Never mind the rest, Dean was against IWR

This seems the central message of Dean's online supporters. You all hold up Senator Robert Byrd as a hero, for delaying the vote and threatening a filibuster before untimately voting against IWR. But, Robert Byrd voted against the recent McCain-Lieberman climate bill and sponsored the Byrd-Hagel resolution which pre-emptively rejected the Kyoto protocal. It seems to me that if the issue is a single vote, the guy you side with ought to have at least had to go on the record, thereby putting his vote in the context of an entire voting history. If one wants to argue that Dean is the only real democrat of the 9 who stands a chance why is it you ignore the very liberal voting record of Kerry and for the most part Gephardt and support a man who was such a conservative when he was governor, that progressives formed an alternative party during his tenure in Vermont.

Do you all think any of these 9 would have really even been willing, if they were president, to go to war in Iraq? I don't. The fact of one vote doesn't indicate to me that they would have planned and executed this war if they were president. That much I'm sure of. So, it's best to look beyond this and focus on what really matters, ie, environment, economy, health and leadership style. And on that score, I think our frontrunner Dean ain't so damn hot.

as a side note, check out:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17514-2003Nov27.html

Apparently a good deal hotter than Sen. Kerry, it would appear, if the polls have any validity whatsoever. The voters are speaking their minds on the subject, and it would appear they disagree with you.

so should I simply just vote for him in November?

in 2000?

a few thousand people combined in state polling isn't exactly voters pseaking their mind.

If all politics has been reduced to is poll watching I don't want any part of it.

:eyes:

If it were all a popularity contest I'd be voting for Bush. He's up above 50% again, by the way.

They are just saying Dean has the same opinion as they do regarding the war.

If Kerry supporters want to keep 'defending the vote' by pretending the vote doesn't have to be defended against, so be it.

and then there's that civil rights thing. We like that too.

I like his record as governer.

I like his proposals.

I like the way he campaigns.

I like the speeches he gives.

I think he is our best chance to beat Bush.

Why the hell wouldn't I support him?

All it does is shove Gov. Dean's numbers higher...

I actually remained a Kerry supporter even after he voted for IWR. This was not the single issue that turned me against Kerry and toward Dean. I agree with Dean on a lot of issues, respect his views where we differ, and am damn glad he's got the courage to speak out against Bush and the wishy-washy Dem establishment.

Chances are the idiot Dems will stab Dean or whomever the nominee is in the back. That's what we moron Dems do best, except when we're prostrating before Bush and the GOP, that is.

That's what Dean calls Democrats. Dean spent his entire governorship stabbing liberal Democrats in the back. What he's doing now is nothing new, it's what he's always done. He's the compromising centrist pink tutu he's supposedly railing against. This is the most insane election I've ever seen.

in this article on the PNAC site?????

http://www.newamericancentury.org/defense-20031117.htm

Howard Dean is no George McGovern. He opposed the Iraq war, he says, because it was "the wrong war at the wrong time," not because it was emblematic of a fundamentally misguided American foreign policy. Dean has not, in fact, challenged the reigning foreign policy paradigms of the post-9/11 era: the war on terrorism and the nexus between terrorism and rogue states with weapons of mass destruction. "I support the president's war on terrorism," he told Tim Russert this summer. He supported the war in Afghanistan. He even supported Israel's strike against a terrorist camp in Syria because Israel, like the United States, has the "right" to defend itself. (European Deanophiles take note.) Dean does not call for a reduction in American military power but talks about using the "iron fist" of our "superb military." He talks tough about North Korea and at times appears to be criticizing the Bush administration for not addressing that "imminent" threat more seriously. And he especially enjoys lacerating Bush for not taking the fight more effectively to al Qaeda, a bit like John F. Kennedy criticizing Eisenhower in 1960 for not being tough enough on communism.

Of course, all this tough talk could be hot air. Maybe Dean is doing a great job controlling and hiding his inner peacenik. If so, that in itself tells you something about the current state of the foreign policy debate. Even Mr. Speak-My-Mind thinks he has to talk tough. George McGovern didn't.

