Dean Blasts 'Washington Claptrap' Dig

[Khephra]

Dean Blasts 'Washington Claptrap' Dig
Dean Dismisses New Charge As 'Washington Claptrap,' Says Surging Campaign Builds Momentum

The Associated Press



CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa Nov. 23 — Howard Dean dismissed the latest criticism against him by rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination as "Washington claptrap" and said criticism has escalated as his surging campaign built momentum.

"I think it's because they think I'm in the lead," Dean said.

snip.....

Speaking in a telephone interview from New York, Dean responded with his own assault on Gephardt's record in Congress.

"My response is this is a guy with no executive experience and who has never made a tough decision," Dean said.

more.........

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20031123_716.html

[realFedUp]

1. You tell 'em Doc.

[phirili]

2. Reminds me of Bushco position on Iraq: More attacks means more progress.

[Jacobin]

3. One teeny tiny difference

Attacks in IraqNam are connecting in a very bloody way.

Attacks on Dean are invigorating his base and generating more campaign contributions.

:-)

[phirili]

4. Have U seen the Iowa polls lately?

[wtmusic]

6. I saw that he and Gep are tied

and Kerry is 11 pts behind.

Did I miss something?

[tsipple]

7. Yup

I have.

Keep an eye on the news wires.

[Rose Siding]

8. No, actually. No new Iowa poll for 16 days

and much has happened. Very curious. Have you seen a newer one that the the 7 pt spread?

It doesn't make sense, though, to argue he isn't perceived as the frontrunner because of one poll in one state.

[drfemoe]

20. that's only on three days of the week

OTOH he claims attacks = murican success ..
OTOH he claims attacks = terraist .. that's what terraist DO . they KILL people ..

Context is important to determine which one is being used.

Put them both together and we can conclude that:
as long as we are being 'successful' in our mission, the little ts will keep killing, thereby also proving they are successful terraists.

It's a win/win set-up.

[eileen_d]

5. "Washington claptrap"?

That's a little too folksy for me. Or something. :eyes: Honestly, whenever Dean plays the "Washington Insider" card, I laugh about how he's going to look if he actually does become president. "Don't take me seriously... I'm a Washington Insider now!"

And "I think it's because they think I'm in the lead" -- well, DUH. I know the presence of other candidates is a dreadful inconvenience, but you're just going to have to suck it up, Doctor.

[Eloriel]

9. Just out of curiosity

Has there ever been anything Dean said that you didn't find fault with? Seriously, I'd like to know. If so, what was it?

Eloriel

[liberalmuse]

14. Christ!

Here we go again...<rolling eyes>

[Julien Sorel]

10. Whoreard Dean at work:

Gephardt makes specific charges:

"Time after time, when faced with budget shortfalls, Howard Dean's first and only instinct was to cut," Gephardt said. "This is the measure of the man who would be president. I believe in a very different approach from Howard Dean."

To which Dean replies with an ad-hominem, calling him a 'Washington insider,' instead of actually addressing the charge. As far as I can tell, the charge is accurate, which is why Dean resorts to namecalling. And of course, like leader, like followers.

[tsipple]

11. OK, Let's Look at the Charge

Time after time, when faced with budget shortfalls, Howard Dean's first and only instinct was to cut.

If Howard Dean balanced Vermont's budgets time after time, I guess he's guilty.

But that's not the charge. Gephardt's actual charge is bogus. Why? If you look at Vermont's government spending, Dean took it from a truly AWOL state government which provided piss-poor state services (or no services) and turned it into a moderately progressive one with excellent healthcare and family services, particularly. The record is pretty clear on that. You can look at Vermont's total state spending over Dean's tenure. It grew at a decent clip, although it wasn't unbridled growth.

