Democrats' fury, and values, go AWOL (middling vomit alert)

Newsday ^ | 1/11/05 | Cocco

[pabianice]

I've been thinking a lot lately about Howard Dean.

A year ago, the Democratic establishment was openly vexed at the prospect that Dean, the former Vermont governor who led an insurgent campaign for president, might win the Iowa caucuses and so be catapulted to the Democratic nomination. As it happens, Dean lost badly in Iowa and then imploded spectacularly.

I did not think highly of Dean's candidacy, nor of the legions of Deaniacs who were mostly young and inexperienced at politics and so thought they knew better than the old and experienced. But I understand what drove their fury.

And I have been thinking about Dean lately because I've been thinking about the Democratic response - rather, the stunning lack of one - to the Alberto Gonzales nomination.

Gonzales is the first-term counsel for the Bush White House who helped develop novel interpretations of the laws of war and human rights that led to the torture, abuse - even death - of scores of detainees held by the United States in the war on terror. For his part in this blot on the nation's international reputation, the president has rewarded Gonzales with promotion to attorney general.

Gonzales had generous opportunity at his confirmation hearing last week to repudiate his own reasoning - laid out in a memo that he, and not some Justice Department functionary, wrote - that the president can ignore both international law and domestic anti-torture statutes, and that anyone acting on this authority could evade responsibility for war crimes if such an "unwarranted prosecution" were pursued. Gonzales declined at the hearing to say whether he still thinks the president is empowered to order torture and immunize those who carry it out.

[pabianice]

Clueless. Utterly clueless. Let's hope they stay that way.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Gonzales is the first-term counsel for the Bush White House who helped develop novel interpretations of the laws of war and human rights that led to the torture, abuse - even death - of scores of detainees held by the United States in the war on terror.

Sounds like the writer confused the sides in the war.

[EagleUSA]

Dean and the other extreme leftists in the Dem party, are indeed clueless, anti-American, power-hungry losers. If the Dems have any brains (oxymoron?) they will keep Dean away...but...any party that would promote someTHING like Hitlery, a hard Marxist, and TOTALLY UNQUALIFIED TO BE PRESIDENT (C-in-C? barf alert) is clueless, candidate-less, without any purpose for America.

I hope they stay that way too!!!

[68skylark]

But I understand what drove their fury.

This is a funny phrase.

These Deaniacs live in the best, most prosperous country in the world with millions of opportunities all around us for anyone to get ahead and succeed. And they're "furious." What is this about?

Are they just petulant, childish, spoiled little kids who use the bounty of this country to avoid being grown ups? (Yes.)

Thank God their candidate didn't go anywhere.

[William of Orange]

from what I heard, Dean wasn't nearly as far left as sKerry, and also didn't have the enormous negative of having stabbed his fellow veterans in the back.

I keep thinking we underestimate Dean, who was a fiscally conservative governor, even though he does have a hot temper (YEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH).

[Calusa]

What did acquiescing on Iraq (???Huh?) get the Democrats?

Priceless!! I want what she's on.

[johnny7]

“I did not think highly of Dean's candidacy, nor of the legions of Deaniacs who were mostly young and inexperienced at politics and so thought they knew better than the old and experienced.

Novices... they are children!

What a load! She's soooo adult!

Bet she wrote this crap while she was on Ecstasy.

[MB6.3]

Perhaps we should just refer to her as "Coco Loco".