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The Mysterious Stranger
The New York Times ^ | 12/09/03 | David Brooks

Posted on 12/08/2003 10:19:11 PM PST by Pokey78

My moment of illumination about Howard Dean came one day in Iowa when I saw him lean into a crowd and begin 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. Yet he said it with conviction. He said it uninhibited by any fear that someone might laugh at or contradict him.

It was then that I saw how Dean had liberated himself from his past, liberated himself from his record and liberated himself from the restraints that bind conventional politicians. He has freed himself to say anything, to be anybody.

Other candidates run on their biographies or their records. They keep policy staff from their former lives, and they try to keep their policy positions reasonably consistent.

But Dean runs less on biography than any other candidate in recent years. When he began running for president, he left his past behind, along with the encumbrances that go with it. As governor of Vermont, he was a centrist Democrat. But the new Dean who appeared on the campaign trail — a jarring sight for the Vermonters who knew his previous self — is an angry maverick.

The old Dean was a free trader. The new Dean is not. The old Dean was open to Medicare reform. The new Dean says Medicare is off the table. The old Dean courted the N.R.A.; the new Dean has swung in favor of gun control. The old Dean was a pro-business fiscal moderate; the new Dean, sounding like Ralph Nader, declares, "We've allowed our lives to become slaves to the bottom line of multinational corporations all over the world."

The philosopher George Santayana once observed that Americans don't bother to refute ideas — they just leave them behind. Dean shed his upper-crust WASP self, then his centrist governor self, bursting onto the national scene as a mysterious stranger who comes out of nowhere to battle corruption.

The newly liberated Dean is uninhibited. A normal person with no defense policy experience would not have the chutzpah to say, "Mr. President, if you'll pardon me, I'll teach you a little about defense." But Dean says it. A normal person, with an eye to past or future relationships, wouldn't compare Congress to "a bunch of cockroaches." Dean did it.

The newly liberated Dean doesn't worry about having a coherent political philosophy. There is a parlor game among Washington pundits called How Liberal Is Howard Dean? One group pores over his speeches, picks out the things no liberal could say and argues that he's actually a centrist. Another group picks out the things no centrist could say and argues that he's quite liberal.

But the liberated Dean is beyond categories like liberal and centrist because he is beyond coherence. He'll make a string of outspoken comments over a period of weeks — on "re-regulating" the economy or gay marriage — but none of them have any relation to the others. When you actually try to pin him down on a policy, you often find there is nothing there.

For example, asked how we should proceed in Iraq, he says hawkishly, "We can't pull out responsibly." Then on another occasion he says dovishly, "Our troops need to come home," and explains, fantastically, that we need to recruit 110,000 foreign troops to take the place of our reserves. Then he says we should not be spending billions more dollars there. Then he says again that we have to stay and finish the job.

At each moment, he appears outspoken, blunt and honest. But over time he is incoherent and contradictory.

He is, in short, a man unrooted. This gives him an amazing freshness and an exhilarating freedom.

Everybody talks about how the Internet has been key to his fund-raising and organization. Nobody talks about how it has shaped his persona. On the Internet, the long term doesn't matter, as long as you are blunt and forceful at that moment. On the Internet, a new persona is just a click away. On the Internet, everyone is loosely tethered, careless and free. Dean is the Internet man, a string of exhilarating moments and daring accusations.

The only problem is that us rural folk distrust people who reinvent themselves. Many of us rural folk are nervous about putting the power of the presidency in the hands of a man who could be anyone.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Vermont
KEYWORDS: davidbrooks; howarddean
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To: Howlin
Will do.
41 posted on 12/09/2003 6:34:41 PM PST by MEG33
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To: Howlin
There was a thread in the last day or two discussing Dean, and in the article it mentioned that Dean had been attending a Presbyterian(? not sure, but it was a mainline denomination) church, but left that denomination because of a disagreement over a bike trail. Really.
42 posted on 12/09/2003 6:42:41 PM PST by Diddle E. Squat (www.firethebcs.com, www.weneedaplayoff.com, www.firemackbrown.com, www.firecarlreese.com)
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To: Howlin
Found it: Democrat Howard Dean 'thinks' he's a thinker (George Will)

In the 4th paragraph.

