"HOWARD DEAN attacked Bill Clinton without meaning to last week because his thinking about domestic policy is muddled on the occasions when it isn't simply inadequate."
"What is so fascinating, however, is that this need for enemies -- for a domestic equivalent of people playing footsy with Bush on Iraq -- overrode mature judgment. Dean's words make sense only as an attack. Noting the Clinton phrase from the 1996 State of the Union address ("The era of big government is over"), Dean promised a "new era" -- "not one where we join Republicans and aim simply to limit the damage they inflict on working families."
Dean's rhetoric imagines a domestic party enemy that doesn't and didn't exist. In his damage control frenzy, moreover, he made it clear he wouldn't dare even try to make such an argument explicitly.
Oddly, what he did do, in a formulation based a new social contract, is reveal huge gaps in his thinking and one difference with his opponents on taxes that he can only deal with (like Saddam Hussein) through the use of a straw man."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/12/23/deans_campaign_depends_on_enemies/
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
