That Truman thing....

I am seriously not being sarcastic here, I really don't know a thing about the guy.

I keep hearing people refer to Dean being like Harry Truman like that is a really great thing. What did Truman do, other than bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killing 100,000+ Japanese (which when you consider that one of Dean's main selling points is that he is anti-war, seems ironic)? I am completely unfamliar with the guy. I never paid enough attention in US history of the 20th century. I pretty much know who was President when and the BIG things about their Presidencies (like the Truman A-bomb thing), but I don't know details that would make the Dean-Truman comparison understandable. Oh, and I do know that Harry Truman was supposed to be blunt and oftentimes straightforward to the point of tactlessness. But I wouldn't think that in the world today, that would neccessarily be a good thing. I mean, now I thought the goal was to move towards foreign policy and diplomacy in our relationships with other countries. So wouldn't you want someone for President that was tactful and diplomatic? I swear to god, this is not a 'Dean bash'. Even though I like Edwards, I am trying to keep my mind relatively open on the other guys in case I find myself having to support one of them. I just keep seeing this reference and the only thing that I know of that they both share is the blunt and possibly tactless thing, which doesn't seem to me to be the sort of thing that you would be saying a big "WOO HOO" about.

Truman was a man who told it like it was. He also didn't tolerate incompetants or incompetence. Truman said "The Buck Stops Here." not like our current incompetent in chief. Dean doesn't suffer fools gladly. He says what's on his mind and takes responsibility for it.
The comparisons to Truman have nothing to do with the A Bomb. Truman desegregated the military and performed a number of heroic acts for which he has lately been given credit.

He supported every war since Troy, except the recent invasion of Iraq. Dean is a hawk in dove's clothing. It all depends on what audience he is talking to. Unfortunately, that doesn't help his perception as a Vermont birkenstock peacenik.

Although, he wasn't very politically aware at that time (he was in medical school).

His brother, Charlie Dean, was an anti-Vietnam War activist. (btw, Gov. Dean wears his killed brother's belt to remember him by.)

Gov. Dean was in favor of Desert Storm and the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.

A very partisan and pro-labor Democrat, Truman was known for his candor and straightforwardness, especially when he pulled off a come from behind win against Republican Thomas Dewey in the 1948 election. He went around the country by train trashing the Republican congress and his support of labor earned him an extention of his finishing FDR's term. He vetoed the Taft-Hartley act, was a liberal labor advocate (like his predecessor) and also was the first prominent Democrat to propose civil rights (up until then it had been ignored by Dems because of the Southern Democratic power). He was also famous for his hardline stance against the Soviet Union.

because in the 1948 election, virtually every political expert said Truman was going to lose in a landslide. Like how the media is calling Dean the next McGovern. But Truman created the UN, which is basically a re-creation of the League of Nations in which Woodrow Wilson tried to create. Truman also created NATO. The CIA was also created in 1947 when President Truman signed the National Security Act. But what I like Truman for was his stand on Civil Rights, he desegragated the military, passed anti-lynching laws, passed a law in which it was illegal to hire or not hire someone based on race, and he unseccessfully tried to pass a 10 point Civil Rights program which was very similar to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He also tried to pass a Universal Health Care plan which failed. He was a diplomat and was seeking peacefull solutions to prevent another World War. He was also the first Cold War President. There is so much more I can say about him but he was truly a great President, one thing he was known for was ignoring what the opinion polls said. This was my favorite book on Truman and I recommend you check it out at your local library.

id like comparing John Belusji to Morey Amsterdam.

He is completely upfront about his positions on all issues and this is why Dennis's supporters know exactly where he stands on the issues.

Massive information dump on Gov. Howard Dean
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=43435&mesg_id=43435&page=

Long speech where Dean covers his stances on many many topics:
http://www.wordsandgraphics.com/dean080703-audio.mov

Posting one of Dean's many inconsitant statements is meaningless. You need to look at the overall picture. Bush will make mince meat out of Dean's inconsistencies.