"So, the argument about the public meaning of marriage is merely a semantic quibble important only to the "pretty religious"? Dean has said of his faith that "I don't think it informs my politics," and that he became a Congregationalist "because I had a big fight with a local Episcopal church about 25 years ago over a bike path." Fine. His faith, whatever it is, is his business and no disqualification for the presidency. But his qualifications supposedly include a searching intellect. Where is the evidence?

43 posted on 12/09/2003 6:50:48 PM PST by Diddle E. Squat (www.firethebcs.com, www.weneedaplayoff.com, www.firemackbrown.com, www.firecarlreese.com)
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To: Diddle E. Squat
Actually I believe that Dean was born a Catholic.
44 posted on 12/09/2003 6:53:44 PM PST by Diddle E. Squat (www.firethebcs.com, www.weneedaplayoff.com, www.firemackbrown.com, www.firecarlreese.com)
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To: Howlin
But raised Joe Piscapo-lian, according to this article in the American prospect:

http://www.prospect.org/print/V14/10/franke-ruta-g.html

Starting 6 paragraphs from the end of the article:

"Dean's own conversion to Congregationalism was a more mundane political affair. He'd been christened as a Catholic and was raised Episcopalian. But he converted to the local Vermont religion as a consequence of his battle to make over the shoreline. "I had a big fight with a local Episcopal church about 25 years ago over the bike path," he told This Week with George Stephanopoulos in September. "We were trying to get the bike path built. They had control of a mile and a half of railroad bed, and they decided they would pursue a property-rights suit to refuse to allow the bike path to be developed." Dean eventually talked church leaders out of the lawsuit, recalls Sharp, but other railroad neighbors refused to budge and litigated the case all the way to U.S. Supreme Court.

The effort to restore the Lake Champlain shoreline was a turning point for Dean in his transformation from New Yorker to Vermonter: At the same moment, he both adopted the local faith and became involved in local politics. To this day, Dean remains devoted to the idea of local freedoms, local governing solutions and local control. He supports the assault-weapons ban, but other than that, prefers each state to draft its own gun-control laws -- a position that's earned him an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association. He signed the court-ordered civil-unions law in Vermont -- indeed, one lesbian couple in the suit that led to the law belong to the same Congregationalist church as Dean -- but does not favor any federal law on marriage. He's ferociously opposed to unfunded mandates that make impositions on state governments, such as the No Child Left Behind Act. "

A CBS source about his cafeteria religious journey: http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:TJD5uMVzbWAJ:www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/21/60II/main579140.shtml+congregationalist+episcopalian+catholic+%22howard+dean%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
45 posted on 12/09/2003 6:59:07 PM PST by Diddle E. Squat (www.firethebcs.com, www.weneedaplayoff.com, www.firemackbrown.com, www.firecarlreese.com)
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To: MEG33
This is a devastating piece for any dem who is paying attention to read.Gore endorsed this today??

Dems can pay attention? I thought they all had ADAD.
Atrophied Democrat Attention Disorder.

Just another reason, A GOOD REASON Gore is NOT our President.
46 posted on 12/09/2003 7:05:06 PM PST by tet68
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To: Howlin
"he gave up his church for a bike path Explain, please

Answer below:

"Dean's own conversion to Congregationalism was a more mundane political affair. He'd been christened as a Catholic and was raised Episcopalian. But he converted to the local Vermont religion as a consequence of his battle to make over the shoreline. "I had a big fight with a local Episcopal church about 25 years ago over the bike path," he told This Week with George Stephanopoulos in September. "We were trying to get the bike path built. They had control of a mile and a half of railroad bed, and they decided they would pursue a property-rights suit to refuse to allow the bike path to be developed." Dean eventually talked church leaders out of the lawsuit, recalls Sharp, but other railroad neighbors refused to budge and litigated the case all the way to U.S. Supreme Court.

