliberately insult dozens of our country's allies before the New York Times finally whistled a foul?

The saving grace, as is made absolutely clear by Blair's post and most of his commenters, is that the citizens of our allies like Australia are themselves sufficiently enlightened — sufficiently acquainted with the occasional embarrassing episodes that attend an absolutely unfettered free press — that they can put the rantings of an idiot like Dowd into the appropriate context.  They have their own barking moonbats.  And they understand what it means to say, "Maureen, I'll defend to my death your right to say what you just said.  But sheesh, Maureen, could you possibly be a bigger fool and a bigger tool?"

Dog or blog?

In response to Scheherazade's question, if forced to choose, I'd keep the dog.   I'm not sure that my blogging makes the world a better place or me any happier, but my dog definitely does both.  (Hat-tip to Prof. B.)

Australians rock; MoDo is still slime

Professor Bainbridge quotes and links a compelling piece from Australia's The Age newspaper, written by their New York correspondent, Caroline Overington.  I'd come across the same article before, but what she wrote that jumped off the page at me was something rather different than what Prof. B quoted:

I remember sitting on a small plane, travelling from North Carolina to New York, when the war was a few weeks old. I was reading USA Today and, as I opened it to study a map of Iraq, one half of the newspaper fell into the lap of my fellow passenger. I turned to apologise, but he said: "No problem. Actually, do you mind if I have a look?"

Together we studied the picture, trying to work out how far the Americans were from seizing power. It was clear from the diagrams that troops were near Saddam's airport, and close to the centre of Baghdad. I turned to my seat mate and said: "I don't think this is going to be a long battle, after all."

It was only then that I noticed, with horror, that he had started to cry. And then I noticed something else: a photograph, wrapped in plastic, pinned to his lapel. It was a picture of his 20-year-old son, a young marine who died in the first days of the war. The man's wife was sitting across the aisle from us. She had a round bowl on her lap, filled with water and some drooping tulips. The movement of the aircraft was making the water slop around. She was trying to wipe her hands, and her tears.

The couple told me they had just been to a private meeting with Bush to discuss the loss of their son. At the time, it was already clear that Saddam didn't have any weapons of mass destruction.

"But I never thought it was about the weapons," my seat mate said. And, although I can't remember his exact words, he also said something like: "We have always stood up for freedom, in our own country, and for other people."

(Emphasis added by Beldar.)  The White House has never publicized such meetings, or even permitted the fact that they've taken place to be leaked, ever.  But I'd bet my left arm there have been many such, conducted by the President himself or by his high-level designees.

However, this made me remember a New York Times op-ed written by Maureen Dowd on November 6, 2003, entitled "Death Be Not Loud," that consisted entirely of  character assassination:

Who can blame poor President Bush? Look at his terrible dilemma.

There are those who say the chief executive should have come out of his Texas ranch house and articulated and assuaged the sorrow and outrage and anxiety the nation was feeling on Sunday after the deadliest day in Iraq in seven months. An attack on a Chinook helicopter had killed 15 American soldiers, 13 men and 2 women, and wounded 21.

There are those who say Mr. Bush should have emulated Rudy Giuliani's empathetic leadership after 9/11, or Dad's in the first gulf war, and attended some of the funerals of the 379 Americans killed in Iraq. Or one. Maybe the one for Specialist Darryl Dent, the 21-year-old National Guard officer from Washington who died outside Baghdad in late August when a bomb struck his truck while he was delivering mail to troops. His funeral was held at a Baptist church three miles from the White House.

But let's look at it from the president's point of view: if he grieves more publicly or concretely, if he addresses every instance of bad news, like the hideous specter of Iraqis' celebrating the downing of the Chinook, he will simply remind people of what's going on in Iraq.

So it's understandable why, going into his re-election campaign, Mr. Bush wouldn't want to underscore that young Americans keep getting whacked over there, and we don't know who is doing it or how to stop it.

