Follow Up Post on Dean at LUTD

[Dr Ron]

Defend Dean, Not the Comments
10 June 2005


Yesterday I commented on the controversy over Howard Dean's recent comments. One mistake I believe many are making is confusing support for the person and their positions with the need to defend every comment.

Nobody is perfect and everyone makes mistakes in what they say--including, but certainly not limited to, Howard Dean.

It is not contradictory to support the types of changes in government supported by Howard Dean while still questioning the wisdom of some of his comments. Despite reservations over his views on Medicare, which resulted in my change in support from Dean to Kerry in 2003, I'm generally in agreement with the direction Dean wants to go. Both Dean and Kerry are similar in being socially liberal and fiscally conservative. Both have had very similar views on Iraq--although I would have much more respect for Dean if he had admitted this earlier, and acknowledged that Kerry was speaking out against Bush's foreign policy blunders even before Dean was, rather than falsely claiming Kerry voted for the war based upon a distortion of the meaning of the IWR vote.

For some reason, many Dean supporters seem to believe that support for Dean's policy positions means defending every Dean political statement, regardless of how absurd. This is just not necessary, or wise.

In supporting Kerry, I felt no obligation to agree with every statement Kerry made. When Kerry made his famous statement on the $87 billion, I had no problem admitting that it was a terrible statement to make politically. I would explain the context, such that there were two votes and how this was a largely a dispute over how the money would be raised, but would never have attempted to claim it was a sensible sounding way for Kerry to explain it. Kerry admitted the same. In contrast, if Dean had made the comment we'd be hearing endless arguments as to why it was exactly the right thing to say.

Similarly, when limited to sound bites rather than fuller explanations, Kerry often did do a poor job of explaining his position on Iraq. I wouldn't deny that certain comments he made during the campaign weren't ideal. Rather than trying to defend a specific sound bite, I'd explain Kerry's position in full, and refer people to Kerry's more detailed statements where he did provide a sensible explanation of his position.

Dean's comments are fine if Democrats are talking to each other. However, Democratic leaders who are running for office know that such comments are counterproductive in attracting others--especially when it sounds like Dean is lumping everyone who votes Republican together. As I said previously, Dean must be careful to distinguish between current Republican leaders and the typical person who has voted Republican.

Democrats have enough obstacles. They know they don't need the added ones of being dragged down by being associated with these comments, which is why so many have felt the need to go on record distancing themselves from some of Dean's comments. It is possible for Dean's supporters to discuss Dean's strong points and why they support Dean without denying that some mistakes were made. It is also not necessary, or productive towards our goals for them to attack those Democrats who have criticized Dean's comments while continuing (at least for now) to support retaining Dean as DNC Chair.

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=1057

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

1. You would have an argument...

if when some Dems are demonized for non-issues, Dems who are now flogging Dean publicly had stood up for their embattled colleague (most especially such as when Gore was taking the principled stances of count every vote and popular vote mandate, Rendell etc were publicly asking Gore to hang it up).

The problem is one of proportion: A Democrat saying something stupid (if that) is NOT sufficient reason for all prominent Dems to opportunistically (and turns out suicidally) grandstand against the original sinner, IF especially they are not making their stances against real evil as public and as immediate.

There are any number of other lesser and less principled, more expedient, reasons why they should not be doing it. I will not enumerate them here, but I can, if there is interest...

FWIW, I myself do not identify with many of the official Dem positions, however, I find Dems more open to let the facts speak to them and not let ideology dictate their policy prescriptions, which is the reason why I am here. It may be that these suicidal grandstanders are also like-minded and therefore do not feel any party obligation (because of no ideological/emotional connection to the entity or its members) -- however, that does not absolve them at the very least of ill-conceived opportunism.

Bottomline: Dean saying (an arguably perfectly true statement) "GOP = white Christians" is not comment-worthy if, say, the DSM is not comment-worthy. (Relevant question while on DSM: how many of these idiot grandstanding Dem poobahs have commented on the DSM?)

It is this fact that I think causes the extreme rallying reaction from the Deaniacs -- it is really the only rational response in this situation.