…to offer the soothing balm of healing. From the Portland Press Herald:
The Bush White House is the most corrupt administration in U.S. history since President Warren G. Harding’s, said Howard Dean during his first visit to Maine as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Dean’s comments Saturday came as top White House advisers are being investigated for their roles in the outing of a CIA operative and Tom DeLay, the former second-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, faces conspiracy and money-laundering charges.
“The first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to have ethics come back to Washington again,†said Dean, the keynote speaker at Saturday night’s annual fundraising dinner for the Maine Democratic Party at the Lewiston Armory.
To deal with the “culture of corruption,†Dean said, there needs to be an ethics code in Congress and stronger campaign finance laws. . . .
Dean said Republicans should not have interfered in the Terri Schiavo right-to-life case.
“I’m tired of the ayatollahs of the right wing,†Dean said. “We’re fighting for freedom in Iraq. We’re going to fight for freedom in America.â€Â
An itemized rule book for Congress? Additional checks on free speech via more campaign finance reform? Wow! Can’t you just smell your liberties being loosed from the iron-fisted grip of the fascist Rethuglicans?
Dean’s presentation would be absolutely laughable if it weren’t so otherwise chilling—an unselfconscious conflation of “freedom” with an increase in governmental regulation and a legal check on that most dangerous of all “rights,” free speech.
In fact, Dean—without giving it a second thought—is engaging in a quintessential Orwellian moment: redefining freedom to mean control of thought and speech through governmental regulation.
Dean claims to worry about the ayatollahs of the right wing; but whereas the right wing occasional gets it virtue glands pumping over video game violence and potty-mouthed rap music, it is the “progressive” base of the left that has given us “free speech zones” and tolerance codes on college campuses, a culture of political correctness constantly on guard against giving offense—even as it has managed to divide society into warring, self-interested grievance groups who by virtue of their individual authenticities can dismiss criticism and assume a uniqueness worthy of special dispensation.
And Dr. Dean is worried about right-wing ayatollahs? Physician, heal thyself.
(h/t Rob Port)
Get used to this.
This is a strategy long in the making. The Dems are starting their election offensive on a theme of Rethuglian corruption. As their base (and a good part of the rest of America) are too ignorant to know how laughable these “charges” of corruption are, it is a little scary.
Why do you think Ronnie Earle is twisting himself into a pretzel to indict DeLay? It isn’t because of his hatred for Delay, although that makes it more fun, but because he has gotten his marching orders, and has obviously been told that he will be protected from reprisals for his outrageous and illegal behavior. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise, but I am stunned that no one is going after Earle – especially the Texas bar. Earle is the man that should be headed for oblivion, but I hear nary a peep of protest – only fascists pointing the finger at everybody else.
Frist? Anyone familiar with the facts of his stock sale knows that he covered his ass every which way but loose. But, as with Delay, the Dems are counting on appearances rather than facts, and a lot of the government schooled electorate is not going to bother to check the realities.
Rove and Libby? A clear case of bullshit run amok. Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame can lie their asses off, but the administration takes the hit for “outing” a covert CIA agent.
You’re right, Jeff. It has been obvious for years that those who yell “fascist” the loudest are, in fact, the true fascists. Even though the Soviet Union is gone, Kruschev’s threat to bury us without firing a shot is coming closer to reality every day.
I don’t subscribe to this point of view.
Rove is a genius!
SB: glass
houses
Jeff,
Mother always told me not to make fun of crazy people, but I think it’s perfectly OK for you.
Carry on.
“Ayatollahs of the right”? Does Dean have Al Gore’s speechwriter? I detect the smoky, subtle, piquant flavor of “digital brownshirts.”
–
Dog has it right. The Democrats are today obsessed with four things: Viet Nam, Watergate, Bill Clinton’s impeachment and George Bush. They believe the lesson of Watergate is you have to catch someone (like Richard Nixon) in a scandal. They believe the lesson of the Republicans’ ascension in 1994 is you have to catch someone (like Robert Wright or Dan Rostenkowski) in a scandal. They believe the lesson of Bill Clinton’s failed second term and Al Gore’s miserable campaign was that you have to catch someone (like Bill Clinton) in a scandal (preferably involving sex!).
Scandal, scandal, scandal! This is the mantra. This explains the absurd overhyping of Abu Ghraib, the alleged no-Kevlar story, the no up-armored Hummvee story, the Al Qa Qa ca-ca, phony Koran abuses at Gitmo, the made-up Hurricane Katrina story, these B.S. charges against Tom DeLay and now, arriving as if on a rendezvous mission from a space capsule, Howard Dean.
