If you don't like that word. . . Don't use it.

Every time I watch a Democrat awkwardly trying to invoke God for abortion or gay marriage or whatever, I see something like this in my mind's eye:

Howard Dean: "Oh. . . Jesus!"

Dutch Van Den Broeck: "If you don't like that word, don't use it."

Note: Pat Robertson is equally silly when he claims to know God's position on the line-item veto. But when he mentions Jesus
he at least sounds like he's said the name in public before.

Dean and Buyer's Remorse, part deux

I'm sure all of you have seen Dean's latest by now:

"They (Republicans) all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party'..."

I'm struggling to remember -- what personality disorder would cause someone to randomly say bizarre and self-destructive comments in public places? Or is there a Latin suffix we can append to Dean's name and coin a new mental disorder?

Oh yeah, using 'Christian' as an attack word will definitely help Dems grow the pie in a country that self-describes something like 84% Christian. Especially in the Midwestern swing states.

And does he really think this low sort of stereotyping and bigotry is going to play well with the Middle? We're a culture that's been sensitized to react -badly- to anything that smacks of intolerance. Hence contortions like 'compassionate conservatism.' Outside of the Dem party faithful, who does he expect to woo with this?

Every day, I become more and more of a Deaniac. May his days with the DNC be long and well-publicized.

Dean's first 100 -- buyer remorsing yet?

So. . . 100 days.

In the days leading up to Howie's election as DNC Chair, I did three or four posts salivating about the idea. The prospect of Dean in the DNC fell between poire belle-hélène and tiramisu on my delectability chart.

The response from our Liberal friends here at Le Sabot was... energetic. We both wanted him elected, but for very different reasons. With little time for debate on my hands, they handed my head to me in the various comment sections.

So how does Dean look now, our Liberal friends? Are you glad he won? I know I am. . . ;-)

Jonathan Chait on "Suicidal Dems"

There's been a lot of convo here about Dean's impending chairmanship of the DNC. The best alternative views have come from our buddy CS. I've agreed with some of what he's had to say. Here's a good graph from his last response:

In short, he has the best vision for the future, the best potential for exciting the base and adding people to the base. All the others I've seen would end up allowing the Dems to continue their slide either by pushing the party too far to the right or by continuing the ways of the Clintons, under whose leadership the party lost power.

I think there are a few weaknesses in this analysis though. The people that Dean added to the base CAME from the base. In other words, these were voters from the Left end of the spectrum. And he didn't add enough of them even to secure the nomination, let alone win a national election.

As for Clinton, he's the only two-term Democratic president since ***embarrasingly facile historical braincramp deleted*** Roosevelt. How did he accomplish this? "Triangulation." He co-opted Republican ideas and governed from the center. Yes, he lost power in 1994 in Congress. Why? Because his first two years were notable for gays in the military and HillaryCare. He scared the Hades out of middle America. In other words, he initially governed like a Democrat, and was slaughtered at the polls for his trouble. Once he became "Republican Lite" his fortunes improved.

This puts Dean's comments about not being Republican Lite in perspective. It also obliterates any arguments about him being some sort of moderate. He claims to represent the "Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party". In other words, the liberal activist base. The fact that he was fiscally moderate and liked guns in Vermont does little to offset the fact that his base of support is overwhelmingly on the Left.

He's following in a long tradition of Democratic leaders who've started out moderate and gradually abandoned moderation -- read Al Gore or Bill Clinton's Pro-Life response letters to constituents some time. Leftward drift is the price one pays to compete at the national level.

In the end, whatever energy Dean brings to the Party is the sort of frenetic energy that's already alienating it from normal America. A Party that aspires to majoritarian status doesn't choose the man who wanted to be America's "first gay president" for its mouthpiece. This is only one of dozens of such wacky statements that Republicans will keep fresh in the public mind. A musty NRA endorsement isn't going to do much to offset that.

Jonathan Chait has a great article up today on the Dean sitch. He asks the all-important question: "Why are Democrats suicidally crazy?"