None of us would like that, no matter who we back. But it IS a concern. I think it is telling that instead of saying, "What inconsistencies?" You made the comment you did. Don't you get it? Our nominee has to be able to BEAT BUSH. Everybody keeps acting like all we have to do is nominate somebody, like the fight is only amongst the Dems and then the main election is a given. Yes, Bush is losing points fast NOW, but there is a loooonnnnggg time between now and then. What if Bin Laden gets captured? What if we manage to find something in Iraq that helps him justify the war? What if the economy comes on like a house on fire in the first half of next year?

TRUMAN, a biography by David McCullough, copywrite date 1992, was a bestselling award winner. Quite long but very informative.

Harry Truman grew up poor, with somewhat conservative mid-western values. He fought in World War I. He struggled to keep people working as a local politician during the Great Depression. Harry Truman was basically a poor man when he became president. What made Truman great, and why he should be considered one of our great presidents is that he did, without fail, what he thought was right and best for the country. He did not do things for self preservation or for popularity. He dropped the bombs because he was in the extremely unenviable position of being forced to make the decision to drop the bombs, or invade Japan. Truman was privvy to dirt on Joe McCarthy while his trials were going on. Truman would not stoop to McCarthy's level, believing that McCarthy would get what he deserved some day. He was right.

Harry Truman would be unelectable in 2003. He would never have made it to the Senate, he would never have been VP. He was too real.

Perhaps Howard Dean shares some of Truman's moxie. But they are not comparable. They are different men in different times.

comes from Vermonts The Times Argus -- Barre-Montpelier newspaper
Howard Dean is our Harry Truman

In 1991 when the sudden death of Gov. Richard Snelling thrust Lt. Gov. Howard Dean into the chief executive’s slot, I likened that day to April 12, 1945, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death elevated Harry Truman to the top slot. Like FDR on the national stage, Snelling had loomed larger than life on the state’s political landscape. Like Truman, Dean was an unknown.

The comparison holds: Howard Dean is Vermont’s Harry Truman. Dean, like Truman, is a no-nonsense, plain-speaking guy who loves to give ’em hell.

This is the governor who likened the Legislature to a zoo, grumbled that Supreme Court justices think they are God, and called the left wing of his party arrogant and the right wing of the Republican Party a bunch of crackpots.

Dean, as did Truman, confronted problems and situations without precedent: In Truman’s case it was the dropping of the atomic bomb; in Dean’s case it was the emotional bomb of expanding gay rights.

The parallels run deeper: Both men won difficult re-elections in which the electorate was split over issues of civil rights. In Truman’s case southern Democrats opposed to a strong civil-rights program formed the States’ Rights Party, known as the Dixiecrats; in Dean’s case opponents of civil unions worked hard for the GOP challenger. Both men also were challenged by candidates of a Progressive Party.
<SNIP>

The whole column is excellent.

Howard Dean is our Harry Truman
…
In 1991 when the sudden death of Gov. Richard Snelling thrust Lt. Gov. Howard Dean into the chief executive’s slot, I likened that day to April 12, 1945, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death elevated Harry Truman to the top slot. Like FDR on the national stage, Snelling had loomed larger than life on the state’s political landscape. Like Truman, Dean was an unknown.

The comparison holds: Howard Dean is Vermont’s Harry Truman. Dean, like Truman, is a no-nonsense, plain-speaking guy who loves to give ’em hell.

This is the governor who likened the Legislature to a zoo, grumbled that Supreme Court justices think they are God, and called the left wing of his party arrogant and the right wing of the Republican Party a bunch of crackpots.
…
http://timesargus.nybor.com/Archive/Articles/Article/58611

…
The fact that our health care system needs major improvement, the fact that the quality of our care is often too low and the costs too high these things are hardly news. Just listen to this message Harry Truman sent to Congress over a half century ago. President Truman wrote:

“The real cost of our present inadequate medical care is not measured merely by doctors’ bills and hospital bills. The real cost to society is in unnecessary human suffering and the yearly loss of hundreds of millions of productive working days. To the individual, the real costs are the shattering of family budgets, the disruption of family life, the suffering and disabilities, the permanent physical impairments left by crippling diseases, and the deaths each year of tens of thousands of persons who might have lived. This is the price we are now paying for inadequate health care.”

Truman wrote those words in 1949. Since then, several generations of Americans have been born, far too many Americans have died before their time and we are still paying the price for a terribly inadequate health care system.