Another possibility is that Dean's opposition to the Iraq war has been over-interpreted by his supporters on the Democratic left. They think he rejects the overall course of American foreign policy, just as they do. But maybe he doesn't. They think he's one of them, but his views may not be all that different from those of today's Democratic centrist establishment. When Dean criticizes Bush's foreign policy "unilateralism," he sounds like a policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, not a radical. "There are two groups of people who support me because of the war," Dean told Mara Liasson a few months ago. "One are the people who always oppose every war, and in the end I think I probably won't get all of those people." The other group, Dean figures, simply "appreciates the fact" that he "stood up early" and spoke his mind and opposed Bush while other Democrats were cowed. Dean may not be offering a stark alternative to Bush's foreign policy, therefore, so much as he is simply offering Democrats a compelling and combative alternative to Bush himself. The Iraq war provided the occasion to prove his mettle.

Kerry had spoken against Bush's rush to war in January, and had made the exact same statements as to the proper course in dealing with Saddam since September. The only difference between Dean and Kerry is that Kerry had to vote. General Clark is a bit broad on the war too, but at least he had a course of action that he proposed and not just ramblings that were all over the map.

Dean used this vote to create a wedge in the Democratic Party that he could squeeze through. He's the only candidate that bashed other Democrats at the DNC meeting in February, Kucinich didn't even do it. It's pure political opportunism, nothing more. Same tactics he used in Vermont.

I like Clark because I think he can win.

But the more I read on Howard Dean, just by aperstance, the more I am finding out that he is not exactly what one thinks he is going in when one would sign up. Guess that folks are getting fooled big time if they only listen to the soundbytes.

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I can't count the number of times Dean supporters have made personal attacks on me on this board. They get deleted about half the time, I'm becoming accustomed to it actually.

Are you saying you need quotes that Dean has called Presidential candidates and the Democratic Party Bush-lite and cockroaches? You don't think it's true?

That's why he's so great, he goes after the Bush-lite pink tutu Democrats. Now I have to provide a link?

Can you cite for me where Dean calls Democrats "Bush-like cockroach Republicans"? Exact quote please.

And where do you see Dean as the "compromising centrist pink tutu"?

This election is insane to me because Democrats like Kerry and Gephardt seem to reserve all their ire for other Democrats, while giving Bush a free pass to do whatever the hell he pleases.

Whatever you say, no matter what it is, no matter how lousy Dean has been to the environment or to seniors or whatever, they have an excuse. And they say, "Thanks for the troll or whatever. I am sending fifty more of Daddy's dollars to Dean."
Maybe they will figure it out, but first they have to open their minds, and there is no indication that that is going to happen.

This is serious.....that a lot of Dean supporters have not bothered to find out more about him. The media isn't covering his actual stance on policies except the war (and that even seems distorted). They are covering the organization, the money, the unions, the confederate flag, the gay union (not even covering the fact that he had not choice to sign that law), his brother, his "draft avoidance"....etc...but not what he has done or said in the past in reference to his actual actions, His actual stances, etc....it's like he's getting a pass like Arnold did in CA. It's not about the issues other than his misreprented war stance and the Howard Dean the man and the movement. This could be really dangerous....especially if he gets the nomination.....especially when he ends up losing big to Bush...cause all of this Sh*t will be dragged out at the most Convenient timing.

to me...except that he seems to be running a great campaign, and a campaign can have its' own life and momentum. Having done local work on exciting campaigns (Hillary's - exciting, dynamic campaign) and bad campaigns (McCall for NY - good candidate, utterly dreadfull and dispiriting campaign) I know how energizing and captivating an exciting campaign is. Nothing I have read or heard from Dean leads me to believe that he has any real understanding of structural poverty or racism in this country. We have perhaps the best opportunity in years to campaign for real change, and instead, the Democrats (of whom I am not one, I always feel compelled to disclose) will put up another "centrist" (in the distorted political discourse of these times, that means an old-style Republican) candidate, who, even if he wins will do nothing to stop the banana-republicazation of the US.

This is a fact? Or just an oft-repeated meme on this website? The Dean supporters that I know and work with every day know an amazing amount about Dean and his record and his positions and his statements and his history and so on. We have to be this prepared, seeing as how we constantly have to defend him, since he has been a frontrunner for quite awhile.

Yes you are correct that the press mostly covers the process rather than the policies, but that's just what they do. We can't force the press to cover the issues. I wish they would, because I believe when you combine Dean's policies with his process, he is unbeatable; this is why I was initially drawn to him -- he's the only candidate (Clark is close but I think started too late) who can combine those 2 elements: policies that attract people and a campaign that gets them out working.

That is possibly one of the most condescending pieces of tripe I have ever read on this board; this inherent assumption that the only reason that most of us support Gov. Dean is because we are uninformed is insulting in the extreme. Has it ever occurred to you that we ARE informed not only about Gov. Dean, but about the other candidates as well, and choose to support Gov. Dean because of that information???

