Posted on 01/24/2003 12:26:11 PM PST by ewing
Dark horse Democratic Presidential contender Howard Dean opened fire Thursday on one of his rivals for the 2004 nomination, Mass. US Senator John Kerry, for voting to authorize President Bush to us military force against Iraq.
Dean questioned Kerry's vote to give Bush what he called 'blank check to go to war.'
Dean jibes came in response to a foreign policy address by Kerry at Georgetwon University in Washington in which the Mass. Senator urged Bush to use caution before resorting to force against Iraq.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
In our November 9, 2001 edition in our commentary "The Case for President Dean," we wrote, "He has a Gore-like tendency to exaggerate and use inappropriate superlatives. DPR was astounded when first attending Dean's press conferences that the media never called him on his exaggerated speech. They must have all become used to and inured to it. But such will not be the case when he hits the national press."
Alas, the prophecy comes true. In Sunday's New York Times Magazine, writer Tucker Carlson called Dean. "Dean isn't surprised by the Trent Lott scandal. The Republican Party is fundamentally hostile to blacks and Hispanics, he says, riddled as it is with 'institutional racism.' It's also full of liars."
As if this was not enough, Dean went on. "'I find the Republican Party pretty bankrupt intellectually,' Dean says, adding that he doesn't read anything written by conservatives. Nothing? 'No.' Are there any conservatives who are intellectually honest? 'I don't think so. I can't think of any.' He sounds cheery as he says this."
This was really dumb. But then unbelievably Dean becomes dumber. "Dean...calls back and leaves this message: 'Tucker, this is Howard Dean. I was talking to some staff folks after I got off the phone with you, and they were worried about my term 'institutional racism.' Probably that might have been not the right word to use. I was a little nervous now that the word 'racist' was such a charged word that it might have been better if I talked about 'intolerance' and 'divisiveness.' If you could give me a call back, that would be great.'''
We do not know if this was Dean's habit with our beloved press core, to extend and amend his remarks. Clearly Carlson was not going to allow that. Carlson wrote, "Damn. The consultants. They have gotten to him already. Dean has not even had a chance to say anything truly outrageous and already campaign professionals, sworn enemies of colorful language, are telling him to tone it down, advising him to dilute his essential Howard Dean-ness. Fire them I thought. Send them back to Washington before it is too late."
Gee, the story gets better each time he tells it. This from January 23rd USA Today: "Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean said there are pregnant teenagers who are telling the truth when they say, 'My father will kill me,' and he treated a 12-year-old who was impregnated by her father: 'You explain that to the people in America who think parental notification is a good idea.'"
When he was in Vermont, he cited a story about a young girl whom he thought may have been impregnated by her father as a reason he opposed the parental notification bill. But as we reminded him, Vermont's bill had a judicial review process which would have given that twelve-year-old support to deal with her return to her abusive home instead of just returning her to more abuse.
And there is more. The article continues, "Dean's... credibility may have been undercut by some jarring rhetoric. One example: Criticizing the Bush administration for steps to curb abortion, he said that if they continued on that path, soon U.S. women wouldn't be able to go to school. The implicit comparison was to the repressive Taliban regime in Afghanistan." __________________________________________________________________________
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