Don't Stop Dean

I just read William Safire's editorial entitled "Don't Stop Dean." I just hadta shake my head. It's sad. Safire is a very intelligent and approachable man. Soft spoken and kind. But he has become such a tool for the administration. He is too smart to be so very out of touch with reality. Here's the breakdown:

Don't Stop Dean
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

WASHINGTON

I am beginning to worry that Howard Dean may not get the Democratic nomination. Follow the convoluted reasoning:

You have nothing to fear, old boy.

There are now three de facto political parties in the U.S. In order of present strength, these are:

(1) The Republican Party, in control of all three branches of government and most of the statehouses, fat and sassy because the economy is rising and the war is being won.

That assertion is most disengenous, if not laughable. See: "Troubling Report from the Pentagon" from the Center for American Progress at www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=16053

(2) The Dean-Internet Party, its Bush-despising base so energized as to be frenetic, its leader happy to be the apostle of anger, its bandwidth bandwagon gaining momentum with each pulse of its cursing cursor.

Dean is not the angry one, a multitude of disenfranchised Americans are. Dean has heard and addressed that. That is why he's surged.

(3) The Old Democratic Party, its base off base, its leadership fractured, its third-way ideology � vainly espoused by the Clintonian Democratic Leadership Council � a lost cause without a rebel voice.

Neo Con Democrats might as well be Neo Con Republicans. There's little difference. Perhaps they should get real and switch parties.

Can it be that the opposition to the reigning Republicans is deeply cleft in twain, as mouth-fillingly described above? What evidence is there that the present noisy jousting is not just the usual primary-season scuffling?

The Dean movement is exciting. It's bringing in folks from all ends of the spectrum. It's grassroots. I know you entrenched Republicans have a hard time grasping this new populism. Better get used to it.

Consider the "you're a liar" clash between the Old Democrat poll front-runner, Wesley Clark, and the emerging Dean party's hero.

Clark claims that Dean offered him the vice presidential nomination: "It was dangled out there . . . offered as much as it could have been." Dean denies it flatly: "I did not and have not offered anyone the vice presidency." Clark, egged on by his Clinton handlers, imputes a dishonorable motive to Dean: "Why is he squirming? Because maybe he's done the same for a lot of other people."

One of these men is not telling the truth. Most voters would say that one of these boldfaced names is a baldfaced liar, though charitable souls would call it a misunderstanding. ("I can't make a `formal' offer at this stage, Wes, but if I could, wouldja?") Despite Dean's "dangle," Clark cast his lot with the Old Dems.

Retired Gen. Hugh Shelton, Clark's boss said this:
"I've known Wes for a long time. I will tell you the reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues, things that are very near and dear to my heart. I'm not going to say whether I'm a Republican or a Democrat. I'll just say Wes won't get my vote."
I think I will take Dean's word on it.

Following this week's he-said-he-said, the unforgiving Dean slammed Clark's Clintonites and their ideological home, the Democratic Leadership Council. Updating his early declaration, Dean called for unity by deriding the D.L.C. as "sort of the Republican part of the Democratic Party � the Republican wing of the Democratic Party."

DLC = Neo Con. (Straussian Republicans. What an oxymoron.)

Stung, the D.L.C., now headed by Senator Evan Bayh and the Bill Clinton guru Al From, complained online about Dean's "insulting charge of crypto-Republicanism" and disapproved of "the brain-dead tactic" and "incoherent rage" of his followers.

They're just sore because they can't compete with dean. And that's because folks are starting to think for themselves, thanks in large part to the internet and wide dissemination of information.

This gets down to the Rockefeller-Goldwater level of eye-gouging that is not forgotten at the national convention. What if Dean, as the pollwagon now suggests, trounces the Clinton Establishment � Clark, Lieberman, Kerry, even Edwards and Sharpton � in the primaries? Will they loyally kiss the ring of the winner?

They probably will, albeit very grudgingly.

Of course they will. They'll rally round to hold the Democratic Party together even as it is taken over by the Dean-Internet set. Catch that, folks? Establishment swipe at you taking control of your own information in flow. They can't stand it. They'll pay lip service and lose respectably, eyeing a comeback and takeover in '08.

That could very well be wishful thinking, William. But we will see.

But what if Dean loses momentum in Iowa, does "less than expected" in New Hampshire, gets clobbered in Carolina or blows his cool at media tormentors once too often? What if the Old Democrat center, Code for establishment annointed.revivified as a stop-Dean movement and helped by the pendulum press, actually stops Dean? What, if the White House and DLC gives the press those marching orders?Could happen. Then what?

Fear not, William.

He is not the sort who gives up easily. Nor is he likely to ask Clark or whomever in a smoke-free room for the No. 2 slot. Dean has grass-roots troops, a unique fund-raising organization, the name recognition and the fire-in-the-belly, messianic urge to go all the way on his own ticket.

Yeah, that's exactly what you're praying and lighting candles for. It ain't gonna happen.

Politronic chatter picked up by pundits monitoring lefty blogsites and al-Gora intercepts flashes the warning: If stopped, Dean may well bolt.

Don't worry, that ain't gonna happen. Unless the Dems just go completely mad.

That split of opposition would be a bonanza for Bush. In a two-man race, the odds are that he would beat Dean comfortably, but in a three-party race, Bush would surely waltz in with the greatest of ease.

More establishment nonsense. What is he basing this on? Is he reading tea leaves? Maybe a magic 8 ball?

Here's my problem: Such a lopsided, hubris-inducing result would be bad for Bush, bad for the G.O.P., bad for the country. Landslides lead to tyrannous majorities and big trouble.

Yeah, right where we are now.

Which is why I worry about Dean not getting the Democratic nomination.

Pure nonsense.