This column from the latest Newsweek confused me. http://www.msnbc.com/news/864400.asp A full page by Newsweek's "conservative voice" endpage columnist (alternates on a weekly basis with "liberal voice" Anna Quindlan) about perhaps the least-known Democratic candidate. It's not an entirely positive portrayal but not totally negative either especially in that one of Dean's biggest problems is name recognition and lack of publicity/funds. So free publicity for Howard Dean from, of all people, George Will. Like I said, it confused me!
"Not an entirely positive portrayal?" Yikes! He makes him seem like a dunce, what with --the failure to recognize that interest rates have fallen over the past 15 years, --his lumping of O'Connor and Kennedy with Scalia and Thomas --the extremism nonsense that girls might not be going to school in the USA, in a kind of vision of a Taliban style take-over, --and a belief that terrorist attacks occurred in large part as a result of wealth disparity. Eeek! You know, I had heard some good things about this guy -- supporters painted him as a competent governor who cut taxes, got the welfare rolls down, worked with business to helpbring jobs to his state. But when I hear this knee-jerk mindless pandering to the most superficial strains of liberalism in the Democratic party...well, he ain't too appealing.
Three reasons, all of which Will identifies in his column. 1) Dean is in the Tsongas-McCain-Babbit tradition of interesting candidates with whom the press becomes briefly fascinated and then loose. Will is simply doing what is expected and being briefly fascinated with Dean. 2) By being not polished, Dean is fun to cover. 3) Will, knowing full well that 44 will be vulnerable as his father come 2004, is just doing his bit to raise the profile of the man he (and all other Republicans) would love to run against, Howard Dean. QED. George Will is as obvious as Roger Clemens fastball.
Why do you think that Republicans would love to run against Dean? All I read are people saying that Democrats are devoid of ideas and front runners such as Lieberman and Kerry often generally agree with Bush on issues but just don't want to go to the same extent that he does. Dean (maybe Edwards?) seems like a guy who actually has an contrasting opinions on these issues. Considering that Bush has a pretty good approval rating it seems to me that a meeker, moderate Democrat is going to get walloped because why vote for him? People don't like changing leaders during a war, people like Bush, and if the opposition generally agrees with Bush's on the important positions then why change things? It seems to me that Dean would be one of the stronger candidates against Bush but I'd be interested to hear why he wouldn't be. BTW, George, we understand that you want to be remembered as a linguist but jeez... “We don’t nuance.” (He [Dean] often uses that noun as a verb.) He means that governors, more than legislators, have to be decisive, to allocate scarcities and make other difficult choices. We get it! Now why don't you go through some of Bush's speeches and translate that for us.
Hey man, you don't have to sell me. I'm already organizing for the guy in Iowa. I'm just saying the Republicans *think* they'd like to run against a guy like Dean. The reality would probably be a different story.
I'm organizing for Dean too, because I would love to see GW Bush crush him in the general elections and gain more seats in Congress. So go Dean go! Go Dean go! Go Dean go!
I remember once working on a congressional campaign in a hotly contested race. A reporter tipped us off that one of our star volunteers was seen drinking and schmoozing with the opponent's campaign manager at one of the opponent's more exclusive fundraisers. A couple of off-duty cops who worked for our campaign took him out back and beat the crap out of him. God, I miss Chicago!
Re: Re: Re: George Will on Howard Dean Well, those who thought Ronald Reagan was a dunce were, two terms later, scratching their heads... I think George Bush will fall into that category as well. There's a diffference between being inarticulate and grammatically challenged, and being a dunce. People confuse the two. Dean delivers his rhetoric smoothly, but the content is inane... Remember, it's highly likely, indeed, almost certain, that GWB is a pretty smart guy...and certainly a lot smarter than YOU...and a lot of folks who are contemptuous of his intellectual capabilities..
Re: Re: Re: Re: George Will on Howard Dean a) don't misunderestimate Bush b) does this constitute a personal attack?
There are a lot of things Bush has that I don't have - charisma, ambition, money, family political ties, lots of advisers ... I'll grant you all that. But please don't call him "smarter" than me. Whatever that means anyway.
Can anyone ever remember reading a worse sentence than this? "He has a penchant for pungent phrases and is the most pugnacious..." What the hell is George doing?
Re: Re: Re: Re: George Will on Howard Dean Is he smarter than people give him credit for? Yes, but then again, people give him credit for not being a special ed student. Is he smarter than, say, the average Senator? I doubt it. He's probably about the equivalent of a middle-level House Rep, and below the average of his Cabinet. If we were picking sides among White House offices for an IQ contest, I'd take Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice, Mineta, Ashcroft, Card, and Evans all before Dubya. But his popularity shows that a competent President with really smart people around him is more than acceptable. In all likelihood, the public prefer Presidents who aren't that smart. As candidates like the late Paul Tsongas have shown, intelligence in politics can be a hindrance.
Re: Re: Re: Re: George Will on Howard Dean Thought? what's this business with the past tense? I'm still scratchin! I'm freakin' BALD over here!
Dukakis was a smart guy, too, and he got squashed like a grape Back in the good old days, the big boys in the smoke-filled rooms would pick the candidates and filter out the riff-raff. The good old days of Nixon vs. Humphrey, Johnson vs. Goldwater Nowadays, we get to pick our candidates democratically. It almost makes me wish we had a king, except that if we did it would probably be Bill Clinton.
Clinton is a very, very intelligent man. So is GHW Bush. So is Carter. So of the last five Presidents, the two who would likely rank highest on the general likability scale (that's Reagan and Bush II for those of you who failed civics class) are the two least intelligent -- or, at the very least, the least intellectual. Coincidence? Probably not.