There are also plenty of areas where Dean advocated increased spending. Dr. Dynasaur (the childhood health insurance program) is one. So is the program to help newborn infants and their mothers get home visits for voluntary advice and counseling. That program has demonstrable effects on reducing infant mortality. Dean also spent money on land banking (to add to Vermont's state-owned holdings for conservation purposes). Highway funding was good (again because bad roads and poor snow plowing kills people). Dean brought Vermont inmates back from out-of-state prisons and closer to their families, to help reduce recitivism, and that took a hunk of money. Education in the poorer Vermont communities got a big boost, mostly due to a controversial Supreme Court decision that Dean helped implement.

Those are just a few of the areas Dean advocated and secured increased state spending.

But does he run a balanced budget operation? You bet, and that's progressive. The most vulnerable people are hurt with the wild swings in government spending that occur in most states. Vermont didn't over spend during the good years, and so state services have remained quite stable during the lean times. I don't know what Dick Gephardt thinks, but that's progressive policy. Dean certainly made sure that Vermont government lived within its means. Bush's "starve the beast" borrow-and-spend policies are awful, and Dean is absolutely correct that Dick Gephardt has been ineffective in blocking Bush's dangerous policies.

[Julien Sorel]

12. You lost me right off the bat:

If you look at Vermont's government spending, Dean took it from a truly AWOL state government which provided piss-poor state services (or no services) and turned it into a moderately progressive one with excellent healthcare and family services, particularly.

This is a complete fabrication. Vermonters already enjoyed widespread health coverage when Dean took the helm of the state. I've seen it documented elsewhere here and I found something from the state government showing the percentage of uninsured in 1992 (when Dean took office)was 9.7; in 2002 it was 9.5:

http://www.leg.state.vt.us/jfo/Vermont%20Uninsured.pdf

Here is a piece written by a Dean-friendly economist, which talks about how restrained Dean was with regards to public spending:

http://www.vermontguides.com/2001/1-jan/jeffcarr.htm

So if Dean 'worked hard to hold the line on expenditures,' as Carr says, how could he have turned an 'AWOL state government' into a 'mildly progressive one,' as you claimed, especially when that state had been setting records for public spending in the years prior to Dean's arrival as governor? Frankly, I think you made this up. Cite something; don't just make garbage up because it casts Dean in a good light -- that's dishonest, and when you get busted for it, it makes it look like Dean has so little going for him that you have to lie to cover for him.


After reading the numbers on the insured, by the way, I have to state that I think Dean is an even bigger fraud than I did before. He talks about his tenure in Vermont as if he transformed the state, but I see no evidence of that, especially in the area of healthcare.

[w4rma]

13. What will Clark do? Keep on deregulating big buisness? (n/t)

[drfemoe]

22. You think Dean is a fraud

many of us believe Clark (et al) are frauds.

(Actually Dean became Gov in 1991, and your chart shows the rate was 12.7%.) .. as if I care.

After I had posted several *anti* Clark posts a couple of months ago,
I gave it a rest after we got a good look at his "performance".
I don't believe in kicking someone when they're down.

But, this rabid bunch of Clark supporters here at DU are causing me to reconsider that decision.

* Advance warning * don't come on any of my anti-Clark threads whining and expect me to reply.
I'm beyond caring about 'your' candidate.

[Julien Sorel]

26. LOL

Such a tough guy!

[Rose Siding]

15. What's a "whoreard"?

Would that be like a corporate lobbyist hawking CAPS II to close govt contacts right after leaving a high military post?

*only to exhibit that anything can be spun to trash any Dem. You Don't Need To Go Here.

[Julien Sorel]

16. Nope.

It's a guy who will pander to any group, sell out any value, tell any lie, attack any Dem, abandon any group of people, to win the nomination, even if it means his party takes a shellacking in the general election, and loses the presidency as well as more Senate seats.


Yes, as a matter of fact, I do need to go here. You didn't, however. Or is that, whorever. Whatever.

[whirlygigspin]

17. can you say 'projection'?