The White House is cleverly trying to distance Mr. Bush from the messy problem of flesh-and-blood soldiers with real names dying nearly every day, while linking him to the heroic task of fighting global terror.

It's better to keep it vague, to talk about the "important cause" and the "brave defenders" of liberty.

If he gets more explicit, or allows the flag-draped coffins of fallen heroes to be photographed coming home, it will just remind people that the administration said this would be easy, and it's teeth-grindingly hard. And that the administration vowed to get Osama and Saddam and W.M.D., and hasn't. And that the Bush team that hyped the presence of Al Qaeda in Iraq has now created an Al Qaeda presence in Iraq. And that there was no decent plan for the occupation or for financing one, no plan for rotating or supporting troops stretched too thin to guard ammunition caches or police a fractious society, and no plan for getting out.

As the White House points out, Mr. Bush cannot fairly pick and choose which memorial services to go to, or which deaths to speak of.

"If a helicopter were hit an hour later, after he came out and spoke, should he come out again?" Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, told The Times's Elisabeth Bumiller, explaining Mr. Bush's silence after the Chinook crash. The public, he added, "wants the commander in chief to have proper perspective, and keep his eye on the big picture and the ball."

The ball for fall is fund-raising. President Bush has been going full throttle since summer, spending several days a week flying around the country, hitting up rich Republicans for $2,000 checks. He has raised $90 million so far out of the $175 million he plans to spend on a primary campaign in which he has no opponent.

At fund-raisers, Mr. Bush prefers to talk about the uptick in the economy, not the downtick in Iraq. On Monday, arriving for a fund-raiser in Birmingham, he was upbeat, not somber. As Mike Allen of The Washington Post reported in his pool report, "The president, who gave his usual salute as he stepped off Marine One, appeared to start the day in a fabulous mood.... An Alabama reporter who was under the wing shouted, `How long will U.S. troops be in Iraq?' The president gave him an unappreciative look."

Raising $1.8 million at lunch, he stuck to the line that "we are aggressively striking the terrorists in Iraq, defeating them there so we will not have to face them in our own country." He didn't want to depress the donors by mentioning the big news story, the loss of 15 American soldiers, or sour the mood by conceding the obvious, that the swelling horde of terrorists fighting us there will not prevent terrorists from coming after us here. Maybe we should all be like President Bush and not read the papers so we don't get worn down either.

Perhaps the solution to Mr. Bush's quandary is to coordinate his schedule so he can go to cities where he can attend both fund-raisers and funerals.

The law of averages suggests it shouldn't be hard.

If there were perfect justice in the world, Maureen Dowd would have to crawl in sackcloth and ashes to the doorstep of the couple from Ms. Overington's story and give them the opportunity to kick her several times in the abdomen in front of an international television audience.  They'd refuse, of course — and if there were perfect justice in the world, their refusal would only make the burning, bubbling pains running up and down Maureen Dowd's entire GI tract feel worse, much worse, as she crawled on bloody knees back to Times Square from North Carolina.

Steroids and the State of the Union address

Two bloggers I admire and usually agree with, Daniel Drezner and Pejman Yousefzadeh, both ridiculed the portion in the second half of Dubya's State of the Union address last night regarding steroid abuse by professional athletes, and many others in and out of the blogosphere have as well. 

Here's the relevant blurb from the speech itself, with the prior paragraph included for important context about drug-testing in other circumstances:

One of the worst decisions our children can make is to gamble their lives and futures on drugs. Our government is helping parents confront this problem, with aggressive education, treatment, and law enforcement. Drug use in high school has declined by 11 percent over the past two years. Four hundred thousand fewer young people are using illegal drugs than in the year 2001. In my budget, I have proposed new funding to continue our aggressive, community-based strategy to reduce demand for illegal drugs. Drug testing in our schools has proven to be an effective part of this effort. So tonight I propose an additional 23 million dollars for schools that want to use drug testing as a tool to save children's lives. The aim here is not to punish children, but to send them this message: We love you, and we don't want to lose you.

