I didn’t see what many are calling a disastrous performance by Howard Dean on “Meet The Press,” but I know from observing him and debating him once that he’s an intemperate, arrogant bully. Will Saletan is onto something here. It’s a trait bad doctors have. They are used to being in such controlling positions vis-a-vis their patients that it goes to their heads. Good doctors resist such an obvious temptation. And then there’s Dean’s looseness with the truth. I’d say Fred Barnes scores a few hits with this column. Here’s one Dean quote Fred exposes: “Karl Rove and others have talked about going back to the McKinley era before there was any kind of social safety net in this country.” Now Karl Rove has talked about McKinley – but only, so far as I know, in respect to electoral campaign politics, not policy matters. Maybe one of the Dean blogs can put me right on this. Defend Dean’s statement; or somehow persuade me this isn’t an obvious deceptive smear. Email me, Deanies. Stand by your man. Or keep him honest.
WHERE ARE THEY – CTD: Josh Marshall responds to my recent arguments about the administration’s pre-war WMD rhetoric and arguments. He makes a decent point:
If the ‘better safe than sorry’ doctrine is what we’re now operating under, there shouldn’t be any need for exaggeration. The president might just have said, “They had chemical and biological weapons in the past. It’s a brutal regime that’s used these weapons in the past. They probably have them now. They might even be trying to develop nuclear weapons or strike up ties with al Qaida. We don’t have much evidence on these latter points. But the possibility is just too dire to chance. Better safe than sorry.”
Yet the administration seems to have understood that this wouldn’t quite cut it. So they tried something different. At best, they kept the ‘better safe than sorry’ reasoning to themselves. They decided it was better to be safe than sorry in their arguments to the American people. And, to make sure, they stripped all the ambiguity out of the evidence and removed it from the public debate.
Not quite. I absolutely support an investigation into whether anything was actually deliberately faked or egregiously spun. The reason is that I want us to be credible the next time we have to make such an argument. But so far, the evidence for blatant deception is extremely thin. Blair’s chief spin-meister denies any impropriety apart from one screw-up. And each day we hear of new clues as to the extent of Saddam’s WMD program. Another Watergate? I think that says more about the desperation of the Democrats and bitterness of the anti-war crowd than anything about this administration. But we’ll see, won’t we?
THE BEST COLUMN: On Sandra Day O’Connor’s logic is Mike Kinsley’s. If you haven’t already ready it, you should.
RELATED ADVERTIZING LINKS: You know opponents of equal marriage rights are in trouble when an editorial against them is followed by ads touting “Casual Civil Unions in Vermont” and “In Depth: Homophobia.” And in the Washington Times no less! The market trumps ideology every time.
THE NYT AGAIN: Yes, it’s better, although its coverage of the affirmative action decision bordered on the triumphal. But how about this headline: “Blair Offers More Troops for Iraq Despite Killing of 6 Britons.” Huh? Why the “despite.” Why not “because”? (It reminds me of the headline a while back that reported a decline in crime despite record numbers in prison. It simply didn’t occur to the Times’ editors that the relationship might be the reverse.) The answer is that the Times now has a rubric for the post-war Iraq situation. And it’s the same one as pre-war and during the war.In fact, it’s the same one forevery foreign engagement the United States ever gets involved in. Yes, it’s Vietnam! That’s the assumption of many of the liberal editors and reporters at the NYT: if we couldn’t make the war look like Vietnam, we’ll make the peace look like it. Expect more of the same.
HEADS UP: I’ll be on NPR’s Talk Of The Nation around 2pm EST to discuss the SCOTUS sodomy ruling.
The Dish 