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Howard Dean is former Stockbroker, his father ran Dean Witter Stocks, now he is anti-capitalist
Salon.com ^ | January 10, 2003 | Scott

Posted on 01/10/2004 7:34:24 AM PST by TheEaglehasLanded

A little fact is a dangerous thing Since I'm talking on Saturday at BloggerCon about blogs and journalism, I've been thinking about what seems to me to be the central issue in this field: trust. Here is a semi-formed essay -- consider it a sort of notes-in-progress.

Three weeks ago, reading a New York Times "Political Memo" piece (9/7/03) by Adam Nagourney, my eyes scanned the following sentence: "Perpetuating a widely circulated myth, a senior adviser to a Dean rival recently sent an e-mail message saying, 'You do know that he is the Dean of Dean Witter, don't you?' He is not."

It was the "He is not" that grabbed me: Its definitive tone. Its absence of attribution (no linking to supporting evidence possible in a newspaper, of course). Its assumption that the reader would simply accept its assertion. And my own willingness as a reader to accept it.

Because I did, the first time I read the piece. I trusted it. I didn't ask, "Sez who? How do you know? Why should I trust you?" Which are the questions I would almost certainly have asked had I found such a statement on a Web page. I trusted it based on my years of experience reading the Times, on my faith in its still-formidable (Jayson Blair affair notwithstanding) editing apparatus, on my belief that the people who work at the Times are (mostly) devoted to getting the facts right.

But then I started wondering. And I got curious for myself. So I started poking around, using the same search tools available to everyone. And this is what I found.

If you search Google for "Howard Dean Witter" you will find a profusion of blogs and pages posted by people who don't like Dean saying snide things about how he's the Dean of Dean Witter. Many of them point to an August column by Jimmy Breslin which asserts that "His father was the head of Dean Witter stocks on Wall Street." Comments posted here and there by Dean supporters challenge this statement by pointing out that Dean Witter is not a firm founded by Messrs. Dean and Witter; rather, a guy named Dean (first name) Witter (last name) gave his name to the company when he founded it in 1924.

Ahh -- so Breslin got this wrong, the anti-Dean bloggers spread the bad meme, then others corrected the record, and Nagourney closed the case, right?

Not so fast. If you keep poking through the factual detritus on the Web you eventually find that Howard Brush Dean Jr., the candidate's late father (he died in 2001), was a successful stockbroker. And Time reports that the firm he worked for, and indeed was a "top executive" at, was none other than Dean Witter (known at that point in its corporate evolution as Dean Witter Reynolds).

Assuming that Time can be trusted on that, as far as I can tell, we have the following facts: *Howard Dean's Deans are not the Deans who founded Dean Witter; BUT *Howard Dean's father was a top executive at Dean Witter.

In other words, Breslin and Nagourney were both technically accurate. Breslin's statement "His father was the head of Dean Witter stocks on Wall Street" seems factually contradictory to Nagourney's flat-out dismissal of the "myth" that "he is the Dean of Dean Witter." But it is quite likely -- unless I have completely bungled this little inquiry -- that both are right.

The purpose of this exercise is not to cast aspersions on Dr. Dean for his stockbrokerly upbringing. My point is that facts in political debate are always at the service of perspective. "Facts all come with points of view," as David Byrne sang 20 years ago. Facts are not the endpoint but rather the starting point for a political argument. But too often -- among bloggers like everywhere else -- we use them as a way to close off debate. "You're wrong," we say; or, worse, "you're lying."

We like to cordon off "fact" from "opinion" in our brains, but there is no bright sharp line between them. A fact can mislead depending on what other facts it is or is not juxtaposed with. (Jay Rosen has a good piece about this in relation to the hoary question of whether blogs are reporting or opinion.) Opinions need facts to give them persuasive heft, but facts need opinions to give them meaning. We all have lots of both. It's how we integrate them that counts.

One way of defining honesty is this: Honesty is the quality of accepting new facts even when they run against your opinions. And that quality is what earns trust -- whether you're a professional journalist, a blogger, or any combination thereof.


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2004; deanwitter; father; howarddean; stockbroker
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Very Interesting, this is the most hypocritical thing about the Dems, they make their money or have it giving to them by their parents from the capitalist system. When companies and small business are hiring they take the credit for the jobs created.