To help children make right choices, they need good examples. Athletics play such an important role in our society, but, unfortunately, some in professional sports are not setting much of an example. The use of performance-enhancing drugs like steroids in baseball, football, and other sports is dangerous, and it sends the wrong message — that there are shortcuts to accomplishment, and that performance is more important than character. So tonight I call on team owners, union representatives, coaches, and players to take the lead, to send the right signal, to get tough, and to get rid of steroids now.

And here's my reply to those who ridiculed this as being inappropriate for a State of the Union address (which I've earlier left in comments on Drezner's and Pej's blogs as well):

Re steroids:

Dubya is indeed a former big-league sports team co-owner, but with the additional credibility of speaking from the best bully pulpit in the universe. With less than one minute in an hour-long speech, he threw down the gauntlet to challenge all sports team owners (and players and unions, but mostly the owners) to take the obvious steps to fix an epidemic. They would have to be nuts to ignore him. Having been so challenged, they can fix the problem if they have the will to do so.

Benefit to the American public, especially the youth who care nothing for politics but look to professional athletes as their role models: Incalculable, but potentially very considerable.

Cost to the American taxpayer: ZERO. New federal agencies required to administer the program: ZERO. Legislation that must be passed to implement the program: ZERO.

Your beef with this is ... ? What, you're pro-steroid? You think the health of America's youth is too trivial an issue to be worth one minute of the State of the Union address?

You guys have no grasp of strategery, and you keep misunderestimating Dubya. One doesn't have to be a nukular physicist to see what Dubya was up to here.

I simply think Dubya is ahead of the curve on this one.

Note, too, in the preceding paragraph that the proposed cash "for schools that want to use drug testing as a tool to save children's lives" is, by federal budget standards, chump change, but more importantly, part of an optional program (unlike testing for No Child Left Behind) for those schools that want it.  That is a small, but important and very sweet, distinction.

'I have a scream' redeemed: Hugh Hewitt has written the best speech Howard Dean will never give

Hugh Hewitt is clever, and sly, and a fine writer to boot when he sets his mind to it.

I take the liberty of copying so liberally from this post of his simply because I think it deserves repetition and preservation.  "Fair use" at its outer edges — and hopefully he'll forgive if it's beyond that point, for my motives are sympathetic (and certainly nonprofit).

Howard Dean almost certainly won't ever make this speech.  But he would if he knew what was good, and good for him.  He'd make it with his sleeves rolled down, his coat on, and his hands folded together atop the lectern in front of him.  He'd actually smile, rather than (as a perceptive reader emailed me) baring his teeth:

Now, about Howard Dean.  Almost everyone has him dead and buried, but as Fred Barnes pointed out last night, there's a debate Thursday night, and that's Dean's big chance to pull a return of the vampire.  He has to use his time to resurrect himself, and at least rehab himself so that a place on the Dem ticket isn't out of the question.  All Dems should hope for this, because the prospect of a column of bitter and heading-Green Dean Dongs isn't pretty when it comes to the fall math.  Dean as Veep is in fact about as good as it gets for Dems, and an Edwards-Dean, Clark-Dean ticket plays most of the notes that need playing (though Hillary can't be happy with that thought.) 

So how does Dean pull it off?  Simply put: Combine self-deprecating humor with anger at the media, which will play on the good humor and fair-mindedness of the non-Dean Dongs while firing up the loyalists.  Here's my draft, but my guess is that every Democratic scribbler not employed by other candidates is working on the same material as we speak:

No matter how the first opportunity to talk Thursday night is presented to Dean, he's got to kidnap that moment to his central purpose of dealing with the Monday-night meltdown:

"Before I get to that, Brit, I'd like to finish the roll call of the states I began on Monday night, and I don't want to forget Guam, so I may need a little more time. (pause for laughter).   I will, however, omit my imitation of a muppet being strangled since I have already given Howard Stern and every right wing kook radio host all the material they ever need. (Pause for laughter).  Seriously though, I have to put your question aside for a moment, and I am going to have to insist on three minutes here, because there's a problem in this country, and it is the political media, and it takes three minutes to outline.  I am sure my colleagues will not begrudge me the time, and I'll give it back later."

