"Mr Dean is much easier for a European audience to understand."

[madfloridian]

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/story.jsp?story=519736
These paragraphs about Howard Dean are very interesting and very telling about our media and our society.
SNIP...""We're in a civil war here," he told The Independent from the back of a car taking him from one Los Angeles event to another. "This is not the time to be nice. I'm not interested in accommodating people who don't respect our point of view."

When it comes to the war in Iraq, or the growing influence of Christian fundamentalism on public policy, or the mounting budget deficit exacerbated by targeted tax cuts for the wealthy, Mr Dean - in contrast to John Kerry, who beat him to the Democratic presidential nomination - does not believe there is room for compromise with the Bush White House, or any of the like-minded politicians he characterises as "right-wing wackos".

SNIP..."But that bluntness was a big turn-off to the media, the professional punditocracy and many mainstream voters who took offence at Mr Dean's refusal to observe the usual niceties of American political discourse, and mistook his candour for a kind of extremist craziness, an absurd mistake, because on bread-and-butter policy issues he has always been unambiguously centrist. In Vermont, it was the left wing, not the mainstream, that saw him as their enemy.

Mr Dean is much easier for a European audience to understand. His brand of politics - feisty, secular, and policy-driven rather than personality-based - would more easily find a home in a parliamentary system than in the US presidential one, with its near-mystical anointment of the commander-in-chief as someone who should always be deferred to and supported on the most urgent matters of state."

[JHBowden]

1. Dean's feistiness was an asset.

That's part of the reason Dean did well, not directly part of the errors which hurt him.

[liberalnurse]

8. Excellent observation.

Ya know, I'm not really fired up about where our Party is today....leadership is cloudy and muddled. I want passion and clarity which I always felt with Dean. We can not give an inch to this administration. Direct confrontation is necessary to win and to lead voters to the polls.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. It must be my European heritage, but I find him much easier to

understand (than Bush & Kerry et al) too.

[blm]

9. Yes...Bush and Kerry sound SO much alike.

They both speak with such intellectual force and nuance.

btw...wasn't it Dean who said this in July 2002 MTP appearance when Russert showed clips of Kerry criticizing Bush for his screw ups at Tora Bora:

"It's easy to second guess the commander-in-chief at a time of war. I choose not to do that."

I think the writer never figured out Dean's own nuances to his positions.

[Old and In the Way]

13. hehehe.

Some just can resist that obligatory Kerry smear....every chance they get.

[BlueEyedSon]

19. No smear. I just like my politics with less

POLITICS.

I'm also 100% anti-war - I am ABB but I find Kerry's position "troubling".....

[Cuban_Liberal]

3. Good article.

Thanks for posting it! :)

[DBoon]

4. "near mystical anointment of the commander-in-chief"

You mean like this sort of commander-in-chief?



Or this one?



Democracies do not use "near mystical anointment" to determine their chief executives.

On Edit:

Used smaller images to reduce their abusive obnoxiousness

[drfemoe]

7. "electability"

"electability" = "near mystical anointment" .. What ELSE could it be??

feisty, secular, and policy-driven rather than personality-based

[emulatorloo]

14. "Electability" means that you think Candidate X could win an election

"near mystical anointment" seems to have some sort of religious connotation or LOTR Frodo connotation.

I don't think they are equivalent concepts at all.

[liberalnurse]

10. That is abusively obnoxious.

[LondonAmerican]

5. Dean was very popular here

And I think he would have made a MUCH stronger candidate than Kerry. Though it looks like the events of the last week will bury Bush and it really won't matter who runs against him :)

[liberalmike27]

26. Well

Maybe it looks as though the events of the last week should undermine Bush, but never underestimate the stupidty of the American Public. Even Democrats chose to listen to the corporate media and picked Kerry. You'd think they'd know by now to run the other way when the media supports someone like they did Kerry, and toward anyone they don't like, Dean.

[drfemoe]

6. American Narcissism

will be the downfall of the Empire ..

Who's narcissistic? The media, politicians, average joe, politicians, fundies, politicians.

[madfloridian]

11. "Quit trying to "defang" the GOP by advocating policies like theirs".

SNIP..."No danger of deference from Mr Dean. Events in Iraq, he said, showed President Bush was "almost inept as well as untruthful". Specifically, he wants to put an end to the practice, perfected by President Bill Clinton, of "triangulation", (of)trying to defang the Republicans by advocating policies only slightly at variance with theirs, and getting back to the old-fashioned to-and-fro of a two-party system.

[peacetalksforall]

12. Kerry often speaks Senatorese which is one or two levels remote

from the passion. Tippy toe like.

Dean definitely speaks more plainly and more convincingly.

It's what we like about Byrd and what we liked about Wellstone.

It's a hard thing to change.

I haven't said this in awhile...

First vote in the Senate: No to Iraq War 1
Last vote in the Senate: No to Iraq War II

He had vision and integrity.

[salonghorn70]

15. Democratic Voters In Every State

Did not make a mistaken judgment. They knew exactly what they were doing when the voted for Kerry instead of Dean.

[Pastiche423]

16. The Democratic voters?

[LizW]

20. Ahem.

Some of us haven't voted yet. Thanks for further marginalizing us.

[seaglass]

23. Dean had the exact same strategy as Kerry , win Iowa and

then ride the wave. There is no way unless the Democratic voters were truly a wishy-washy indecisive bunch that your vote would have changed who the nominee was at this point. Sorry to have to break it to you.

[LizW]

24. You're not breaking anything to me

The other poster's statement that "Democratic voters in every state" chose Kerry was inaccurate.

The vast majority of Democratic primary voters were irrelevant.

[madfloridian]

25. Iowa chose the nominee.

I agree with you. One state, not that large really.

[Guaranteed]

17. I feel like I'm a lot like Dean is.

I've been thinking about moving to Europe, too. Maybe I should! :)

[emulatorloo]

18. Dean is moving to Europe?!?! Somehow I doubt that. . .

unless he is Kerry's ambassador to France. . .

[dkf]

21. Looks like we're not the only ones yearning for Dean.

Even Europeans miss him.

sigh.

[mrgorth]

22. Dean may not have been able to beat Bush

I think the CNN show "true believers" showed that. Who knows what the Bushies would've unearthed? The thing Dean had that Kerry doesn't is the cult of personality. It's why Bush is as popular as he is. Noone actually likes his policies or respects his intelligence. He's charismatic. So is Dean. Not sure about Kerry but he's the only choice now.

[madfloridian]

27. Bush: "We are spreading freedom throughout the world."

Howard Dean:
SNIP...""We're in a civil war here," he told The Independent from the back of a car taking him from one Los Angeles event to another. "This is not the time to be nice. I'm not interested in accommodating people who don't respect our point of view."

We are either going to "spread" our version of freedom throughout the world....or we are not.

If you saw and heard Bush say that today on TV, I wonder if you got chills as well.

It is not a time to be nice.

[WilliamPitt]

28. Too bad Europeans don't have the vote here

Everything would be perfect if they did.

[RafterMan]

29. Yeah,

Just ask them.

[VelmaD]

30. Oh of course...

because we all know everything is certainly perfect in Europe. ;)

[madfloridian]

31. Those "old Europeans".

Sometimes they see things pretty clearly.