But anything that business does wrong they blame the Republicans even when they have associations with the same companies, ex Enron, Global Crossing, Loral Space. Then these companies become their political opponents for the most part

1 posted on 01/10/2004 7:34:25 AM PST by TheEaglehasLanded
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To: All
Without the support of Freeper donations, Free Republic would go belly-up, leaving guys like The French Gynecologist to be unopposed. And we can't have that!
2 posted on 01/10/2004 7:34:56 AM PST by Support Free Republic (If Woody had gone straight to the police, this would never have happened!)
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To: TheEaglehasLanded
Salon is still in business?
3 posted on 01/10/2004 7:39:04 AM PST by Drango (NPR is the tax funded propaganda wing of the DNC.)
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To: TheEaglehasLanded
This is what we call the Hypocarsy of Limousine Liberals.
Howard Dean is the ultimate personification of a Limousine Liberal. He was born, brought up, and lives like one of them. They talk about the problems of the poor in their decadent cocktails parties. While they are debating what type of expensive wines they are drinking and which is better caviar to eat, they discuss how they can ensure that the poor stay poor, totally dependent on the government. More importantly is how to scare poor people of the “nasty rich Republicans” and make sure they get all their votes to protect them from these evil rich Republicans.
4 posted on 01/10/2004 7:41:59 AM PST by jveritas
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To: jveritas
But but but......really......his mom said they were ordinary people.....they didn't treat their servants like servants!!!!

What to make of that insipid statement, I have no idea!

5 posted on 01/10/2004 8:07:55 AM PST by OldFriend (Always understand, even if you remain among the few)
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To: TheEaglehasLanded
Maybe the 'turn' is not philosohical; maybe Dean grew up not liking his Father.
6 posted on 01/10/2004 8:08:55 AM PST by cricket
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To: jveritas
Howard Brush Dean III, child of privilege, Birkenstock doc, and beneficiary of some $3.8 million in trust funds, equities and financial instruments, is the epitome of the "limosine liberal". Except that he eschews the limosines, and lives in the apparent "genteel poverty" of a country doctor persona. This, then, makes him a "man of the people", and as such, gives him a patina of being a populist.

Young Ho-Ho Dean was on schedule to become a stockbroker himself, but apparently he had some daddy issues, and left the business to pursue medical training and ski trips. Unable to get a residency in New York City, he accepted one in Vermont, and established his credentials there. Once he had his practice established (with Dr. Judith Steinberg), he found his afternoons to be at loose ends. He dabbled in politics, taking on the job of lieutenant governor for a couple years, until the governor at the time had the bad judgment to die in office, and Dr. Dean assumed the duties. He was elected in his own right in the next election, and the honorable post of governor became a long-held suzerainy, at least until the job got boring. Dean jumped all over the political spectrum while in elective office, at times seeming to be a law-and-order martinet, and other times taking the most outrageously radical of proposals and making it his own.

The man has a whim of iron. And the logical consistency of trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.
7 posted on 01/10/2004 8:12:59 AM PST by alloysteel
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To: TheEaglehasLanded
"Very Interesting, this is the most hypocritical thing about the Dems, they make their money or have it giving to them by their parents from the capitalist system. When companies and small business are hiring they take the credit for the jobs created. "

Conversely, my friend from high school who is still a democrat thinks I am a traitor because my father was a blue collar, democrat. And, I remember the uproar when Clarence Thomas broke away from the liberal plantation despite the fact that he may have benefited from affirmative action. My answer; you only live once and you have to stand for something.
8 posted on 01/10/2004 8:16:59 AM PST by reed_inthe_wind (That Hillary really knows how to internationalize my MOJO.)
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To: alloysteel
That should be SUZERAINTY
9 posted on 01/10/2004 8:24:00 AM PST by UB355
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To: TheEaglehasLanded
A recent piece in the Wall Street Journal also said that Dean's father was a high-up member of Dean Witter Reynolds, and while pointing out that the "Dean" in the firms name was just a coincidence.

Dean the current politician also worked as a broker for a short time in his youth, according to that article. He is a child of privilege. And unlike the case of G.W. Bush, there are no signs that he broke away from this family background and made it on his own. Instead, he became what the Marxists call a typical late-decadent scion of capitalist parents.
10 posted on 01/10/2004 8:32:41 AM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: OldFriend
" but but......really......his mom said they were ordinary people.....they didn't treat their servants like servants!!!!"

. . .we can only make of this, the truth of what it says.