"On Monday night I spent 15 seconds trying to fire up my volunteers who had a disappointing night — congratulations John and John, but overconfidence is a dangerous thing, as I've learned — I spent 15 seconds pointing at signs and recognizing people from faraway states who'd driven thousands of miles in some cases to stand on corners in sub-zero temps, and I fire them up and try to show that I am not down for the count because they're not down for the count, and television, radio, Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh and your network, Brit, try to turn me into a deranged psycho. Fred Barnes called me cracked, for goodness sake.  I've been a medical doctor treating crisis cases in emergency rooms for twenty years, and a governor making life and death decisions for ten years, and the American media, threatened by my message that big corporate interests are out of control — and there is no bigger corporate interest than Fox — decides to marginalize me using a quarter minute of tape."

"Now this process of Karl Rove orchestrated, media-led destruction of the loyal opposition has been going on for months now, but it is going to end here in New Hampshire.  The voters of New Hampshire have been around the block a few times, and they know what's going on, and crucially, they know what's at stake. If the media knocks me off, then it will be John Kerry's turn and we will hear endlessly about his protests of the Vietnam War and his quote "French tastes" close quotes, but we won't hear about John's genuine and moving heroism in the face of brutal fire.  We'll hear about John Edwards being a plaintiff's attorney fueled by plaintiff's attorneys all over the country as though serving the severely injured is a bad thing.  We'll hear about General Clark's anonymous enemies in the Pentagon and we'll overlook his leadership in halting genocide.  All of this and more, because all of us threaten the money, Brit, we all threaten the money.  This president has made it very lucrative to be Republican, Brit, and those of us who get wind in our sails come under fire, and its not fair."

"So right at the start, let me say, I am not the most experienced candidate on the stage tonight, but like most doctors, I'm learning fast.  The media had its fun with me, but now its the voters of New Hampshire's turn.  And then it will be the turn of the voters in South Carolina, Arizona, Delaware, oops, there I go again.  But if I may close this way.  I was always an admirer of Maggie Thatcher: She once lectured this president's father that it wasn't a time to go all wobbly. Well, to my supporters and all democrats out there, it isn't a time to go all wobbly.  It is a time to focus on winning this election and that means focus on the passion we need to get the job done."

Yeah, its good stuff.  I did the ghosting thing for a lot of people for a lot of years, and it is easy to rise to a  set-up.  The hardest part for Dean will be handling the emotion well, and forcefully but carefully demanding his time, as Reagan demanded his microphone.  Dean has been taking a beating, and Americans love it when Rocky gets up off the floor and won't stay down just because he looks like hell.  Wait and see.  Wait and see.  It is a real test for Dean, like the real tests of a presidency, so it might be a golden moment.

Comments are open for a few days on this one, if you'd like to ponder in public why Hewitt wrote this.  I definitely have an idea of my own on that score.

Nukular

Dubya always says "nukular," not "nuclear."  In tonight's State of the Union address, he mangled this word about six times in 45 seconds.  This isn't new.  He said "nukular" when he was the governor of Texas and throughout the 2000 campaign.

This undoubtedly annoys a substantial number of potential voters, probably numbering into the millions.

If George W. Bush continually reshaped himself to fit what pollsters tell him about how to avoid turning any voters off, he would stop saying "nukular."  He would find the best speech therapist in the world and hook himself up to electrodes and a videocamera and undergo whatever aversion therapy it took to strike that mispronunciation from his vocabulary.  He'd show up for a speech, and say "nooo-cle-ur" smoothly in a sentence, and every newspaper reporter in the room would flinch and look at each other in surprise.