:grr:

my thoughts are-- if people actually knew what Dean stood for, besides being against IWR, how could they support him? He's not liberal. SInce when is being a democrat not about being liberal? When did offending long-time democrats become a good thing? This rabid support of Dean is frightening. I've seen completely rational people on this board spew the most inane bullshit in an attempt to support Dean. At this point I'd support Lieberman over Dean.

The common response to a question about a Dean policy?

:yawn:

Yep. No answers. I see it everyday on this board. Ask a question, get told that you are a facist gestapo loving right winger for not supporting the almighty Dean, get the lovely 'yawn' icon strewn about the thread, and still not get a decent answer or argument out of it. Pretty pathetic.

Well there you have it, folks. We who support Dean are just a bunch of slack-jawed Vermont yokels, bereft of critical thought, information, education or any facts about our candidate. My Gods, how in the world did we get along in our lives up to the present?

Frenchie4Clark, as a person who also admires Wes Clark (and would support him if he became the nominee) I truly hope that you do not represent the front line soldier of his campaign.

Really.

I have "bothered to find out more" about Dean and I resent this attitude of yours and others on this thread who seem to think you know and see all, while the rest of us are just poor dupes who tromp along unthinkingly behind Rove's alleged stooge.

This is the same condescending attitude behind calling fellow citizens "sheeple"...just because everyone doesn't fit into your neat little categories of what's correct and incorrect with the universe don't automatically dismiss them with "Oh, they're so stupid because they don't see the grand scheme of things the way I do."

Man, it's little wonder "average Americans" don't want to waste their time with the Democratic Party when this snide, snotty attitude seems to be the prevailing view...

continually respond with personal attacks on Dean supporters. And the critiques are always oh so correct- never painting people with a broad brush or anything as juvenile as that. :eyes:


I really don't understand why some people here assume that Dean supporters don't know his stands on the issues. Does it just make it easier to come up with that crap as an excuse for why we're not supporting your guy? Is it just easier for y'all to think of us as stupid, ignorant, unaware, uninformed, misinformed, etc.?

These questions aren't flamebait- I'm really curious why I continue to see these accusations thrown at Dean supporters here. Not liking someone or who they support has somehow become an excuse to call them stupid. It's just amazing.

Kerry supporters just keep repeating the same insults and the same mantra. Kerry is better on the environment, the economy, and health care? Where is your evidence? How are Kerry's plans superior to Dean's? I have seen no evidence. Only bullshitting about Dean's record...

For me, it comes down to this. Dean governed, Kerry didn't. I trust Dean, and I'm not sure I can trust Kerry.

I hate to quote Andrew Sullivan, but as a disinterested oberver he happens to be correct--Kerry has turned out to the worst of the major contenders. He is one of the best Senators, but on the campaign trail he doesn't have a clue. For me, Kerry's political ineptitude was symoblized the last time I saw streaming video of him. Without a stint of irony, he raps off a series of cliches, including "We need substance, not slogans." People--face it. Bush will DESTROY Kerry in a debate, even if Kerry is right on every substanital issue, because Bush is simply a better communicator. Disagree? Go back and watch the Bush/Gore debates. People are looking for authenticity these days, and Gore and Kerry just didn't give it to them. By contrast, Dean gives the impression that he means what he says.

As for the other candidates being more 'progressive' than Dean (with the exception of Kucinich, Sharpton, Braun), I don't buy it. Dean is saying the right things about NAFTA, WTO, our idiotic drug laws, civil rights, and just about every issue out there. I find him nuanced in an intelligent way, not a pandering way. Kerry is the one talking about a "Dean Depression" just because Dean has the guts to push the envelope and address important issues. And frankly, regarding many of these attacks, especially all this Medicare/Budget stuff, I am inclined to sympathize with this Will Saleton reaction below, because I am not looking for a closeted Kucinich, I am looking for someone like, well Dean...

http://slate.msn.com/id/2089813/

Call me a believer. I don't think I am--I think it's possible that some of the other candidates (Clark, Edwards) may be more electable. There is still time for them to improve. But for myself, I am definetely among those inspired by the kind of campaign Dean is running and Dean's style. I'm genuninely sorry you Kerry supporters aren't able to appreciate this, because I think Dean is changing American Politics for the better. And your unfair attacks just make me love Dean all the more, because there's nothing more attractive than a man of courage triumphing over cynicism and long odds.

any other in modern history? The one who investigated and uncovered more govt. corruption than ALL the candidates put together.

