Posted on 12/19/2003 6:43:41 AM PST by NYC Republican
Over in Deanland, the front-runner is starting to take some serious heat. The New York Times wins the award for today's most obvious headline with, "Some Democrats Uneasy About Dean as Nominee." That's some scoop.
It's clear, however, the split in the seams of the Democratic party is growing wider by the day, and Howard Dean is the one who is doing the pulling.
Yesterday he not only repeated his widely criticized remark that America is no safer after Saddam's capture, but he went one whopper further, saying the country is no safer today than it was on Sept. 10, 2001.
The statement is demonstrably false by any measure and wildly out of touch with reality. I'd be willing to bet that 90% or more of all Americans would disagree with it.
But here's the real genius behind Dean's strategy and his hold on the nomination: to refute this lie one must give at least tacit credit to the Bush administration for making the country safer. That's something the hard left of the party base is not willing to do.
When any one of Dean's rivals try to hammer him for making such ridiculous statements Dean strikes back hard, as he did yesterday, leveraging the Bush-hating emotion in the party to bludgeon his opponents:
After several days of brushing off his rivals with a few glib asides, Dean responded with a denunciation that lumped Bush together with his Democratic opponents — or, as he called them, the "Washington politics-as-usual club."
"I think the Democratic Party has to offer a clear alternative to the American people," Dean said in remarks hastily tacked onto the beginning of a long-planned speech on domestic policy at the Manchester City Library. "We must make it clear the capture of one very bad man does not mean that this president — or the Washington Democrats — can declare victory in the war on terror."
Dean's campaign has been so resilient to this point because he now embodies the anti-Bush rage of the left with an almost Messianic completeness. To now disagree with Dean - even when he tell such a monstrous, laughable lie - is to be a heretic.
DEAN TELLS IT LIKE IT IS - AND LIKE IT ISN'T: One other Dean note. Follow the logic from this story in Newsday, where Dean responds to criticisms of his "George Bush knew about 9/11" remarks:
Bush called the comment "an absurd insinuation" Monday.
One of Dean's rivals, Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), yesterday likened the comment to rumor mongering. "If you are unsure about a rumor, you shouldn't be spreading it," he said.
Dean defended his comment Tuesday, saying it was no different from what the Bush administration did during the run-up to the Iraq war.
"The difference is that I acknowledged that I did not believe the theory that I was putting out," he said.
In recent days, Gephardt and Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) have said Dean lacks credibility and experience.
Rivals have been especially critical of Dean's assertion Monday that the capture of Saddam Hussein had not made America safer.
On the plane, Dean said he personally wrote that line. "If I think something is true, I say it," he said.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave.
Guess: The Eyebrowless One will be the nominee. (IMO, The Wicked Witch is unelectable, but she still might be able to power-push herself in there.)
Ah!.. this is just preparation banter for Hillary as VeeP or whatever else she wants... Is Weasly really stupid enough to go for Hillary as Veep.. climbing around in her web like that..
Answer: Weasly male black widow - Hillary female black widow, He has no choice..
Nicely phrased.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.