Some people believe that because Dubya says "nukular" instead of "nuclear," he's stupid.  They'll continue misunderestimating him right into a second term.

And the most spectacularly unsuccessful President of the last half-century was in fact a nuclear engineer in the Navy.  He was very smart, and could say the word correctly, but he chose to squander his time as President on such matters as supervising the schedule for the White House tennis courts.

But for me, strangely, Dubya's mispronunciation of "nuclear" has become comforting.  It's such a small thing, but it's in character.  What you see is what you get; he is by far the most genuine politician I've ever seen, and he doesn't care about this mispronunciation because he has bigger fish to fry.

The primal noise at the conclusion of this sound clip, however, scares me.  What was going through this man's mind when he made that noise?

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

Update (Wed. Jan 21 @ 1pm):  The Curmudgeonly Clerk argues eloquently, with impressive citation of authority, that Dubya's pronunciation of the word is "just as valid" as the "primary or original pronunciation of 'nuclear.'"  I'm persuaded; those who hold a grudge against President Bush for other reasons probably won't be, though.

Update (Wed. Jan 21 @ 3pm):  A commenter on the Clerk's post points out that Prof. Eugene Volokh has also "discussed this ad nausem."  The links are here, here, and here.  Ah, the blogosphere!  Someone emailed Prof. V, by the way, to point out that (contrary to my recollection) Jimmy Cah-tah used the same pronunciation that Dubya does.

Snarky Beldar surveys what the Deaniacs are saying to each other ...

From this thread started on Dean's campaign blog by the semi-famous Zephyr Teachout:

The thing I don't understand is...what happened? The Perfect Storm! All those letters! Dean was ahead of Geppy for so long...all those enthusiastic crowds at the rallies...what happened? How on EARTH could anyone prefer John (johnkerry) Kerry?

I would like to make a joke about voters committing Hairy Kerry, but I don't feel up to it.

John Kerry, by the way, served in Vietnam and looks French.

Thank you, Zephyr.

But note: it's the "enormousness" of what we're doing, not the "enormity." There's a big difference!

Even in tough times, your faithful blog commenters must continue to insist that we use the right words!

Zephyr's sentence that prompted this comment:  "Its painful that it has an effect, but it does have an effect -- there are so many people who have been inspired by the stormers, and by you, and by Dean, but so many others who have never had a chance to really understand the enormity of what you are trying to do." e•nor•mi•ty: "(1) The quality of passing all moral bounds; excessive wickedness or outrageousness. (2) A monstrous offense or evil; an outrage."  I applaud this comment!  I adore usage mavens!  But I'm disappointed that inappropriate apostrophe use (or non-use) apparently is okay in "tough times."

I don't care! Let's all remember that this is just another poll... WE MUST KEEP FIGHTING! Write more letters- better letters- that address the issues and indicate what other campaigns have been trying to do to us... let them know what we stand for! Let them know what they have at stake if we don't get their votes! This is important! DO NOT LET THIS STOP YOU! Do not hang your head! Do not feel ashamed! BE MOTIVATED! If they think Iowa was a fight, they haven't seen anything yet!

DEAN OR DIE!

Yes, more letters, better letters!  Die, you other-candidate-supporters, die!

kerry won so im all done i,=m not voting this years

Speaking just for myself — i,=m still voting this years, but not for Dean.

You people are so weird. You are a tiny little cult of tin-foil hat wearing twenty-somethings in cool glasses. No real democrat wants your guy!!!! Get over it!!!!!! I know many people who say they won't vote if Dean gets the nomination (although that looks unlikely). Start a 3rd party. Please.

This guy gets points from me because he could spell "weird," putting him in the top 0.01 percent of blogosphere comment posters.  However, more than three exclamation points is always excessive.