You trust the ONE guy who has been deceiving his supporters the most. He claims he was against the war but early on supported the Biden-Lugar version of the IWR which wasn't that much different and still allowed Bush to go into Iraq based on his own determination. Yet Dean was labeled antiwar while criticizing those whose positions were almost the same as his. The media ALLOWED Dean to do this without scrutiny.

Lets hear that one about 50 thousand more times. We haven't heard it enough (yawn).

.

He's saying the things people want to hear today. Why doesn't anybody look at what the man actually DID? The drug laws?? He didn't support any funding for methadone treatment in Vermont. The prison population increased under his governorship, that's important. INCREASED, while the rest of the country DECREASED. He's a lock 'em up kind of guy who talks about drug treatment but didn't do much while he had the chance. Civil rights? Because he signed the civil union bill? What else did he do to address racism when he was in Vermont? Concrete things, not just spouting words.

We post Kerry's record and we post Dean's record. We get the same reponse you just gave. You're tired of people saying mean things about Dean, his web site says such and blah, and he's a good guy.

Dean is a better candidate because he gives the impression he means what he says, like Bush? That's kind of the whole point. Dean gives an impression, but his record doesn't back it up.

Just like war. One sentence. You said Saddam must be disarmed and supported Biden-Lugar, but now you say you were against this war from the start, how can that be Mr. Dean?

Dean will never get elected. He's made too many wishy-washy statements and flip-flopped on too many positions. The right will kill him and the debates would just be sweeping him off the stage. He didn't even win the state of Vermont in a poll against Bush in October 2002.

We're going to put everything on the line for a Bush-lite pink tutu compromising centrist. Unbelievable.

What kind of crap is that?

Maybe he should take a firm "war should be a last resort unless it isn't or the polls say people support it, then I guess I can support it until it goes horribly wrong" stance on it like Kerry.

Back in Sept 2002, if he was against war as a last resort from the start, what was his plan to handle a country suspected of developing bio/chem/nuclear weapons?

If you think this country is going to elect someone who isn't willing to take action against rogue nations producing these weapons, you're living in a land all your own called Howardville.

Dean wanted inspectors back in. He wanted to work with the UN. He thought saying "we're going in with or without the UN" was a horrible mistake. He didn't think there was enough proof to justify the invasion. He was right.

If Americans will support someone who promoted a rushed and ill-thought out wars with no post-war plan to get weapons which don't exist based on flimsy evidence, then our country is doomed.

He said give Saddam 30-60 days and then go in unilaterally. He was more hawkish on it than the other Democrats. Why do you ignore that? Why won't you admit support for Biden-Lugar is support for a war to disarm Saddam? And if Dean supported disarming Saddam, then he must have thought Saddam had weapons. He certainly didn't know there were no weapons from the beginning.

He's a fraud who has made so many comments on this war that he can pull out whatever he wants and his adoring fans believe it. But he isn't going to get away with that if he wins this nomination. The Republicans will put up ads showing he was all over the map and the people will not vote for someone like that, ever.

It wasn't and they didn't.

And it doesn't mean just unilateral invasion. Operation Desert Fox seemed to work brilliantly and didn't give us the resposibility for a powderkeg of a country.

You're just trying to create issues where there are none.

NOBODY WANTED SADDAM WITH WMD. NOBODY.

That doesn't mean we have to rush to war and take over the fucking country.

"Just like war. One sentence. You said Saddam must be disarmed and supported Biden-Lugar, but now you say you were against this war from the start, how can that be Mr. Dean?"

Easy, if you use facts and logic.

Dean has always been against a unilateral war that did not have the blessing of the international community (UN) or was predicated on a clear and present danger to the United States.

He has never said anything else.

John Kerry, Dick Gephardt and Joe Lieberman (the latter two affectionately referred to as the Rose Garden Quislings) voted for Bush's war.

That's a fact, and one that will help bring down the pink tutu statists running for the presidency.

Why have a war at all if there's no WMD. If Bush didn't make the case about nuclear and bio/chem weapons, why support a UN war to disarm?

And if Saddam had WMD and needed to be disarmed, how did Dr. Dean plan to accomplish that back in September of 2002?

But at least we've made progress in one area, Dean didn't KNOW there were no WMD from the start. I'm glad I won't have to read that crap again.