When I graduated from medical school twenty-five years ago, I swore an oath along with my classmates. In that oath, my classmates and I pledged, “the health of my patient will be my first consideration.”
…
http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=policy_speech_health_markle

…
Many years ago, a plainspoken man observed that:

“Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.

Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness.

The time has arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and that protection.”

It was 1948 and the man who said those words was a Democrat named Harry S. Truman.

He believed that winning health care for every family was at the core of the Democratic Party's compact with the American people.

It was true then…and I believe it's still true today.
…
http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=policy_speech_health_columbia

Harry S. Truman quotes:

Richard Nixon is a no good, lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in.

The buck stops here!

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.

This administration is going to be cussed and discussed for years to come.

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/harrystru128010.html

and by Dean's cutting of health services to children and the poor. Don't insult Harry by comparing him with Dean.

and I will take your question serious. The one point that hasn't been made about Truman using the bomb on Japan is Japan would have fought to the last man for the emperor. Truman determined that the loss of life for both countrys would be much less if he used the bomb. He did so sadly and never got over it. He was a great man, and I am sure Dr. Dean is honered by the comparison. I have seen both men and I truly beleive that Dr. Dean is cut from the same cloth. We will know after he is elected president, and he will be.

for the information. I knew only the bare bones about Truman and the only connection between Dean and Truman that I could see was the bluntness.

"I swear to god, this is not a 'Dean bash'. Even though I like Edwards, I am trying to keep my mind relatively open on the other guys in case I find myself having to support one of them. I just keep seeing this reference and the only thing that I know of that they both share is the blunt and possibly tactless thing, which doesn't seem to me to be the sort of thing that you would be saying a big 'WOO HOO' about."

I believe you, this isn't a Dean or Edwards bash. It is your personal opportunity to shit on Harry Truman, the Fair Deal, and those who boldly stood with him in his fights against the corrupt Republican Congress!

Before you start ripping Truman, maybe you should learn something about the guy.

I oftentimes sit around and try to think of ways to discredit people who were in office twenty years before I was born. I pretended ignorance to get in my horrible shots in because I am so sly.

I am THE DEVIL.

(...you know, there is no way to get that Dr. Evil laugh in print. I tried 'Mwa-ha-ha', but it just doesn't quite work.)

Honestly didn't know a thing about it. But if it makes you happier to think that I am trying to discredit the Fair Deal (which would be hard, because I don't know what it is), then you do that.

except lucifer is the kind that can seduce others to sell their souls for some short-term pleasure.

I have found nothing you posted seductive or pleasing enough to sell you my soul.

I'm a little late but a few more things to add to Truman's legacy. In additiona to establisihing the UN, his administration created the Marshall plan and the post-war construction of Japan. This reconstructed Western Europe and Asia, established democrocies and viable economies in Germany and Japan and prevented the spread of Communism. He developed a policy of containment to the Soviet Union and probably deserves more credit for winning the Cold War then Ronald Reagan. Truman stood up to North Korean aggression in the Korean War and but also was willing to stand up to McArthur and prevent him from escelating the conflict into WWIII. He made paying off the war debt a priority and used unpopular high rates of taxation to do. This was followed by a period of great prosperity. He also used the federal goverment to step in on the side of labor in dissputes. Integration of the military was the first stride in the Cival Rights movement and did this in the face of great opposition. He was not afraid to stand up to his own party for priciples, even if positions would cause damage to the party. Strom Thermond and the Dixiecrats running against him on a pro-seggreation platform was the first split in the Democratic Party that would ultimatly culminate in the Southern Stragety of 72, succes of the Reagan Democrats and ultimate conversion of conservative Southern Democrats to Republicans. The use of the atomic bomb was a difficult decision that he wrestled with his entire life. Even today there is debate on if that was the right decision. Now Truman is looked on with respect from both parties. At the time of his presidency, he was very unpopular. I think the comparisson to Dean is that he is a no nonsense speaker and willing to take a stand, even if it is unpopular with the rank and file of his party.

Your history on Truman is dead on the mark. He is now considered to be one of our very best presidents by historians. If Howard Dean can somehow measure up to standards set by Truman, the country will be well served.