I have to say, I can't help but be a bit sad. I really thought that we would do much better in Iowa than it looks like we are going to. I have to say, also, that I felt like the Dean campaign kind of implied that we would do better than we have. That isn't to say that I don't still support Dean, I do - strongly. But I have real fear now that all the volunteers, cash and rallies in the world may not be enough to get Dean into office. Maybe Americans are just not quite ready yet for someone who I believe is truly different, truly a man wanting to represent the people, instead of a politician. Maybe the American public would rather stick with the devil they know.

Yes, that's clearly the explanation.  Edwards is possessed by the Devil.  Kerry is the Devil.  Americans are known worldwide as being Satanists.  Dean's mistake was revealing how central his religious faith is to important decisions in his life (e.g., bike-path politics).

Guys...don't panic! This is just the beginning...it's only Iowa. Dean is ahead in lots of other states (30% to 2nd place Gep 16% in MI). Dean has the most money. It's always been the candidate with the most money who is their party's nominee. The other candidates will fizzle without funds! So chill out. Dean is #44!

Such commendable idealism!

I think this is our wake-up call. I got down with the first results, but was inspired to see the Gov speak. This is a movement to change the country, and it will be a long, hard slog.

Losing has one big advantage: the trolls are all at Kerry's blog!

Well, except for the lurkers like me.  I love this:   "long, hard slog."  Another poster later used the same phrase, again without a hint that he intended any irony.  I'm calling QUAGMIRE on these guys!

We did it ! we beat that slime Gephardt!

Yes, and it's quite impressive that the two candidates who wrapped up the organized labor endorsements — Dean and "that slime" — finished a distant third and fourth.  Of course, it is Iowa.

Way to go Iowa!!! Way to vote for buisness as usual. This could have been an oppertunity for real change, but instead you voted for just another MK.1a standard bought and payed for politician.

Remember this moment when the sheep voted for the wolfs.

I donate and continue to work for Dean, but right about now, Canada or Europe looks pretty good.

Again, a genuine American patriot speaks.  You are likely to feel very much at home in Europe, especially in France.

I want to congratulate the winner of the caucus. I am a Howard Dean supporter, he stood up for all of us, the democrats, in time when no other candidate did. John Kerry and all the other candidates do not have my respect. They copy Howard Dean in every aspect, they attacked like gangs our Howard Dean and that is something I never expected coming from the democratic party and something I will never forgive. If Howard Dean get crush by the establishment, the media it is up to the voters to stand up and defend our candidate, otherwise they deserve GWB four more years. I will never stand up for another person unless it is Dean. I we loose in our effort to get our government back, I will unite to the person I am most angry about, George W Bush, and I will give so much money and resources to him until the democratic party gets crush in the general elections. And to MRS. Clinton, we all know you are behind the scene working against HD, so you are the nominee in 2008 but we do not forget and I assure you that the same effort I put in trying to get HD the nomination I will put to try not to nominate you.

That last quote was a post by — I kid you not — "MD for Dean."

Anyone notice on the leaderboard all pics of other candidates smiling and Dean not? Dean needs to smile 75% of the time so they cannot use that "angry Dean" bull.

Hmmm, what about letting Howard be Howard?  Actually, he scares me a whole lot more when he smiles, but that's just me.

Dean must stop letting other people define him! The bashing stuck to him, and it blocked his message from getting through. Now they comment "where is his wife?" What drivel. Howard, don't let them define you. The answer is Howard and his wife ar EXACTLY like millions of working couples in this country; she's a working proffesional soccer mom, not a stuffy 1st lady old fart in pearls. Let he be what she is, no appologies. And when Kery or Liberman steal a platform plank, CALL THEM ON IT! And when they say stupid insulitn comments in a debate, don't answer. Say "Is that the best question you can come up with? Why are my corrospondence records sealed until a judge can review them? Really, Joe, peaople acn see through that kind of nonsense question." HOWARD, DON'T LET OTHERS DEFINE YOU! YOU ARE THE SMART ONE WHO BROUGHT THE DEMOCRATIC DEBATE TO THE LEVEL IT IS AT THIS YEAR. GO HOWARD GO!