Not only do they have the premise wrong, but these fools don’t even have any idea what they would do if they suddenly were returned to power. Until the Democrats grow up and act like Americans again they should be condemned to forever wander in the woods mumbling to themselves about Richard Nixon and Truth to Power.
It’s only fair.
Ah, but if you have the media in your pocket regulating the speech of your opponents does equal more freedom.
Yeah, like the bar went after Greg Craig when he fucked Elian Gonzalez.
I think Dean should be congratulated for finally recognizing that we’re fighting for freedom in Iraq.
Good post about the opposite-world, demonizing Dems.
I’d like to add that the Dems running a Clinton in ‘08 with a “culture of corruption” campaign aimed against the Repubs is a serious case of projection showing us just how unhinged the Dems have become. And certainly the GOP tent may be as large as it is with (civilly?) contentious factions because the Dem Party’s constant posture of sneering and smearing is simply vile and off-putting. Having lost any moral authority a long time ago, the Party doesn’t even have its shallow attractiveness to fall back on, anymore. God knows the Dems have no real ideological agenda, other than to wish we were more socialized, bureaucratized and moribund like Europe and submissive to supranational entities. They don’t even seem to like this country all that much, but have no compensating cool style these days to help the electorate overlook that fact. Having a faux man-of-the-people who substitutes vitriol for political discourse as spokesman for the Party and a faux centrist who also engages in hyperbolic and hateful rhetoric (though underreported) as their nominee-apparent pretty much says it all.
Uh, what do you mean, we, Howard? Last I remember, you weren’t exactly leading the fight in Iraq, were you?
Guess it was a good thing you didn’t win after all, huh?
The tactic works well because in the minds of many, being accused or indicted is an indication of guilt, rather than an indication that “there may be something going on that should be examined further. Or not, depending on which grand jury I can get.”
However, being found guilty, being disbared for lying under oath, etc., mean nothing if the person comes from the right (oops, correct) party.
Sure, Dean looks like a Rove plant to us, but to many people, he sounds reasonable at times. The urge to “do something” is behind many of our losses of constitutional rights, and he knows how to fire up the “let’s do something” people.
“We”, Howard?
We?
We?
We?
I’ve coated my throbbing member with honey and candy sprinkles, Howie. Now enjoy.
I particularly liked the part where the reporter mentioned (unspecified) criticisms that the Dems ahd been too “timid” and “vague” in their attacks on Republicans. They certainly haven’t been timid, and the other word they’re groping for isn’t “vague,” it’s “incoherent.”
It’s interesting that the Dems have moved beyond using the courts as a quasi-legislature to implement their policies, and are now trying to use them to remove any officials they can target. Although I’m not sure Rove’s problems fall into that category. Yes, it’s harassment, but the Special Prosecutor law has been abused by both parties for more than thirty years now, and neither party will ever move to repeal that awful law. If they did, their opponents would instantly accuse them of being ethically challenged. They’d be correct, of course, but that still doesn’t validate the Special Prosecutor statute.
Of course, there already is a pretty stringent ethics code both for the House and the Senate.
Um, didn’t we do that in 2000?
Tim P, when I saw that I remembered the Democrat who promised us the most ethical administration in American history.
Guess who that was.
Dean said Republicans should not have interfered in the Terri Schiavo right-to-life case.
Well, that is absolutely true. But the dems could have mustered enough courage to oppose that piece of incredible idiocy. Except that they were vote-whoring as usual.
At the risk of reopening a debate we all would rather not reopen, I would find it hard to justify calling anything Dean says here about the Schiavo case as “absolutely true.”
Although I sometimes engage in hyperbole, I do it for effect because I know better than to expect anyone to take me seriously when I do. That’s something Howlin’ Howard has never learned, and I would really hate to find myself repeating his mistakes.
Dean is proof that the arc between far-right and far-left is now pretty much a circle, and Dean is practically holding hands with Pat Buchanan.
Molly Ivins said it best in 1992 about Buchanan, and it fits perfectly here with The Mad Doctor: Dean’s speech “sounded better in the original German.”
Dean is proof that the arc between far-right and far-left is now pretty much a circle, and Dean is practically holding hands with Pat Buchanan.
Dean is far-left? He’s Chairman of the DNC and as representative Dem as you can get. Pat is stooping in the low corner of the GOP tent, and most of us Repubs don’t even notice him and his few followers squatting on the perimeter, whereas the Dem Party is so radicalized that its several moderates feel like circus freaks. Dean is proof that the ‘arc’ between the far-right and mainstream Democrats is really a Crescent whose tips similarly point to isolationist and fascistic policy that would leave us vulnerable to the terrorist Persuaders.
Does this depend upon what “is†means?
TW: ideas- More ideas from the reality based community.
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