Hatefulness: 1 Civility: 0

I've seen in the past few hours here...

Posting of cropped photographs involving our Democratic candidates to try to damage Howard Dean

Comments that next thing you know Howard Dean will be sporting antique whips as part of his campaign

Dismissals of lies from John Kerry alongside threads with the same people dismissing Kerry post line after line after line trying to bully people into saying Howard Dean lied

OK...you're chasing me out. Let the cheering start.

I know I contributed to the hateful environment by posting the Kerry is a liar thread. It was a gut reaction to do it because of the 'Dean is a liar' thread that was running. I wanted to demonstrate that we can sit here in a circular firing squad all we want but it isn't helping anyone.

I know leadership is best done through example, not counter-example. I was kind of hoping more Dean people would jump in and call me on it, saying as you did, that Kerry deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Next time I'll coordinate that first.

I don't know why he said that and would be interested in an explanation. It struck me as odd when he said it too. It is also true that the flag statement, over the weekend, was in response to Kerry and NRA confrontations, not racism. Neither one of these are overly high on my list of reasons to vote for someone, but patterns of behavior are and it's fine to throw them out there.

hatefulness 20, civility nada.
I cant believe that Dean is the only one gathering steam with a
shot at bush, and 75% of this board is ready to declare him the vilest,
most despicable human being they ever saw.

I guess for some people political correctness and fake PC-talk are
the most critical attributes in a president. Hey in that case they are
probably not unhappy with the current resident.

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I'm tired of this.

He isn't. He may be worse than the rest of the Democrats, but he is not worse than Bush.

.

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who ever lived. Any one of our 9 candidates would be infinitely better at the job than Bush.

Dean has done little to foster support from the others. He isn't 'the nice guy' but he is winning. I do hope his campaign attempts to build some bridges over the next few months to help reach out to those who have been offended.

;-)

All the nice guys do seem to be lagging.

And when I see Dean supporters working in food banks and doing other volunteer work as part of the campaign...I can't help but think they are doing it as well.

This seems incredibly incredibly different from the real world.

As I've posted multiple times, New Hampshire voters have consistently given Howard Dean the highest positive ratings of any candidate. 67% of them clearly think he is a nice guy, and they've been living with him for many months.

I find it rather difficult to understand why Dean supporters seem to think they're alone on the wrong side of the crap throwing on DU. They seem to believe that everyone but them should be "above" bashing on the other candidates.

Dean referred to the members of Congress as "cockroaches". Clark, while more liberal than Dean in his stances on the issues, is called a Republican by Dean personally, and his supporters on DU (and many supporters of the other candidates) summarily dismiss Clark as the candidate of the PNAC, Rove, etc., and/or a war criminal, among more interesting claims.

Other candidates - Kerry, Gephardt, and others - are "Bush-lite" or elitist or that evil of evils, backed by the DLC!

This is politics. Any perceived frontrunner is going to get hit with anything the opposition can come up with. This is nothing new and it most certainly is not confined to Dean alone.

I think it's safe to say most people wish it would stop, but it's human nature and the nature of politics. People can be stubborn and opinionated, and attacking is much easier than having intelligent, reasoned debate. It's also much faster/easier to copy/paste the same tired attacks than to actually contribute to the discussion. You either develop a thick skin and ignore the idiots or it drives you crazy. Your choice! :crazy:

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My point was that Dean isn't the only one being subjected to political attacks. It's the nature of the beast and not likely to improve between now and the primary.

It'll probably get worse, which is hard to imagine. If Bush is capable of push-polling John McCain out of the primary, the sky is the limit regarding what he'll fire against the Dem nominee.

When DU members post doctored photos in efforts to deliberately deceive other DU members it gets kinda tough.

I don't care what you throw at the candidates as much...I care what is thrown at each other.

I've called off Dean supporters when I thought they were unfair, but I've never seen one deliberately try to deceive other DU readers and members. If they had, I would call them on that as well.

There was no apology for the doctoring of the photo...no denial of doing it...only continued attacks. So very very sad.

They are among us as well!!!

There was no apology for the doctoring of the photo...no denial of doing it...only continued attacks. So very very sad.

This is pretty typical, unfortunately. There are also a significant number of "hit-and-run" posters on DU. They seem to spend all of their time copy/pasting the same dumb responses to every thread even mentioning their candidates or the candidates they dislike.

It likely isn't going to get any better, though I think a lot of DUers are getting a little burned out, so maybe a hush will fall over DU soon. ;)

The bottom line, of course, is that we need to kick Bush out of the WH. It's hard to tell how much the divisiveness in the primary will affect our ability to do so. If Reagan and Bush could resolve their differences and run on the same ticket after that primary war, I think our candidates probably can, as well.

I've been supporting Kucinich a long time, and have withstood such treatment the entire time. It gets to you now and then, but I think like anything, it passes.

Hope you're back soon, if you decide to take a break. :)

Or have heard Howard Dean speak in person or met him?

Do we all sprout horns and live in the gutter?

Other Democrats I meet in person do usually seem to be great people.

You can't please 'em all.

It's best to just understand that a certain number of people will not be open to reasonable, intelligent discussion, and a certain number of people will not "play fair" no matter what the topic is.

It's often easier to just hit-and-run or play loose with the facts, rather than bother to research or have backing for one's statements.

Some people will defend a statement that is blatantly false to the ends of time. No amount of reasoned discussion will cut through someone who is insistent on being ignorant. }(

This is flamebait, and calling out other members, even though they are not named.

punkingal, DU moderator