[Voltaire99]

19. Clark as CNN war whore

If the metaphor of whoring is to be used - always apt in politics, in fact, so why not? - then let us at least consider that Wes Clark's turn as on-camera color commentator for the national sporting event known as the Iraq invasion nicely qualifies as whoredom.

That he wishes now to be seen as a war critic after sweatily working the CNN brothel proves that, like tank armor hardened against shells, Wes Clark is impervious to irony.

[Julien Sorel]

21. Besides the rather sad and revealing attempt to

change the subject from Dean, (yes, he is apparently that indefensible) Clark never did anything but give his expert opinion on CNN.

What he did not do, unlike Whoreard Dean, was change his opinion or his stated beliefs for votes, or money, or because he was in front of audience A instead of audience B. In fact, comparing Clark's time at CNN to Dean is revealing: Clark criticized the war when it was not in his pecuniary interest to do so. Would Dean have done the same? I doubt it very much, considering his long record of whoring for votes and money.

But really, the changing of the subject is every bit as telling as the lies. Dean is really that defenceless against the charge of whoring that you have to first try to lie, and then when called on it, try to change the subject to something else -- anything else, to distract attention from the smeared lipstick and Monica stains that surround Whoreard's well-used orifice(s), and mark him for what he is.

[drfemoe]

23. Excuse me?

Clark criticized the war when it was not in his pecuniary interest to do so.

When was this? I read in the times or something that now Clark is using the tag line that he spoke out against the war while he was working at CNN!!!! .. I don't believe that is true. Do we have a film clip? Transcript?

If not then, when exactly did Mr. Clark step up to criticize the war?

[Julien Sorel]

24. How about the Time piece, which he wrote, and which is

titled 'Let's Wait To Attack,' citing poor preperation and a lack of political support around the world? Or the London Times piece, which certain persons, your fellow Kool-aid swilling Dean whores included, have tried to spin into 'orgasmic support of the war,' but which, in fact, expressed reservations about it and predicted almost exactly the situation we are in? I don't know what is being claimed regarding his CNN broadcasts, and I don't watch TV myself, so I won't comment much except to say I have enough confidence in Clark's integrity, and have read enough of his work, to find it hard to believe he didn't have some criticisms of the war which he managed to slip into his analysis.

And now, I'm getting a little tired of defending Clark against ovine Deanites on a Dean thread. If you have some specific defence to lay out for Whoreard, be my guest; until you do, I'm going to assume that you, like the other Kool-aid addicts, have no real defence to offer because there is none. But most folks who aren't part of the cult already knew that.

[Zhade]

25. That wasn't criticizing the war. It was criticizing the timing.

Bit of a difference, I think.

[Julien Sorel]

27. Have you read the article 'Let's Wait To Attack'?

It was written in 2002, but it might as well have been written yesterday insofar as it expressed Clark's opinion on the war. I have a copy, but Time Magazine are bastards about copyright issues, so I can't post any excerpts.

Basically, he argues that the real opponent is al-Qaeda, that Saddam is not an immediate threat, that diplomacy needs to be exhausted, that going to the UN was the proper decision, that war should be the last resort, and that by going to war without doing these things, we risk winning the war but losing the peace. He even talks about the need for an international policing agency for post-war Iraq, and frets about the possibility that the war might destroy Iraq's economy, and Iraq might require international economic assistance as a result. Sound familiar?

It's kind of funny: Clark is not a politician at heart, and came from a culture where honor and integrity are prized above everything else, and yet people keep looking for spin and dishonesty, and assume it's there even when it isn't. In some cases, I think it's dishonesty on their part (especially some of the Deanites), but in others, I think people simply do not understand that not everyone is for sale. Clark, along with everyone else, believed Saddam had chemical and biological weapons, but that's about the extent of his error on this issue as far as I've seen.

[dArKeR]

18. Gephardt is one main reasons of the current state of the Dem. Party!

He is a total loser and should be dumped.