Edwards and Biden may have thought they were immunizing themselves by pushing the media knife a little deeper into Dean’s back, but all they did was ensure another couple of days of coverage for the "story" and give the GOP spinmeisters some fresh ammo to fire back at Dean — who, whether they like it or not, is the chairman of the entire Democratic Party, not just the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.
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June 6, 2005
Casey Stengel’s Lament
Comments
Edwards, Biden, Kerry, Reid,Clinton and the whole crock of them are so pathetic that they might as well be Republicans.
Stengel on playing the game?
They don’t know in what galaxy the park’s located.
Posted by: Spanky Ham | Jun 6 2005 21:45 utc | 1
Unfortunately, you have fallen into the same media trap that so many others have regarding this quote from Dean. The problem is that it isn’t the actual quote. Here it is:
DEAN: Here’s a group of Republican leaders who think that they’re appealing to working people.
They don’t want a minimum wage increase. They’re cutting police people off the beat. They’re attacking Social Security.
Now comes out that people’s private pensions are in trouble under this administration…
…It is as if the Republican leadership never had to work a day in their life.
What possible understanding could they have of what a working person in this country has to go through, if they’re against everything that’s good for working people?
BLITZER: But there are millions and millions of Republicans, more than 50 million of them, voted for President Bush’s re-election.
Are you saying all these Republicans, they don’t have to work for a living?
DEAN: No, no, no. Look, we don’t go after voters.
Voters are the ones that pay our salaries. No matter whether they agree with us or not.
But we do go after bad leadership…we ought to go after the Republicans when they are once again hypocritical about what they’re going to do for working people.
They do nothing for working people.
Here is the link: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0506/03/wbr.01.html
Posted by: Derek Bartholomaus | Jun 6 2005 21:47 utc | 2
@Derek – thanks – that settles one point
But it even makes me more suspect of the Edwards/Biden responses. Why did they think they had to distance themself from Dean?
The problem is that it isn’t the actual quote.
Yes it is. What YOU quoted was Dean on CNN, trying to spin his way out of the original gaffe. (And he did actually did a pretty good job, despite the best efforts of that human slug Wolf Blizter)
Look, I’m not trying to bash Dean, but he did screw up. A minor screw up, all things considered? Certainly. But the reality is that he can’t afford to make a minor screw ups without the media whores turning it into major ones. Dean’s on his way to being “Gingrichized” — for a lot less cause, to be sure, but that’s the reality we face.
Posted by: Billmon | Jun 6 2005 22:13 utc | 4
“Republicans,” he said, “I guess can do that
Typical tempest in Pravda on the Potomac and Blitzer’s teapot. Well at least Dean didn’t shoot Vince Foster.
Posted by: Spanky Ham | Jun 6 2005 22:17 utc | 5
It’s happening again. The US ‘left’ for want of a better word is nailing it’s hopes and fears to the mast of a ship run by and for people whose values are much closer to BushCo than they are to the people they seek to represent. Real change never came out of the barrel of a gun or out of a ballot box. Those outcomes were merely affirmations that change had occurred.
People can’t lose patience here. It would be nice if congress had considerably more non repug members but not really that vital if the new representatives are mouthing the same old shit.
The only time centre-left parties actually espouse leftist concepts is when they want to get the people that hold those beliefs to vote for them. The dems consider that they are the only game in town on the left so there is no need to risk votes on the right by appealling to the left.
If I were in the US and wanted to effect change as quickly as possible I wouldn’t piss around trying to point the cumbersome dem party machine in the correct direction. I won’t mix that metaphor any further but it would be too slow and require too much compromise, better a tug on the outside pulling I’d say.
The Green Party which was effectively neutered by the dem machine is small enough for a concerted attack from politically aware people. If the Greens started chipping away at the dems, they would be reviled but at some stage the DNC would have no choice but to start trying to shore up it’s votes by adopting some more people friendly policies.
As the UK election showed there is a sizable chunk of voters that don’t want a choice between teweedledum and tweedledee and although the political machinery is designed to prevent other parties it cannot stop them and eventually will have to accomodate them.
Yes it means that the assholes will stay in a bit longer but it also means that it will be eventually possible to properly consign them to the fate they deserve.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 6 2005 23:09 utc | 6
Have to retract my take:
The official transcript (pdf) by the Cmpaign for America’s Furtures has the words and context Billmon cited.
Anyhow – the point to me is still: Why did Edwards/Biden think they had to distance themself from Dean in this way? Wasn´t there a better talkline to further the point Dean tried to make?
They are gutless wonders, B.
Always afraid to say anything.
Dean’s line of thought could have been developed very easily.