"Democrats need to appeal to culturally traditional voters in the Midwest and border states who worry about the party's commitment to national security. Dean, with his intense secularism, arrogant style, throngs of high-profile counterculture supporters and association with the peace movement, is the precise opposite of the image Democrats want to send out."

As he notes, only 27% of Dems support Dean's candidacy. And Dean is poorly suited to BOTH the jobs of a party chair -- he's an erratic spokesman and a bad manager.

I like David Brook's waggish take on the whole Dean situation:

Thanks to this newly dominant group, the Democrats are sure to carry Berkeley for decades to come.

Hat tips: Orange Ukraine and Real Clear Politics

Double-minded about Dean

So Howard Dean is in the running to be head of the DNC.

It's a Frosted Miniwheats sort of situation. The kid in me loves watching the other side marginalize itself. But the grown-up in me doesn't think its healthy for half of the two-party system to linger on in psychotic delusion. With Howard Dean, we get both!

DeanWatch: Dean in Neverland

"I say things that I probably ought not to say, but I lead with my heart, and that's what I was doing right there, leading with my heart." -- Howard Dean explaining his Incredible Hulk moment in Iowa

Howard Dean in many ways is channeling the Democratic soul. In its essence it is the party of heart over mind. It's intentions are always claimed as good, even when the results are disastrous. Sure, they destroyed the black family with inept social engineering, razed inner city neighborhoods and built unlivable human ant farms and created an incompetent public school monopoly. . . But their hearts were in the right place.

Democratic politics are the triumph of sentiment over reason, and Dean is their avatar.

He also seems to embody Churchill's oft-quoted aphorism that "If a boy isn't a Socialist at 18, there's something wrong with his heart. If a man is still a Socialist at 25, there's something wrong with his head."

Dean's development seemingly arrested at 18, by his own words. You can see it also in his half-apologies for his immature behavior -- "Gosh, I was just funnin' ya."

"Well, you've got to have a little fun in this business." -- his way of explaining the The Incredible Hulk manifestation.

He's used this when called on intemperate statements about Clinton and the DLC, President Bush, and others. Zygote Designs has updated the famous anti-Goldwater "Daisy" commercial for Dean. With the mushroom cloud blooming in the background, the voiceover says, "Can the country really afford someone so mental in the White House?"

It's a legitimate point. Do we want someone this immature near the shiny, bright red, candy-like Button?

Yeeeoooooraow!!!

He is Howie, hear him roar! Or is that a Leftist mating call?

Hear the Squeal of Power.wav here.

Hat tip: Brave Tomorrow

No, Deanites, There's No Easter Bunny, Either.

Reading the post-Iowa comments over on Dean's "Blog for America" is a bit like watching a class of kindergartners being told there's no Santa Claus. They'd believed with a childlike faith, and now harsh adult realities have come crashing down. Once past my initial gloating, I could see a certain pathos in their disillusionment.

Who knows, though? New Hampshire could flip this mad campaign back upright again. Or would that be back upside down? Either way, it's turning out to be a lot more interesting than anyone imagined.

Dean: A Jagged Little Pill

Watching Howard Dean the other day, I realized exactly who he reminded me of -- Alanis Morissette.

Now, I realize that the resemblance isn't immediately apparent. For example, his voice is better, and he prolly knows the actual definition of the word "irony" (note to Alanis -- rain on a wedding day is lucky, not ironic.)

But they have one crucial thing in common. The ability to reinvent themselves. In about 30 seconds, Alanis went from being the Tiffany of Canada:

to angry feminist icon Grrrl:

It's possible that something quite traumatic transpired during those 30 seconds, but I'm unconvinced. Likewise, Dean went from being a relatively moderate, Vermont governor to an angry liberal icon boi. Again, maybe something happened during the 30 seconds in which he deliberated running for president, but I'm skeptical.

Dean Hits the Sawdust Biketrail. . .

DeanWatch: "Overwhelming Evidence?"

Recently after announcing that his faith had led him to legalize homosexual unions in Vermont, Dean added that, "'the overwhelming evidence is that there is very significant, substantial genetic component' to homosexuality. . ."