While they thought of their 'servants' as no more than 'servants'; they virtuously determined to treat them like human beings. . .and here I thought maybe Dean did not like his Father and so became the anti-cpitalist; when his Mother reveals herself and perhaps 'Father as well'. . .to be genuinely Liberal at heart. This might have been the beginnings. . .

Reminds me of the story of the Fonda 'children' refusing to be served dinner by the. . .servants. . . .

They could not see them as just people. . .human beings, who took pride in their job; valued their work; and who were happy to be gainfully employed. They thought, that 'dignity' was theirs to bestow by seeing them first, as no more than menial 'servants'.

Libs are forever blinded by their own arrogance of their place in the order of the world.

11 posted on 01/10/2004 8:32:56 AM PST by cricket
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To: alloysteel
Excellent thumbnail sketch.

Unfortunately, it is also the blue print liberals aspire to emulate.

12 posted on 01/10/2004 8:35:31 AM PST by FreedomFarmer (WARNING: Exceeds RDA of Acerbic Acid!)
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To: Drango
Salon is still in business?

That was my first thought, too. I guess they are.
13 posted on 01/10/2004 8:36:54 AM PST by summer
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To: TheEaglehasLanded
Last night I was watching "The Princess Bride" and when they were in the tree swamp they were attacked by some large ugly rat creatures. I swear, they looked like Howard Dean. Really, check it out!
14 posted on 01/10/2004 8:44:29 AM PST by fish hawk
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To: UB355
That should be SUZERAINTY

I stand corrected. But it certainly reflects how many liberals feel about elective office, especially after having been re-elected by lop-sided margins several times. Not a plantation system, but clearly with many elements of a feudal system.

15 posted on 01/10/2004 8:52:37 AM PST by alloysteel
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To: TheEaglehasLanded
Reading this article brought to mind Joe Kennedy. Talk about hypocritical. Old Joe played the stock market fast and loose in the 20's and then FDR made him head of the SEC with the job of cleaning up the investment business. His fellow traders could not believe it. Now his youngest son, Teddy, is the ultimate liberal. Truth is truly stranger than fiction.
16 posted on 01/10/2004 8:57:18 AM PST by Uncle Hal
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To: OldFriend
But but but......really......his mom said they were ordinary people.....they didn't treat their servants like servants!!!!
What to make of that insipid statement, I have no idea!

=========================================

It's sort of like year and years ago LBJ, his mother tagging along, was giving "the media" a tour of his Texas ranch/estate. He proudly pointed to a little shack not too far from where they stood.

"And you see that over there,boys?" he said. "That's where I was born."

His horrified mother exclaimed, "How can you say that? You know you were born in the main house!"

To which LBJ just grinned at the reports and shrugged his shoulders. LOL, which just goes to prove there really is nothing new under the sun.

17 posted on 01/10/2004 9:02:49 AM PST by yankeedame ("Oh, I can take it but I'd much rather dish it out.")
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To: TheEaglehasLanded
"One way of defining honesty is this: Honesty is the quality of accepting new facts even when they run against your opinions. And that quality is what earns trust -- "

Would like to enlarge upon your definition. . .IMHO, honesty comes from, I think, a quality of truthfull 'being'; without which one would not/could not appreciate or recognize the truth, no matter how it is presented.

It is a quality, which enables one to be committed to the 'truth' of all things; according to our lights, so to speak. . .

. . .and from that we see, and trust, the honest man . . .

That said, honesty and truth seem to have little, if any relevance, for those who now define the Democrat Party. And no relevance, whatsoever, to the 'Liberal Left'. . .we surely cannot be surprised that Dean is a 'truth challenged' candidate. . .

18 posted on 01/10/2004 9:07:57 AM PST by cricket
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To: TheEaglehasLanded
Howard Dean is former Stockbroker, his father ran Dean Witter Stocks, now he is anti-capitalist

Not really.
Like most leaders of anti-capitalism movements, Dean wants everyone else (except
his buddies) to be anti-capitalist!

Just like there is plenty of profit to be made when you are the only person
with sight in the land of the blind.
19 posted on 01/10/2004 9:10:47 AM PST by VOA
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To: TheEaglehasLanded
Shhhhh! We have got to get this guy nominated. Save this for when he is the Democratic Presidential Candidate.
20 posted on 01/10/2004 10:11:06 AM PST by peter the great
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