"John Kerry needs to apologize to Howard Dean." Oh yeah.
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views04/0209-12.htmBut it won't be enough after the primaries. And it won't fix what Bush has destroyed. Reversing what Bush has done is going to take much more than just not doing what Bush is doing. Thanks to the Bushites' propaganda, America is becoming something repugnant, a nation of flag-wavers too smug to even mention that our bombs caused the deaths and maimings of thousands of Iraqi civilians. The way Kerry is wrapping himself in past war heroics isn't doing anything to help change that. Or has he even noticed, from the depths of his bipartisanship?
We need to hear a lot of unpopular words in the next four years to begin to reverse what Bush has done. Howard Dean started a wave of powerful reactions by saying a few bold, true and unpopular things. Sorry to mix metaphors, but can that tree continue to grow if it's chopped off at the roots?
The American people are ready now to oust Bush. They got to that point because of three things: the relentless truth-telling of internet writers, the willingness of Howard Dean to speak out when no one else would, and hundreds of thousands of passionate progressives who brought Dean's candidacy to the limelight. We could continue to use the same techniques to go for more than ousting Bush, to go for the deep change we desperately need.
But at this moment in time, the electorate at large has just had time to catch up with the possibility Dean created--the possibility that we can indeed kick Bush out; and they think pragmatic John Kerry is the answer. The truth-telling on the internet isn't going to stop, not unless Ashcroft silences it. But Kerry isn't going to start saying unpopular things. So if he's nominated, we have to pray that he can get the third element, the power of the progressive movement Dean started.