When it comes to homosexuality, Dean can't even think straight. Or talk straight, apparently. Because there is nothing like 'overwhelming evidence' for any substantial genetic component.

Here's an article from the San Francisco Gate (not exactly Fred Phelps territory), entitled No Easy Link Between Genes, Behavior; DNA Studies Dash Quest for Easy Answers

ABCNews.com featured an article debunking Hamer's twin studies (undoubtedly the intellectual fig leaf Dean was clutching to in his comments.)

To the disappointment of those who point to differences in hypothalamus size as proof of a genetic basis, researchers at UC Berkeley have shown that sexual behavior changes brain structure.

Lastly, check out NARTH's site -- the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality -- for a more in-depth look at these issues. For instance, they do a great job exposing the scientific sleight-of-hand of those who claim the "heritability" of homosexuality -- proving by the proponent's own logic that basketball playing is non-volitional and inherited.

DeanWatch: No Safer?

Charles Krauthammer takes Dean behind the woodshed today in his WaPo column. He gives an overview of why America IS safer with Saddam gone, and ways in which Bush's handling of the War on Terror is working.

"It rests on the wider notion, shared not just by Dean but by many Democrats, that so long as al Qaeda is active, we are never any safer. This rests on the remarkable assumption that we have a single enemy in the world, al Qaeda, and that it and it alone defines "safety."

It is hard to believe that serious people can have so absurdly narrow a vision of American national security. The fact is that we have other enemies in the world.

Saddam Hussein was one of them, and he is gone. Libya was another, and it has just retired from the field, suing for peace and giving up its weapons of mass destruction. (Gaddafi went so far as to go on television to urge Syria, Iran and North Korea to do the same.) Iran has also gone softer, agreeing to spot inspections, something it never did before it faced 130,000 American troops about 100 miles from its border.

These gains are all a direct result of the Iraq war."

DeanWatch: A Farce to be Reckoned With!

By now everyone has heard that Dean tied his religioninto his position on homosexual "civil unions." He also said that God can't be against gays, because He created them. I find this logic appealing in the anti-vegetarian argument of "If God didn't want us to eat animals, why did He make them out of meat?" But not in the gay "rights" debate. It fails to account for the Fall, which perverted Creation and twisted it from its original perfection.

Nuts and Dolts wins for pithiest summation of Dean's position: "From a theological standpoint Dr. Dean is certainly a farce to be reckoned with."

Dean talked recently about using his religion to appeal to Southern voters. He must have Naomi Wolfe advising him if he imagines that tying Christianity to gay-rights activism is going to help him. Note to Gov. Dean -- Just because the word "South" is in "South Beach" doesn't mean that its politics are representative of the rest of the region.

DeanWatch: Inquiring Minds Want to Know

Rich Lowry has some good questions for Dean on NRO. Here are a few highlights:

1. You say the United States shouldn't have fought the Iraq War because Saddam did not present "an imminent threat" to the United States. Yet you supported wars in the 1990s in Bosnia and Kosovo. How exactly did Slobodan Milosevic pose an imminent threat to the United States?

2. You say that it was a mistake for the United States to go to war without the "permission" of the United Nations. For what other sovereign acts of the United States would you require U.N. "permission"?

3. You quit the Episcopal Church because you thought its position on a Burlington, Vt., bike path was "not very Godlike." What is God's position on bike paths? Scriptural references would be helpful.

Posted by Discoshaman at 01:46 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

DeaWatch: Dean's a Believer!

