Sullivan on Dean

Andrew Sullivan weighed in on Dean recently.

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20030803

A very good article but he repeats much of what is now becoming the conventional wisdom on Dean. I must admit I'm beggining to get confused about how much faith one should put into the punditocracy. On the one hand it would seem that if so many pundits are saying the same thing about Dean they are all coming to the same conclusion based on the evidence and their instincts. On the other hand they may all be repeating what may have been raised on some everyman's blog a few months ago without taking a sustainted look at the evidence.....

One thing Sullivan brings up that I thought worthy of discussion--Dean's infamous "I suppose that's a good thing" comment on the end of Saddam's reign. Frankly, I personally have no problem with the statement, because that was pretty much my attitude at the time as well. According to media spin this is a ridiculously callous and anti-american attitude and I can certainly understand why people would think that way. But to me Dean's statement perfectly reflects 2 things--1) Saddam is gone and that is a good thing; but 2) the worldwide loss of American credibility, the erosion of good relations with a host of countries, the frightening doctrine of preemption, the bombing of Iraq and the loss of lives, and on and on etc. etc.--these are things that were eminently tied up to our effort to oust Saddam and are by no means "good". The ouster of Saddam was one of the only "good" things that came out of an "bad" process and the media's desire to conflate a specific event with a more general process is nothing short of Orwellian.

Was Dean's statement politically stupid? Undoubtedly. I just wish America was really ready to hear Howard Dean speak his mind.

and even less in the right wing punditocracy which Sullivan represents. As you become more familiar with DU sources and analysis, you'll become far more aware of how incredibly unreliable most of the punditocracy is and what to watch out for.

...Saddam is still at large, and I think his statement will resonate more and more as we approach November, 2004. It's kind of a statement that says, "Great, we got rid of a two-bit dictator. Whoopee. Now what?" Which is probably how most Americans will feel if they don't already, since this war doesn't feel like victory.

Instead of mouth what his campaign handlers tell him to do, America mioght actually know who Howard Dean.

This is tthe opinion of Howard Dean by a Progressive (Very Liberal) party leaders who had to deal with Dean when Dean was Governor, and the author was a legislator:

Vermont Governors of the Modern Era, Subjective Rating and Evaluation;
Brief Comments on Their Respective Contributions
by Michael J. Badamo



*Howard Dean:

Howard Dean is clearly the runt of this litter. Dean is shallow, glib, mean spirited and overly ambitious yet Vermonters continue to reward him with term after term. On issues that matter, Dean is regressive and responsive only to the needs of elite vested interests. Taking his lead from the new generation of grossly hypocritical, Bill Clinton type Democrats, Dean mouths the ancient words of Democratic Party idealism but then repudiates labor and the poor confidant that they have no where else to go. Big money motivates Howard Dean, a spoiled brat rich kid from Long Island who always gets his own way.

Dean has never had serious opposition in any election campaign. He slid into the Lieutenant Governor's office and took over the top job when Snelling died. He has won easily since because Republicans like to vote for him while their own Party candidates have been either little known or hopelessly right wing.

Of our six modern governors over the last thirty five years, Deane Davis gets my vote for number one, definitely a good guy. I'll rank Phil Hoff a not too shabby number two because Vermont really needed a good kick in the ass. From there, they go down fast. Dick Snelling gets a grudging number three because he represented stability and administrative competence. We'll give Madeline Kunin number four simply because she was less of a snake oil salesman than Tom Salmon, our choice for number five. Howard Dean, of course, is the worst in modern memory.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to plot the trend.

So what's happening here? Are Vermonters really getting dumber or do we just not care any more? If the past be any guide to the future then we got trouble down the road.


http://www.sover.net/~auc/6govs.htm

THis sounds so much like Dean the candidate. Dean is saying everything that people whoare concerned with the illusion that the DEmocrats have somehow tirned over government to th4ee REpublicans. But one must remember, that Dean type Democrats, the so called fiscally conservative, socailly liberal democrats who created this situation, In 1980 they were called Reagan Democrats. The group of Democrats who were very liberal when young, but when they started getting a few bucks in their pockets, wanted to get government out of their wallets. Which is what caused the DLC reaction and creation of the New Democrats, yes, the Dean generation Democrats whod turned the term Reaganomics, to "Fiscally Responsible" are those who led the DLC down the only path that they could take to get back into the White House. But to Clinton, it was a technique. A ruse to get the conservative democrats to come back home. That is why Clinton was hit on so hard by Republicans, not for giving the old Fiscally Responsible" line. But Clintons translation of fiscal responsibility back towards the original democratic idea. Whis was to get a bunch of economists to recommend that the only way to get rid of the deficit, was to raise the top tax rate on the wealthy. And that raising of taxes did the trick, it fixes the deficit.

