pulling it over our own eyes? Which is it???? Maybe a little of both....
“Asked whether her son is a liberal, Dean’s mother told Cloud, “He’s not really...I just hope they don’t find that out just yet.”
http://www.time.com/time/style/printout/0,8816,472817,00.html “……keep in mind that Dean is no progressive. He just wants your vote. And like most politicians he'll say what he needs in order to get what he wants. Supporting Civil Unions back in Vermont is one of his only plus marks, but that shouldn't entitle him to outright ownership of your vote. Don't let him fool you into thinking he's anything more than regressive. He's simply not.”
http://www.pressaction.com/pablog/archives/001000.htmlhttp://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/08/269121.shtmlWill the Real Howard Dean Please Stand Up? Don't hold your breath
In 1995, Vermont reporters were writing stories suggesting that Dean actually delighted in the confusion about his ideological leanings. In 1995, after making a round of national news shows, Dean seemed almost to brag: "These guys think they're getting a raving liberal. And then they find out I'm not a raving liberal. I'm kind of in the middle and, for example, I'm in favor of workfare."
I suspect we'd rather not actually know who the real Howard Dean is. He just pulled the wool over everyone's eyes thanks to AP news and reporters who can't bother to research or question - in CA this week he said he supports the Kyoto Protocol, when in fact, he's on record as not supporting it. No one said anything about it, and now the average cheering fan thinks Dean supports Kyoto.
It's surprising that the WP is even raising this question since they're the ones essentially giving birth to his presidency as it is by never mentioning anyone except him.
But don't hold your breath on EVER knowing the real Dean.
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/07/267969.shtml“Dean's strategy is to pick a handful of issues - the war, gay rights, healthcare - and spout off that he's so against Bush on these issues, that Bush is so wrong, etc., but when examined in more depth, Dean shows that what he offers isn't 'progressive' by any stretch, but is actually fairly similar to what Bush offers.
So for Amerisheep who aren't paying close attention, they hear that he supports one issue, say gay rights, and they are sure - when you ask them - that he couldn't also support the death penalty, the views of AIPAC, be against the Kyoto Protocol, have supported the concept of illegal preemptive war, etc., and they're often quite surprised to hear that this is the case.
I'm glad you support eliminating the settlements, etc., but then why would you think that suddently, after 90 billion in aid to Israel, that the US shouldn't be involved? We've helped to create a huge anger toward Israel in the region by pumping them full of weapons and loans and to suddenly let them loose and not aid the Palestinians at all, seems reckless. I'd support international peacekeepers, but the Palestinians as a people deserve support. They do have over 50% unemployment, and the US has helped make it this way by supporting Israel for so long. Similarly, Israel has murdered a number of internationals, UN workers, AP reporters, etc., and should have consequences. Just walking away won't be the answer.
My point is, it's a very complex issue, and Dean's response that the problem is 'terrorism itself' and attributing it to one side, is flat-out wrong. “
http://www.counterpunch.org/colby02222003.html"Dean's attempts to run for president as an environmentalist is nothing but a fraud," Smith told Wild Matters. "He's destroyed the Agency of Natural Resources, he's refused to meet with environmentalists while constantly meeting with the development community, and he's made the permitting process one, big dysfunctional joke."
Annette Smith, the director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment - When Smith learned that Dean was holding a press conference at the Burlington Community Boathouse last week to celebrate his eco-legacy, she fired off emails to Vermont environmentalist calling for a protest of the event and wondering if they were "going to let Governor Dean ride out on his white horse of environmental leadership?"
Stephanie Kaplan, a leading environmental lawyer and the former executive officer of Vermont's Environmental Board - "Under Dean the Act 250 process (Vermont's primary development review law) and the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) have lost their way," contends Kaplan. "Dean created the myth that environmental laws hurt the economy and set the tone to allow Act 250 and the ANR to simply be permit mills for developers."
http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/06/1620525.php“Howard Dean supporters, stop sleep walking. He's not a true progressive”
http://www.peaceredding.org/Will%20the%20Real%20Howard%20Dean%20Please%20Stand%20Up.htmDean at Home
The folks back home in Vermont are looking on with a combination of bewilderment and amusement at how their very own good Dr. Dean has become the focus of the debate.
…….In interviews this week, several liberal Vermont politicians and political observers said Dean often found himself in an adversarial position with the state's liberals, as he demanded that growth in government services fall within the constraints of a balanced budget.
…..Dean also boasts of his high rating from the National Rifle Association for his anti-gun control stance, which puts him at odds with most Democrats on the issue. Some years back, he reversed his opposition to the death penalty and now supports it in some cases.
While he is known as the governor who signed the nation's first statewide gay civil unions bill, his supporters and detractors alike say he did little to push the idea until the state Supreme Court forced the legislature's hand. When pressed on the subject of gay marriage before he signed the bill (in private, by the way) he was quoted as saying: "I'm uncomfortable, just like anybody else."
Dean's last election in 2000 was his toughest and he faced challenges from the left and the right. His Republican challenger, Ruth Dwyer made much of his signing the civil unions bill. And Progressive Party candidate Anthony Pollina, who garnered 10 percent of the vote, attacked Dean relentlessly for abandoning universal health care and prescription drug price controls and for opting out of state's public campaign financing system.
But more recently, Dean has come under fire from some liberal activists. Some of Dean's foreign policy statements lead them to argue that anti-war stalwart Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) is a better choice for president.