Posted by: Spanky Ham | Jun 6 2005 23:34 utc | 8
‘Debs is Dead’ expresses my assessment of the situation very well.
The Demoplican’s new contract calls for them to breathe up all the air an opposition party might and then to gamely lose elections, albeit ready to carry the ball in the “right” direction if they should accidently win.
“Anybody but Bush” produced nobody but Bush.
The Demoplicans hate Howard Dean. He’s trying to fight the fight from within, but they’ll kill him somehow. Unless Americans of color assert themselves and cremate the diseased Demoplican cadaver.
I do hope Dean’ll join us on the outside in his next incarnation. There’s going to be a Millions More March in Washington in October. If it’s really large and a “rainbow coalition” as Jesse Jackson used to say it could mark the turning point.
The turning point will occur in the streets.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Jun 7 2005 2:24 utc | 9
good ost, billmon! dean stands up and is making some noise. he is doing much more than the rest of those no-accounts.
Posted by: lenin’s ghost | Jun 7 2005 4:40 utc | 10
the dems keep baiting their hooks and reeling them suckers in w/ the likes of howard “can’t leave iraq now” dean & talk of john “sorry i was out of the country during the electoral scam hearings” kerry taking the downing street minutes to the podium. hold on..got one! something stinks, and it’s not the fish.
Posted by: b real | Jun 7 2005 4:42 utc | 11
I basically agree w/Debs, but I no longer think “Third Parties” are essential since the Socialist Party in France just committed suicide.
Better to spend the time working on ways to take on the Plutocracy w/their Pinochet-MFriedman economics directly – perhaps organizing against shipping jobs overseas, demanding changes in the tax structure, etc…limited only by peoples imagination. That’s what’s working overtime to turn both American & the EU into a Monarchy, replacing the Divine Right of Kings w/the Divine Right of Capital. We’d be stronger if we could look to link together – after all, the goddamn Bankers in the Western World work together. (As for hope that the Euro would be a major rival to the dollar, if that were the intention of European banking elites they wouldn’t have written the “EU Constitution” to make the EU subordinate to the US in foreign & military policy.)
Billmon should listen to Thomas Franks who said, “Kansas Democrats now vote Repug ‘cuz Democrats no longer support their economic self-interest.” That’s the Issue That Must Be Addressed. The rest is irrelevant quibbles. Though Dean could be a lot more helpful, if he simply went to the Midwest with a plan for shattering the hold of Wall Street over Family Farms. When they hear about how single family farms, or farming co-operatives will get govt. assistance to stay solvent running organic farms & building wind farms, the Party will be where it should be – in the White House. Until then, the Repug party will be in power, though their sole redeeming feature is that they’re Corrupt – which is to say at least they have to be paid off to declare class war on Americans, while the Soros Party prides itself on being willing to destroy Americans gratis!!
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 7 2005 6:45 utc | 12
These are the same idiots who voted for the war and are bravely considering pretending that they were “duped” into that vote by George W. Bush. First they’ll check their pollsters and find out if that is a winning strategy.
A big F-You to Edwards, Biden, Kerry, Clinton (both) and Lieberman to name a few.
Posted by: steve expat | Jun 7 2005 6:51 utc | 13
Oops, forgot to sign the above post.
(Addit. note on multi party Euro. states – It’s not just the French not being represented by their many parties, the Brits. had no one to vote for either in their recent election – they’ve all been gutted by the Pirates.Their “Labor Party” has Rupie Murdoch choice, Tony Blair, in….)
Posted by: jj | Jun 7 2005 7:08 utc | 14
we need to start calling repugs what they are,regressives.they have painted us progressive and pulled out all the least (but still important)things we stand for and that are emotional and put them in the forground.they have defined us as the party of gay mariage and abortion.rights we believe in but should not define us.its time kansas knew who really has their backs.and its not the regressives!
Posted by: onzaga | Jun 7 2005 7:35 utc | 15
When I read Dean’s words in Billmon’s post, I thought,
Oh, Dean is talking about his Republicans – that is the pols. in Gvmt.
The dialogue posted by Derek confirms that.
Dean sees ‘the Republicans’ the way lowly workers in a big company see the bosses – they don’t earn an honest living and yet are rich. He completely forgets there are Republican VOTERS, too, and then tries to make up for the oversight. And speaks only of ‘voters’.
Big company. One party system.
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 7 2005 10:30 utc | 16
Howard Dean once admitted that he had had a “complicated” relationship with his own father, Big Howard, who, by the way, was a rich Republican on Wall Street. Little Howard was raised in the lap of luxury….
Posted by: Jose Chung | Jun 7 2005 17:59 utc | 17