But lets look at Dean now. Dean takes this "FISCALLY CONSERVAITIVE" stuff seriously.

Dean did not eliminate Vemonts 65 million dollar deficit in 1992. The dead governor lefty him with a change in the tax system that did it. Yes, it was republican Richard Snelling that did what Clinton did in order to try to get rid of Vermonts deficit. Snelling temporarily raised taxes, died, and then Dean took the credit for balancing the budget. Dean immediately rolled back the tax increases after the budget was balanced. Dean opposed the democratic party and progressive party's call make the tax permanent, and so ensure a permanent surplus. Dean did not agree and spent the next ten years fighting with his own party to cut social programs, While Dean was Governor, more people fell from middle class into poverty, the middle class economically stagnated, and the rich got richer.

Vermont at a Glance

Many families in Vermont saw moderate improvements in their standard of living over the 1990s as the wages of median-wage workers grew. However, low-wage workers saw their wages decline over the 1990s, and median income stagnated. The poverty rate and income inequality in Vermont grew over the 1990s (see link below for table).

Median family income for four-person families
Middle-income families in Vermont have not fared particularly well during the current economic expansion. The incomes of families in the middle of the income distribution stagnated over the 1990s. Median family income for four-person families was $53,691 in 1998, compared to its 1989 level of $53,103 (in 1998 dollars).

Income inequality
Income inequality in Vermont grew over the 1990s. In the late 1990s, the income of the wealthiest 20% of families was 8.4 times that of the poorest 20% of families. By comparison, in the late 1980s, the wealthiest 20% of families had 7.4 times the income of the poorest 20%.

Poverty rate
The poverty rate in Vermont grew during the 1990s, from 8.1% in 1987-88 to 9.6% in 1997-98. However, the poverty rate in Vermont in the late 1990s remained below the national rate (13.0% in 1997-98).

http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/datazone_states_usmap_vt

This data comes from the Economic Policy Institute, a totally non-partisan organization. The article has nothing to do witrh Dena, but comes from reports issued by EPI on every state.

While Dean was governor, one sees striking parallels to the economic consequences in the U.S. with Bush as President.

Yet at this time, the entire United States was going through the opposite. People were moving from poverty into the middle class. The economic status of the middle class was improving.

The difference. Clinton kept those increases in taxation. Dean got rid of them.

There are other similar opinions of Dean as governor. All of those who criticized Dean as governor made the same criticism of Dean, that Deans own supporters nowmake of the DLC:

Dean kept his distance from his party’s liberals during his governorship.

"He seemed to take glee in attacking us at every opportunity and using us as a way to form alliances with more conservative elements," said former state Sen. Cheryl Rivers, a leader of the state Democrats’ liberal wing and former chairwoman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee...

The state was in a fiscal crisis at the time, working its way out of the biggest budget deficit in its history. Then-Gov. Richard Snelling had pushed a series of temporary tax increases and budget cuts through the Legislature and Dean took up that austerity plan as his own.

To the anger of more liberal members of his own party, he insisted that the tax increases be rolled back on schedule and then went on to work for additional tax cuts later in his tenure.

By the same token, though, he also supported raising taxes — as long as it wasn’t the income tax — when school funding crises and other issues arose that required it...

"Certainly the Democratic caucus was never 100 percent behind him and where there were differences, it was around how progressive or how moderate he was," Chard said.

Rivers blames Dean for helping a third political party to flourish in Vermont that many say siphons votes from Democrats. "The Progressive Party gained some momentum during his years as governor because he was so conservative," Rivers said, although she said she still may support Dean for president.

http://premium1.fosters.com/2003/news/may%5F03/may%5F19/news/reg%5Fvt0519a.asp

Ther is little to indicate that Dean is not closely allied and of the same class as those RTeagan Democrats who turned over the United States to one of the most right wing governments in its history.

Dean, is using, like Badamo indicated, the right talk, but there is nothing in Dean record that indicates that he is the answer to the DLC's solution to th Reagan Democrats. Dena know what to say to get elected.

But there is nothing in his record that indicated that he will revitalize and renew the Deocratic Party.But that he will move it even furtther to the right than it already has had to move due to politicians like Dean.

I can't remember the last time you posted anything positive about any Democrat, including Sen. Kerry.

Also, you post fallacies, over and over again, even after they are proven debunked. Also, you never admit you're wrong. You tend to post the same junk no matter what.

If 5 years from now, after untold numbers of American troops have been picked off in
a hellhole of a guerrila war, the end result is an islamic theocracy that DOES harbor
terrorists, REALLY IS stashing WMD, and is cooperating with Iran on a nuclear program....
Will anybody think that we are better off?