(Sung to the tune of the Monkees' I'm a Believer)

I thought God was
Only true for Republicans
Meant for some white trash
But not for me
God was just so kitschy
That's the way it seemed
Wind-powered energy
Was more for me

And then I saw the polls
Now I'm a believer
Not a trace
Of doubt in my mind
I'm pi-ous
I'm a believer
I couldn't leave God
If I tried

I thought God was
More or less for low-class dupes
But the less I prayed the worse
I polled, oh yeah
What's the harm in claiming
Jesus is my guy
Southern votes got me kneeling
That's no lie

And then I saw the polls
Now I'm a believer
Not a trace
Of doubt in my mind
I'm pi-ous
I'm a believer
I couldn't leave God
If I tried

God was just so tacky
That's the way it seemed
Organic pilafs

Were more for me

And then I saw the polls
Now I'm a believer
Not a trace
Of doubt in my mind
I'm pi-ous
I'm a believer
I couldn't leave God
If I tried

Then I saw the polls
Now I'm a believer
Not a trace
Of doubt in my mind
Now I'm a believer
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm a believer
I'm a believer
I'm a believer

And if you love dogs, I'm a retriever

And if you're a football fan, I'm a receiver

And if you're into wool, I'm a weaver

Thanks to AEI and Marni Soupcoff!

DeanWatch: Dean's Insecurity

The AP has a very damning article about Dean's own "Homeland Security" issue.

There are only sixteen people in the state of Vermont. Two of these are Ben&Jerry. Three others are retired Manhattanites. The remainder of the population consists of Bernie Sanders, Governor Dean's immediate family, a few farmers, and two aging ski bums. This shouldn't be a difficult place to secure.

Nevertheless, Dean has a direct, decade-long history of lax security and myopic oversight at the only thing worth bombing in Vermont -- the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. If in the course of ten years he couldn't get his own house in order, then he has no place criticizing anyone else on the issue.

DeanWatch: UN Lapdogging

People had various reasons for opposing the war. Some were more valid than others. Leave it to Howard Dean to pick the one with asininity for its active ingredient.

'Dean said he "would not have hesitated" to launch an attack on Iraq "had the United Nations given us permission and asked us to be part of a multilateral force."'

Before you vote for Howard Dean, either directly, or else indirectly through a third party, take a moment to reflect on this. Howard Dean's position on the war wasn't determined by its morality, or the safety of the United States. It was predicated simply on the position of the UN.

Do you realize how monstrous this is?

DeanWatch: Crisis of Faithlessness, Part Deux

Blogs for Bush has good coverage of Dean's religion ploy. Yeah, his faith is so stalwart that he's seriously considered becoming a Unitarian. That'll set them to dancing in the aisles down South.

Be sure also to check out this The New Republic article which gives an insightful analysis of Dean's crisis of faithlessness, and a macro look at the role of religion in politics.

DeanWatch: The White House is Worth a Platitude?

Henry IV, realizing his throne would never be secure so long as he remained a Protestant, nominally converted to Catholicism. His rationale was that "Paris is worth a mass."

Howard Dean, realizing he has little chance to win the presidency unless he poaches a few Southern votes, has apparently decided that the White House is worth a platitude.

Which is exactly what he gave us in his religion speech. He mouthed a few ambiguous phrases about Jesus. It was laughably transparent. Right on the heels of his bungled "I want southern boys with confederate flags on their bumpers" speech, does ANYONE think this wasn't completely calculated and focus-grouped?

I agree with Wes Pruden over at WashTimes: "Born-again Christians black and white, in the South and elsewhere, do not speak of Christ in the past tense and are not likely to be impressed by someone who regards Christ as merely an "inspiring example."

We aren't likely to be impressed by someone who cynically name-drops the name of Christ for political gain, either.

Update- Given that he's consciously not talked about his "faith" in the North, but now wants to do it down South, maybe I should have cribbed a Jimmy Buffett tune: "Changes in Latitude, Changes in Platitude. . ."

DeanWatch: A Fair Trial for bin Laden?

In case you needed further proof that Howard Dean is an alien from planet Bureaucraton, check out this article. He truly isn't from the same world as the rest of us. He refuses to declare bin Laden guilty for the September 11 attacks. Apparently, the multiple tapes in which bin Laden crows about the attacks and claims responsibility weren't enough for him.

Dean's committed to capturing him alive. Consider the implications -- no Daisy Cutter's dropped on his cave, no shoot-to-kill, no popping him with a Hellfire from a drone. . . We have to dig him out of the mountains alive.