Dean, for instance, irked some liberals by suggesting that the U.S. military is understaffed in Iraq. Earlier this year, he angered some by suggesting that his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were closer to the conservative America-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) than the liberal Americans for Peace Now (APN).
“I just got a note in the mail from Dean begging for money in which he states that he *is* a progressive - what a lying a**hole. One minute he's laughing at people who call him progressive, the next he's begging for money from us and says he is one. Jerk.”
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/08/269121.shtmlhttp://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/001560.phpLiberals' Hope Is a Vermont Centrist
As Vermont governor, Howard Dean was known as a buttoned-down and bottom-line chief executive. He fought higher taxes, cut programs over the cries of fellow Democrats and often sided with business when the choice was jobs versus the environment.
Which explains why many people back home scarcely recognize Howard Dean the presidential candidate, who has stirred liberals across the country with his blunt talk and passionate antiwar speeches.
"A lot of us laugh and say, 'Howard, we hardly knew you,' " said Elizabeth Ready, the state auditor and a liberal Democrat. Added Bob Sherman, a Democratic lobbyist, "The Howard Dean I see running for president is a lot different than the Howard Dean who ... governed Vermont. He was a moderate."
…….Indeed, as he seeks the White House, Dean makes no secret of his more conservative side. He boasts of repeatedly balancing Vermont's budget, even though state law allows deficit spending. He touts his friendly relations with the National Rifle Assn., saying gun control is an issue best left to each state. He expresses mistrust of the left and right, describing himself as a centrist. "I have always been very skeptical of ideologues," he said.
But Dean, who left office in January after 11 1/2 years as governor, has backed away from certain positions that could prove politically troublesome. In 1995, advocating a balanced federal budget, he suggested cutting Social Security, defense spending, Medicare and veterans' pensions. He no longer favors those steps.
……"He kind of acted as a brake on the Democrats in the Legislature that were more to the left of him," said Jan Backus, a former Democratic state senator. "He tended to be an incrementalist."
Dean also was on good terms with Vermont's business community — a relationship some considered too cozy. "His top advisors were all money people, brokers and bankers," said Ready, a regular Dean adversary when she served in the Legislature.
While Dean was instrumental in preserving hundreds of thousands of acres of open space, critics say he was too willing to capitulate to developers and allow growth that contributed to sprawl and the pollution of Lake Champlain, Vermont's natural gem.
"If the question was enticing new business in the state, giving them what they wanted or needed in terms of permits, locations, you could pretty much predict Howard would come down on the side of what business wanted, even if meant sprawling development," said Patrick Parenteau, a law professor at Vermont Law School and a former state environmental commissioner.
……..But the matter of civil unions — like the governorship itself — was foisted on him by external events.
In 1999, the state Supreme Court unanimously decreed that gay couples were due the same legal rights of marriage as heterosexuals. Dean left it to lawmakers to respond, saying only that he would not sign a bill permitting gay marriage.
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg107010.html
……"'His being called a liberal is one of the great white lies of the campaign,' said Tom Salmon, a fellow Democrat and governor of Vermont for two terms during the Nixon-Ford era. 'He's a rock-solid fiscal conservative.'"
Nieves allowed Dean to deny the tag: "'I think it's pathetic that I'm considered the left-wing liberal,' Dean said. 'It shows just how far to the right this country has lurched.'" Nieves noted: "Over and over on the campaign trail, he tells audiences that he is a fiscal conservative who believes balanced budgets serve the cause of social justice."
……Reporter Sarah Schweitzer wrote "Dean's record isn't radically left-leaning" because "he advocates a balanced federal budget" and "received top ratings from the National Rifle Association and supports the death penalty in some cases."
……On ABC's This Week July 6, reporter Michel Martin replied to Paul Gigot's insistence that Dean was driving the other contenders left by claiming: "The irony being, of course, that he wasn't a terribly liberal governor. He was in fact, a moderate."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A4798-2003Jul30¬Found=true
Howard Dean is not a liberal – or so say the liberals who know him best in his home state of Vermont.
"He governed from the middle," says former state Sen. Jan Backus.
Ironically, some of Vermont's Democratic Party stalwarts say Dean's centrism sent liberals running from their party to the ultra-liberal Progressive Party -- handing some elected offices to Republicans.
…….Vermont liberals say Dean's governing history suggests more of a political tactician, a strategic opportunist who will ultimately run a campaign that inspires the middle as well as the left. Dean -- who gained early momentum with his staunch anti-war talk -- has sought recently to broaden his rhetoric and become known for something other than anti-war diatribes.
"Dean a liberal? It's ludicrous. Ludicrous!" says Peter Freyne, a writer for the Burlington, Vt., alternative weekly Seven Days, which has taken Dean to task in recent years for, among other things, opposing the legalization of medical marijuana. "He was always Mr. Law and Order. This is a guy who grew up in Manhattan, the son and grandson of people who worked on Wall Street. He's not from Ben and Jerry's Birkenstock land."
Freyne said people are giving too much credence to Dean's war opposition, as though that alone is enough to qualify him as a flaming liberal.
"It's a bit odd, isn't it, that someone who is against a very questionable military invasion is by definition a liberal?" Freyne says.
http://www.deaninthenews.com/DeanVolunteers/press_view.asp?ID=1034…......His entire time in Vermont politics, going back to his days in the Legislature, as lieutenant governor and as governor in the '90s, there was never a sentence in any newspaper in the state of Vermont that contained the word 'liberal' and 'Howard Dean.'
-- Vermont reporter Peter Freyne,
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