Howard Dean giving the 'devil' his due (Mark Shields)

[dajabr]

WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- "E pluribus duo" is the catchy formulation coined by Professor John Kenneth White of Catholic University to describe the United States' much-reported political polarization of 2004 into two competing camps.

Independent pollster John Zogby offers this analysis: "We are split as a nation.. .. We need to understand we are structurally, culturally, ideologically divided." Then, Zogby adds that earlier third party presidential challengers "George Wallace and Ralph Nader are wrong; there is -- in most voters' view -- a dime's worth of difference" between the country's two major parties.

Because he first grasped this defining reality of the contemporary American mood, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean captured the imagination and much of the support of Democrats and other Americans who were a lot more indignant than was the candidate they backed.

Why this anger? How about the news that the Bush administration has quietly withdrawn a 400-strong military team it had confidently dispatched to Baghdad to uncover Iraq's WMD (weapons of mass destruction)? Or maybe the respected Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's report charging that "administration officials systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq's WMD and ballistic missile programs" and "there was no evidence to support the claim that Iraq would have transferred WMD to Al Qaeda and much evidence to counter it" got a few folks hot under the collar.

Without real threats to justify last March's invasion of Iraq, then the Bush policy turns out to be -- at the tragically painful price of 3,000 serious American casualties -- the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. Was that the deal?

More: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/12/column.shields.opinion.devil.due/

[Padraig18]

1. Great article!

Thanks for sharing it.:)

[dajabr]

2. No prob...

Shields seems to have "his head screwed on right" lately.

:hi:

[helleborient]

3. Yes, thanks for the article...

And can we say "screwed on left"?

[Cheswick2.0]

4. Thanks for posting

Dean was right.