"If you look at the caucus system, they are dominated by the special interests, in both sides, in both parties."That's it. An observation by a political outsider from 2000. Nothing more, right? Today, that snippet has been played repeatedly, generally referred to as a slap at Iowa caucus members by whoever's reporting (most recently just moments ago by a sneering stringer on Greta Van Susteren's show). Also from that same TV show, they found him saying:
"[George Bush is] in his soul, a moderate."WHOA NELLY, this is huge, huge, HUGE!
Isn't it?
Please. Not at all. Back in 2000, a LOT of us thought he was sort of a moderate. As time passed, millions of us turned out to be bad judges of the man's character, myself included. Bush has evolved as one of the most dangerous extremists who ever held the presidency. We all know that now. Most of us gave him the benefit of the doubt four years ago.
This is why I'll never understand politics - it never allows for error or a learning curve. Whatever you say three, four, seventeen years ago will bite you in the ass today - even if you've made some growing pains or the winds of history shifted in that time. That's one disgrace.
What about this Canadian TV show, anyway? Well, these tapes were pored over by NBC News, who - in reporting this story - seems to focus on a completely different angle:
...the NBC News Investigative Unit has now obtained the videotapes of 90 of his appearances from 1996 to 2002. They help answer one of the race’s biggest questions: Just who is Howard Dean? Is he the angry, liberal, combustible flip-flopper that his opponents and some chattering pundits claim he is? Is he, as other rivals suggest, too conservative when it comes to guns, trade, and balancing the budget? Is he ignorant on foreign policy issues? Or is he the magnetic, straight-talking candidate his admirers say he is?But is this part being reported by anyone other than NBC? Not from what I've seen today. All I see are pitbulls locking their jaws on the flea - his single line about caucuses. Again, this is from over 90 appearances over six years on this TV show.
As reported by Lisa Myers on NBC's “Nightly News,” Dean comes across in these tapes as having a wide-ranging intellect, a sharp tongue, and shifting views on some key issues.
Yet he also shows that he’s much more consistent on issues — like affirmative action and trade — than some of his opponents give him credit for. And despite the constant complaints that Dean has no foreign policy experience, he demonstrates a good grasp of international affairs.
According to Ann McFeatters, the Washington bureau chief for both the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Toledo Blade who has also been a regular guest on the show, the Dean you see on “The Editors” is the same Dean you see on the campaign trail. “He is very smart, likes an argument, likes to claw around and through a problem, and does speak his mind,” she said.
I don't know which is more disturbing - that everyone's making a 4-second observation by an outsider out to be some kind of news story, or that NBC News' "Investigative Unit" has nothing better to "investigate" than hours and hours of an old Canadian TV show to try and nail Howard Dean.
They're right. The days of Woodward and Bernstein are dead. They've been replaced by nothing more than Heathers. This is what passes for investigative journalism today. It's disgrace #2 in this post. And that's enough for one sitting for me.
