hey commissar, a leftie blog actually mentioned the election (now with updates)
CORRECTION AND UPDATE: I both retract and apologize to Josh for any “hack/shill” comments I made about him in this post. I was angry (although I believe righteously so), but I got carried away with that anger, and when that happens, the probability of sounding like a fool gets closer to one, and I ran up pretty close to that. I made a lot of friends in the blogosphere by not throwing those words around casually, and upon further reflection (getting out in this damn wind), I see I have done that. It’s a bit silly to call the most popular Kansas blogger a hack, and these words are not apt as general descriptions of his work.
So, don’t mix caffeine and politics, kids. And for what it’s worth, I believe that the comments by Sen. Roberts he refers to are wrong. I explain why in the comments.
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Calling all Commissars… I found one.
A lefty blog which mentions the election, and slams me for referring to Howard Dean as a “professional raving lunatic” after his “the idea that we are going to win is just plain wrong” comment, as if that were the one that “pushed me over the edge”.
Do a search. This, believe it or not, is not the first time Dean has opened his mouth and said something outrageous. It was merely the latest in a string of outrages. At least act like someone who’s not a bought-and-paid-for shill, or a completely lazy hack. And one more thing: Go to hell. UPDATE: See above.
Howard Dean:
“We’ve gotten rid of (Saddam Hussein), and I suppose that’s a good thing.”
Howard Dean:
“You think people can work all day and then pick up their kids at child care or wherever and get home and still manage to sandwich in an eight-hour vote? Well Republicans, I guess can do that. Because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives.”
Howard Dean:
“You know, the Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. They’re a pretty monolithic party. Pretty much, they all behave the same, and they all look the same. … It’s pretty much a white Christian party.”
(last three here) Howard Dean:
“You think the RNC could get this many people of color into a single room?†he marvels. “Maybe if they got the hotel staff in there.â€
Howard Dean, repeating terrorist talking points:
Former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean said Tuesday that President Bush’s decision to send troops to Iraq appears to have contributed to the bombing deaths of 201 in Spain.
—European intelligence agencies are trying to identify a purported al-Qaida operative who claimed in a videotape that the group carried out the bombings to punish Spain for backing of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The tape was discovered in a trash bin near Madrid’s largest mosque on Saturday after a telephone tip to a Madrid TV station.
Dean referred to the videotape when asked whether he was linking U.S. troops in Iraq to the deaths in Spain.
“That was what they said in the tape,” Dean said. “They made that connection, I’m simply repeating it.”
Howard Dean on the fates of Uday and Qusay Hussein:
“I think in general the ends do not justify the means.”
“The truth is the President of the United States used the same device that Slobodan Milosevic used in Serbia. When you appeal to homophobia, when you appeal to sexism, when you appeal to racism, that is extraordinarily damaging to the country.”
And, just for fun, Howard Dean on Social Security:
“The way to balance the budget is for Congress to cut Social Security, move the retirement age to 70, cut defense, Medicare and veterans pensions, while the states cut almost everything else. It would be tough but we could do it.” — Howard Dean in 1995
“I would also entertain taking the retirement age up to 68.” — Howard Dean to NBC in June of 2003
“I have never favored a Social Security retirement age of 70 nor do I favor one of 68.” — Howard Dean in August of 2003.”
All those are pretty funny, because Howard Dean doesn’t have any real political power. The one that still, after all this time, makes me madder than second-rate hack bloggers who don’t do research is this:
“I don’t know. There are many theories about (9/11). The most interesting theory that I’ve heard so far—which is nothing more than a theory, it can’t be proved—is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis. Now who knows what the real situation is? But the trouble is, by suppressing that kind of information, you lead to those kind of theories, whether they have any truth to them or not, and eventually, they get repeated as fact. So I think the president is taking a great risk by suppressing the key information that needs to go to the Kean Commission.”
Suffice it to say now that there will be no apologies to anyone offered by me.
UPDATE: Related to the original point with .001 of the anger is this post by Jeff Goldstein.
12.15.2005 @ 12:35
This is all interesting, and I could argue with you about the philosophy of means vs. ends or try to parse Howard Dean’s words, but my point is simply that I don’t see you criticizing Pat Roberts for saying what Howard Dean said.
So don’t call me a hack or a shill.
12.15.2005 @ 13:00
It was simple, man. All you had to do to find out why I feel the way I do about Dean is to click on the search box to your right, type in “Howard Dean”, and click “search”. Bingo.
Any debate you want to start with me on “ends vs. means” is fine by me. I plan on winning that.
Ready? (Get a notepad.) What Roberts said is wrong. There is a clear notion of victory in Iraq and that’s the formation of a stable, peaceful democracy where none previously existed, which is relatively (for the region) free of terrorists.
Painting me as disingenuous for not criticizing remarks I hadn’t seen or heard of until I read your post criticizing me for not having seen or heard them is simply ridiculous.
Winning and coming home is not good enough for you. If the troops - every last one of them - were pulled out tomorrow, would that be enough for you? I doubt it. And you don’t have the time for all of us who support this mission to come by your place and apologize for it personally. So what, then? (That is a rhetorical question; I believe I know what the answer is.)
I’ll take down/apologize for the “hack/shill” comment. I was angry (although I believe righteously so), but I got carried away with that anger. I made a lot of friends in the blogosphere by not throwing those words around casually, and here I’ve done so.
12.15.2005 @ 15:42
Thanks for the retraction. My intent wasn’t to criticize pre-emptively, but to point out that the treatment of Howard Dean’s comments is often taken to an extreme of partisanship, an extreme that is rarely coherent.
We went into Iraq to eliminate WMD and end ties to terrorists. Neither existed before, so there’s a trivial level on which victory is impossible.
Establishing a democracy was achievable by other means. That’s not to say it won’t happen, but we’ll wait and see what happens and when.
My proposal for Iraq is to have troop levels drawn down and to let Iraqis take the reins to the best of their abilities. That’s good enough for me on a policy level.
You criticize Howard Dean for saying that “I think in general the ends do not justify the means.” I don’t either, and I doubt you do. Any benefits that come from invading Iraq could have been achieved at lower cost without invading, or by building a genuine international consensus and coalition before the invasion. If invading was a means to our end, it failed to treat others as ends unto themselves.
That’s why discussing ends and means matters. That’s why we have to figure out how we got into the mess that is Iraq. I don’t need an apology, I need a conversation that doesn’t descend rapidly into name-calling.
“Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.”