Dean STILL doesn't realize we're at war with terrorism. He continues to think in judicial terms:

"I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found," Dean said in the interview. "I will have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials. . ."

Someone who can't tell a life-or-death struggle from a court case can't be trusted with the security of the United States or its citizens.

DeanWatch: No Safer?

Dean continues to maintain that we're no safer now than immediately after the September 11th attacks. Even if one disagrees on Iraq, this seems like a stretch, given that the Taliban is no longer running Kabul. Now, with Libya unilaterally ending its nuclear weapons program, it seems impossible to maintain. Especially in light of this article:

"I will do whatever the Americans want because I saw what happened in Iraq, and I was afraid," Mr. Gadhafi told Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, according to a Berlusconi spokesman who was quoted in yesterday's Telegraph of London.

DeanWatch: And You're No McCain, Gov. Dean

The LA Times has a good write-up of Dean's "contradictory statements", which is what they call lies when an individual is running for president. An example:

" In a Dec. 10 news conference in Concord, N.H., Dean insisted that he "never said Saddam was a danger to the United States, ever."

But in an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sept. 29, 2002, Dean said, "There's no question Saddam is a threat to the U.S. and our allies."

Dean likes to posture as a straight-talker, but each day evidence mounts to the contrary.

DeanWatch: Usual Suspects Foreign Policy Team

NRO has a good overview of Dean's new "centrist" foreign policy advisers. Read through this list of Vietnam protestors, UN-philes and appeasers. Then ask yourself: to whom would you trust the safety of America -- these people, or Powell, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice?

New Feature: DeanWatch

Despite Dean's surge, the press continues to give him the second-tier kid's-glove treatment. His misstatements are overlooked, his genuine nuttiness downplayed, and each day brings more near-hagiographical write-ups of his campaign. Gaffes that would damn a Republican candidate, or even a mainstream Dem, are relegated to page B-6 when covered at all.

Recent examples include his strong implication that Bush knew about 9/11 in advance, and him repeatedly calling Russia the Soviet Union.

Thanks to Deb Orin at the NY Post, word has leaked out about Dean's hate-filled fundraiser in New York. Don't try finding much about in it the papers of record, as usual.

"Comic Judy Gold dissed President Bush as 'this piece of living, breathing s---' . . . Comic Kate Clinton evoked Michael Jackson (hit with new child-sex-abuse charges) and said: 'Frankly, I'm far more frightened of Condoleezza Rice' - the Bush national security adviser who has nothing in common with Jackson except being black. . .

Rice seems to drive liberal woman comics especially nuts. Sandra Bernhard insulted her in racial terms with a "Yes Massa" accent at another Dean fundraiser the same night. . . Comedian David Cross used the N-word for blacks in a disjointed "joke" apparently based on the premise that it's fine for a pro-Dean comic to use racial epithets. . ."

Can you imagine if a Bush fundraiser had featured a Donna Brazile "Yes massa" impression during the 2000 campaign? He would have been crucified. Dean gets another pass.

But that's the beauty of the internet. The media can try all they like, but the truth just isn't so easy to quash anymore.

DeanWatch: Dean of Strategic Incompetence at Democratic U.

If you need another reason to vote for Bush, it splashed down in the Pacific on Thursday. We've now had 4 out of 5 of our anti-missile "hit-to-kill" intercepts come out successfully. This is a validation of both Ronald Reagan's vision for a ballistic missile shield, and President Bush's brave decision to pull out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.

Given that North Korea either has, or will soon have, an ICBM capable of hitting the west coast of the United States, it would require a stupidity bordering on criminal to oppose an ABM system for our country.

For an example of such stupidity, look no farther than Governor Dean. He's on record as saying that he'll re-enter the US into the ABM treaty when he's inaugurated. This, of course, overlooks the fact that the country with whom we entered the compact, the Soviet Union, no longer exists. (Though given that Dean still refers to Russia as the Soviet Union, maybe he's simply unaware of the situation?)

It also overlooks the fact that the only thing standing between us and nuclear blackmail by rogue states is such a shield.