'If I had to do it over again, I'd let rip'

[unfrigginreal]

Al Gore's backing of Howard Dean gives Democrats back their voice

Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday December 11, 2003
The Guardian

Since the trauma of the 2000 election, the Democrats have endured a history of loss and defeat, not only of office and programme, but identity, self-confidence and self-respect. As a congressional party that lost its majority in 2002, it has seemed to be in a nightmare that the party is incapable of escaping.

Republican bullying has been met almost inevitably by Democratic cowering, the ruthless will to power by timid retreat. Before this spectacle, Democratic voters have felt themselves unrepresented and voiceless. Until the presidential candidacy of Howard Dean, their burning sentiments lacked expression. Now, Al Gore's early endorsement of Dean dramatically amplifies them and partly explains them.

snip

Gore's endorsement of Dean is the most important since grainy film was shown at the 1992 Democratic convention depicting President Kennedy shaking hands with a teenage Bill Clinton. Gore's endorsement is not the passing of the torch to a new generation, but another conferring of legitimacy. For Democrats, he personifies the infamy of the last election. He is not another politician, but the rightfully elected president, by a popular majority of 539,895 votes.

But the Gore of today is not the Gore of 2000. The careful political figure trying to distance himself from Clinton and contorting his personality to project likability has been tempered by defeat. "If I had to do it all over again, I'd just let it rip," Gore said a year ago. "To hell with the polls, the tactics and all the rest. I would have poured out my heart and my vision for America's future."

Gore now calls the rightwing media a "fifth column" within journalism, and he's raising millions to build a TV network of his own as an alternative. In his own way, he's absorbed the lessons of the past three years and become a representative Democrat. His endorsement of Dean is his commentary on his campaign and the conduct of his party since.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1104370,00.html

[Cha]

1. Woo Hoo! This is Grreat, unfriggenreal!

Thanks! :D
" The congressional Democrats have been in denial about Bush's conservative radicalism. They preferred to believe that fundamental comity still existed even when it was being smashed. They gathered no clue about the simmering among Democratic voters from the phenomenon of Senator Robert Byrd, a silver-maned irrelevance suddenly elevated to cult hero for his opposition to Bush on the Iraq war."

[Cha]

2. Nice to read something sane about Gore's

backing of Dean!

[kskiska]

3. Blumenthal is so succinct.

He's summed up the entire situation in a few paragraphs. His book, The Clinton Wars, is a joy to read.

[madfloridian]

4. Sorry I duped on it. Did not see yours.

It is a nice enough article, though, to deserve reading twice.
Blumenthal puts some very important stuff into words, calmly.