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Recently, I have examined Dean's record to a much greater extent than I have Kerry's. Apart from some of Kerry's recent votes which have been troubling, I generally accept the opinions of people here whom I trust and the things I have read about him in the past that he has an excellent liberal legislative record, would make a great president, and has his heart in the right place. The mischaracterization of his vote on Iraq by nearly everyone in the public (and private) sphere, i.e. "Kerry voted for the war", had me confused about his motives, and in his straddle on the war itself I perceive someone who really thought it was a good idea to disarm Saddam for the good of the country. OK.
There was a particular scenario being posited about his "real" motives in his vote, that he was laying an eleborate legal trap for Bush. After I thought about it for sometime, I realized it painted Kerry in a much worse light than in the situation where he was just hoping for a good outcome - it put him in the position of someone who would trade thousands of lives to play a game of technical "gotcha" on Bush. I thought the theory did a disservice to Kerry, and said so. Whatever legal consequences accrue from the Iraq resolution for Bush, my contention is they are just happy afterthoughts and not his main motivation, which I believe was simply to make Bush act a bit saner. My post was a serious examination of what I thought was a flawed theory.
As far as this particular allegation against Dean goes, I will admit that I don't know with certainty if there is anything to it. I have not seen anything prior to this that indicated that Dean was a monster who would rashly throw out suspect rights in favor of victim's rights. N_J has presented us with one anonymous editorial to that effect. But I have to consider a lot of other things about this. First off, many people express the same kind of frustration with suspect rights. It is emotionally hard having a criminal justice system which treats people we believe as guilty as innocent until proven otherwise. That uneasiness is the price we pay to have a system which will treat us so in the event we are wrongly accused. So, if Dean has expressed that opinion from time to time, it is human. Also, being the chief executive makes him the de facto leader of the prosecution.
I don't know everything about Dean and his record. Has he ever done something bad that I don't about (yet)? Undoubtedly. But it is a matter of weighing the whole package. Dean is a great candidate, and from what I have read of his positions, someone who is very pragmatic in his approach, which I can appreciate.
Finally, there is the matter of the source. You have to admit that in his fatwa against Dean, Nicholas_J has shown his every intention to impune, smear, and lie about Dean through the most wild accusations. I cannot trust the messenger anymore.
In the end, we have one person's written opinion that "Dean has made no secret of his belief that the justice system gives all the breaks to defendants." Is that true? Is that really a fair characterization of Dean's beliefs? We don't really know at this point. It is a serious issue for me if it is true. But I don't have the time that N_J apparently has, and since he is making the accusation, I'm going to assume that Dean is innocent until proven guilty (ironic, no?). Given that I've not heard this particular accusation until this point (assuming that Dean really has not made "no secret" of his beliefs), I have to say that the balance of proof is not with the prosecution.
In other words, bring on more proof, N_J! It is, after all, what I asked him to do in the first place. This is important to me to spend that much more time on it, IF TRUE.
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