I quite agree with that last comment about bringing the Democratic debate to the level it's at.

Yo zeph, babe, love ya, but get a clue. YOUR NAME IS AN IDIOTIC CODE-WORD FOR THE HIPPIES THE RADICAL RIGHT LOVES TO BURY, AND THE "UNIDENTIFIEDS" LOVE TO MARGINILIZE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EVERY STINKIN' TIME YOU POST ON THIS BLOG, WE ARE IDENTIFIED WITH BIRKENSTOK/ VOLVO NITWITS...

LEAVE, NOW. OR CHANGE YOUR NAME TO THAT YOUR PARENTS GAVE YOU. Delete this post and it’s your loss. I’m into the Dr. a significant amount financially.

So what have you got against Birkenstoks or Volvos?  And I wonder if Dean's Secret Service protectors will have to investigate that ominous closing warning.

On the Fourth of July 2003 I first met Gov Howard Dean here in NH. I had a momentary face to face with him and being so inspired after listening to him speak I looked him eye ball to eye ball and said, "Governor, go out there and kick some butt". He looked back at me very seriously, tapped me on my chest with his forefinged and said, "With your help I will"! I have been volunteering since and will continue to do so. I you're in NH we need your help!

Aha.  It's a "forefinged" — and it's clearly dangerous!  That's why he's been pointing it!  "Everyone get down, he's got a forefinged!"

Is anyone listening to me? I'm trying to use capital letters to get attention. IRAQ IS THE KEY! What happened to the pre-war intelligence investigation???

If we let public opinion continue to favor the president on the issue of Iraq, WE WILL LOSE. If we can turn public opinion on Iraq, WE WILL WIN.

IT IS THAT SIMPLE

IF YOU DON'T ACT ON THIS ISSUE, WE WILL LOSE.
(sorry to put so much pressure on you, but DEAN MUST WIN!)

Yes, the path to the Presidency is definitely to make it absolutely clear to every voter in America that Howard Dean, moreso than any other candidate, wanted to keep Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq.

You know who did this to you don't you? The blizzard of historical dirt? The planted hostile questions by hitherto friendly media? Let me give you a hint: He used to be President and you kept him from being impeached.

Well, technically, he was impeached, just not convicted in the Senate.  Small distinction, but it kinda meant that Al Gore didn't run for President from the White House as an incumbent.

Bill Snyder says that it was the capture of Saddam that led to Dean's numbers dropping. Does he believe that the American people are that stupid? Interesting the media would never take any blame in hurting Dean's numbers with the crap they've been reporting. I agree with AZ4Dean, we've got to do something with the media. But what? I'll do anything to get them to stop.

Yes, someone is clearly out of touch with America.  The capture of Saddam obviously made America no safer — and couldn't possibly have harmed the Dean campaign.  In fact, I've heard that Gov. Dean is planning to attend church — er, mosque with Saddam next weekend, and an endorsement is in the works.

1. Dr. Dean needs a make-over...he needs to drop a couple thou on a BEAUTIFUL suit or two...

2. He needs a new hair do...sad to say, but we live in a society that gauges a man in public on his looks...now is the time to step up...

3. Especially when you got 2 guys with good hair and good suits STEALING all your lines...something needs to be done about this...what i don't know...

4. But this is a beuty contest of sorts...let's bump up his physical attributes and then he'll be damn near perfect...

That one was from "wende in sf," in case you're wondering.

If there is problem here, it is not with us -- it is with the people of Iowa. It seems they don't appreciate real class when they see it.

Yes, it's the S-factor.