... Gov. Dean was relying on the 'truthfulness' of the intelligence data; it was the approach that he favored in order to deal with that data and its conclusions that set him apart from the Bush-enabling politicians. Governor Dean NEVER favored the unilateral approach to the WMD issue that the IWR granted to Bush.

"He gets a deluge of phone calls from reporters asking him to clarify his position. Which is -- "as I've said about eight times today," he says, annoyed -- that Saddam must be disarmed, but with a multilateral force under the auspices of the United Nations. If the U.N. in the end chooses not to enforce its own resolutions, then the U.S. should give Saddam 30 to 60 days to disarm, and if he doesn't, unilateral action is a regrettable, but unavoidable, choice." Feb 2003 Salon

"It's very simple. Here's what we ought to have done. We should have gone to the UN Security Council. We should have asked for a resolution to allow the inspectors back in with no pre-conditions. And then we should have given them a deadline, saying, 'If you don't do this, say, within 60 days, we will reserve our right as Americans to defend ourselves and we will go into Iraq.'" Sept 2002 Face the Nation

These are his own words. Biden-Lugar was a resolution to disarm Saddam, unilaterally if necessary. It gave the President the same authorization to use force as he determines to be necessary. It required the same determination that use of force was necessary.

"(1) the United States has attempted to seek, through the United Nations Security Council, adoption of a resolution after September 12, 2002 under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter authorizing the action described in subsection (a)(1), and such resolution has been adopted; or (2) that the threat to the United States or allied nations posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program and prohibited ballistic missile program is so grave that the use of force is necessary pursuant to subsection (a)(2), notwithstanding the failure of the Security Council to approve a resolution described in paragraph (1)."

Here's what the Determination he sent to Congress said. Exchange continuing for grave, which he'd been using in his speeches all along anyway, and you've got a Determination for Biden-Lugar.

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

Dean didn't come out against this war at the time of the vote anymore than anyone else. Afterwards, he didn't criticize Bush's diplomacy or insist Bush make the case anymore than anyone else. He just spun the other candidates' position, which caused Edwards to say he got up there and lied, and maneuvered himself into the anti-war candidate. He's a fraud.

The guy who called me 'cupcake'?

I was doing something really important...did you say something?

And that is the crux of why Dean was not only undoubtedly against the Iraq War as it transpired, but why Dean's detractors play gingerly with facts.

FACT: Dean always linked a possible necessity to wage war on the proven clear and present danger to the United States.

As antiwar as I am, I am not antidefense. Anyone with a noodle in their head would support self defense if there were a real and imminent danger to us. Was Dean wrong? Hell no. Was he lying? Hell no. He was clear about what he favored and opposed, and the conditions applying to both.

This will, of course, never deter the obsessive DeanHater but then again I was convinced long ago that facts are lost on them. I do hope that those left with an analytical/critical bone in their body will digest this information, though.

but I am. Pathetic.

Here is a context for you.

Voting to protect the environment is very nice. Voting to fund schools is nice as well.

Over the course of recent history, one opportunity came to vote up or down on dropping 2000 pound bombs on a city of 4 million civilians (for no good reason). I think a person with desirable 'leadership style' might have said no.

Please get that fact cleared up. There wasn't that much difference between the two, however Dean pretended later that he was against the IWR without informing audiences that the version he was for was not much different.

Simply repeating the claim that there wasn't won't make it so, blm, and neither will copying and pasting the self-serving statements of the Bush enablers like Kerry, Ewards and Gephart. :eyes:

Dang it! ;)

You think you're right on Biden-Lugar and Ted Kennedy is wrong, well, show Ted where he was wrong.

And if you think you're going to continue to torture us with these fool's errands, you're wrong. Ted Kennedy has an opinion, and so does Gov. Dean; they differ--- end of discussion.

Dennis Kucinich. The others, including Dean, are just full of rhetoric.

Dennis was thoroughly against the war. But even he said an unfettered inspection process must take place in Iraq and that Iraq must not be allowed to get weapons. Even though Kucinich supported a diplomacy only approach; isn't it reasonable to conclude others had decided diplomacy was failing and the threat of force was necessary? That some were not just full of rhetoric? That they were just trying to take the next reasonable step in order to make the kind of progress in Iraq that Dennis wanted? Sanctions lifted, full inspections and a WMD free Middle East. Bush fowled it all up?

Woops

THE WAR. :)

it's based on several factors. His brilliance in many regards. His pragmatic progressive policies. etc...

Dean has spoken out on many issues, one of which happened to be the Iraq war.