From Independents for Dean

47 posted on 12/09/2003 7:15:50 PM PST by shrinkermd (i)
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To: RichardW; bdeaner
Dean article.FYI
48 posted on 12/09/2003 7:34:48 PM PST by MEG33
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To: MEG33

Diagnostic criteria for 300.14 Dissociative Identity Disorder
(cautionary statement)
 

A. The presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states (each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self). 

B. At least two of these identities or personality states recurrently take control of the person's behavior. 

C. Inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness. 

D. The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., blackouts or chaotic behavior during Alcohol Intoxication) or a general medical condition (e.g., complex partial seizures). Note: In children, the symptoms are not attributable to imaginary playmates or other fantasy play.

Reprinted with permission from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision.  Copyright 2000 American Psychiatric Association

49 posted on 12/09/2003 7:58:53 PM PST by bdeaner
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To: autoresponder
Dean runs as the "looney-leftist".

O'Reilly had a segment on Dean tonight, and how he has made totally opposing statements on four vital issues, one of which is gun control. He was really 'pinning down' the Dem strategist, who was just 'spinning'.

50 posted on 12/09/2003 8:21:11 PM PST by potlatch (Whenever I feel 'blue', I start breathing again.)
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To: potlatch
Dean conned the NRA for years to get their highest ratings

Now he turns on them and the NRA has photos, documents, video, audio in abundance

Dean's sucess so far as the weirdest and far leftist while his PR pimps call him a "Conservative" and a "Centrist" attest to the abismally low IQs of dim/libs

algore will use Dr. Deanmento like a playtoy to slap the Clintons around and attempt to re-establish some semblance of credibility for himself and then walk away from loser Dean and appear the "Master Statesman"

Ready to save the dims in 2004 with a draft or run again in 2008

Lotsa Perotista-Bush #41 type anger in algore against the Clintons and algore is the type of jerk who will play the Taft/Harriman losing hand into oblivion.

algore looks as bad as Hillary now; by 2008 they will need bags over their heads

Booze & drugs will do it every time

Expect an XXHD response from Hill & Bill in some way soon

They do not take these opponents kindly to say the least



51 posted on 12/09/2003 8:44:22 PM PST by autoresponder (<html> <center> <img src="http://0access.web1000.com/HV.gif"> </center> </html> HILLARY SHOOTS!)
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To: Pokey78
He changes his color and sheds his skin,
and he'll tell you anything to win.

Like Al Gore, Dean's a graduate of Chameleon Tech with a major in Plastic Wood.
52 posted on 12/09/2003 8:55:53 PM PST by auboy (I'm out here on the front lines, sleep in peace tonight–American Soldier–Toby Keith, Chuck Cannon)
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To: Pokey78
How is it that one can deceive himself as to who he actually is?Will this same person deceive himself into thinking this country is free from those who want it destroyed?
53 posted on 12/09/2003 9:10:02 PM PST by tapatio
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To: tapatio
Howard Dean is the "Chock Full of Nuts" brand of politician!
54 posted on 12/09/2003 9:16:56 PM PST by tapatio
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To: bdeaner; Howlin; Calpernia; onyx; MeeknMing; tet68
This is is hoot!(unless the worst possible thing happens!)
55 posted on 12/09/2003 9:46:22 PM PST by MEG33
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To: MEG33
cross linking: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1037338/posts
56 posted on 12/09/2003 9:48:37 PM PST by Calpernia (Innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does.)
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To: Pokey78
Interesting...from the New York Times.
57 posted on 12/09/2003 9:51:54 PM PST by Hildy
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To: Calpernia; onyx; tet68; Howlin
#49 is what I was referring to..I forgot to note it!
58 posted on 12/09/2003 9:56:20 PM PST by MEG33
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To: autoresponder
algore looks as bad as Hillary now; by 2008 they will need bags over their heads

I can't tell, is this Al or Shrillary??


59 posted on 12/09/2003 10:39:03 PM PST by potlatch (Whenever I feel 'blue', I start breathing again.)
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To: MEG33; Howlin
LOL! #49 --- seems accurate to me. Dem damn dems did me in --- I was sound asleep before 9:00pm Pacific!
60 posted on 12/10/2003 3:34:01 AM PST by onyx
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