It struck me when on CNN, Bob Dole mentioned that Pat Robertson had come in second in Iowa: Iowans are really crazy people. I hate to put down the people in a whole state, but lets be serious. When the people of Massachusetts, where Kerry is a Senator, also prefer Howard Dean it should tell you something. Kerry cannot win in November.

The fact that Iowans have decided to have this crazy caucus system shows how little respect they have for actual democracy.

I agree with Howard Dean. We got our ticket. We have come through the mad house. Now on to the real states where everyone isn't so psychotic.

Psychotic Iowans.  Heh.  That would explain all the plane-loads of cornfed blonde people flying to Syria to sneak across the border into Iraq to fight democracy.  Yup.

Now Kerry will get front runner title and the media will start calling him the northeastern liberal. They will uncover his banking connections and telecommunication deals. They will find things out about his voting record. They will attack his hair. It will help to take the heat off of Dean for awhile.

How can the Dean campaigners win in New Hampshire unless they can decide whether John Kerry has good hair or bad hair?

I was just remembering a piece of history that may resonate for some of you. In December of 1777, Washington's troops at Valley Forge were hungry, cold, ragged, and cramped. "An army of skeletons appeared before our eyes naked, starved, sick and discouraged," wrote New York's Gouverneur Morris of the Continental Congress. The Marquis de Lafayette wrote: "The unfortunate soldiers were in want of everything; they had neither coats nor hats, nor shirts, nor shoes. Their feet and their legs froze until they were black, and it was often necessary to amputate them." Six months later they were a disciplined, self-confident, and dignified legion. Let's all remember that Revolutions don't happen easily or overnight. And none of us is naked, frozen or starving. We march on, we march on, and we don't stop until we win.

This one surprises me.  How could someone know this much about America's history, take obvious pride in it — and yet still support the candidate who would have left Saddam in power in Iraq?

Fascinating stuff, though.  I love the internet.

The Pickering appointment

All of the Democratic Presidential candidates have condemned President Bush's recess appointment of Charles Pickering to the Fifth Circuit, including some who were among the unanimous US Senate that voted to confirm him to seat on the US District Court in Mississippi he's vacating.   But as usual, Howard Dean was the farthest over the top in his criticism:

"I think the president's appointment of Charles Pickering to a recess appointment is an ultimate hypocrisy," Dean said while campaigning in Iowa. "Yesterday he went and saluted Dr. King's birthday. Today he appoints a racist to the Supreme Court."

Dean immediately corrected himself, saying he meant to say the federal bench, not the Supreme Court.

Yet I wonder whether Gov. Dean can share with us even one incident from his own personal life in which he's ever displayed the kind of personal courage in support of civil rights that Charles Pickering has:

In 1966, Sam Bowers, the Scripture-quoting imperial wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, led a gang of Klansmen to firebomb the home of Hattiesburg NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer, killing him.

Pickering, then serving as Jones County prosecutor, could have avoided the trial, as the slaying took place in a neighboring county. But Jim Dukes, the prosecutor who presented the case against Bowers, asked his colleague to testify to Bowers' violent character, and Pickering agreed — despite the risk of Klan reprisals.

"He was putting himself at risk of bodily harm, social ostracism and economic destruction," Dukes said. "These were turbulent times, and testifying against the Klan was not a popular thing to do."

Pickering lost a race for a state House seat later that year. Bowers -- whose trial ended in a hung jury and who was not convicted until 1998 -- took credit for beating him.

I defy Dean, NY Sen. Chuck "Fingered in the Eye" Schumer, or anyone else to read the article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution from which I copied this blurb, plus two related articles, and then to argue with a straight face that Charles Pickering is a racist.  (Throw this article into the mix as well.)

Of course, if you don't give a flying fig about the facts and all you want to do is oppose and thwart the President at every turn, then you're perfectly willing to distort and slander the record of a good man in the process.  These people have no shame, and Dean and Schumer in particular are race-baiting demagogues.