Monday, January 26, 2004
I've been extremely busy this week, but I need to jot this down. A friend of mine is not a Dean supporter. He sent me a link to a picture of a raging Dean and the subject line "Would you want this guy's finger on the trigger?" It started a thoughtful and interesting discussion about Dean and Kerry but something was nagging me, a feeling I couldn't quite put my finger on. Then I realized what it was: we've all been to this primary before.
I was living in South Carolina when the Republican primaries were in full swing. McCain was hot, Keyes was still hanging around, and Bush was digging in. Bush needed SC and was doing anything he could to make sure he got it.
It was at that time that McCain's anger really made the headlines. Charles Memminger on November 5, 1999, opined, "The most serious political scandal of the day is that Republican presidential candidate John McCain has a bad temper." Oh boy, and how. Forget policies or platforms, he's worse than the Hulk on steroids. These types of comments and headlines were all over the place. Take John Dickerson's statement, "For McCain, the challenge is not to prove he has the fire, but the opposite: that if he carries the McCain flame into the White House, it won't set the mansion ablaze." Oh Lord, the Senate has survived his wrath, but the White House that's where THE BUTTON is and we don't want to see a remake of Kubrick's "Dr. (Dean) Strangelove" with McCain dropping the bomb then ordering all the conservative ladies into the tunnels, how boring. In December Saletan said, "McCain's anger is supposed to be bad because he can't control it--and therefore can't work with Congress and can't be trusted with nuclear weapons." Yeah right, and the joint cheifs, VP, and all the other checks and balances guys just go along with any crazy President on some pre-emptive war BS-- Oh wait....
Of course by February when the SC primaries were in full throttle, the raging McCain image was being used by the RNC and the Bush campaign pretty often. Someone forgot to give Tucker Carlson the memo:
February 16, 2000 "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- You didn't hear the phrase "compassionate conservatism" much in the Republican debate Tuesday night. Over the past week in South Carolina, George W. Bush has waged one of the roughest primary campaigns in memory. The man who describes himself as "a uniter, not a divider" has gone profoundly negative against his chief rival, John McCain. When he talks about his political philosophy, Bush typically goes out of his way to sound gentle and inclusive. He didn't bother during the debate on Larry King Live.
Instead, Bush sounded angry, raising his voice and scowling. He seemed close to losing his temper several times, usually when the three others on the set attempted to speak over him. Bush hates -- absolutely can't stand, won't tolerate -- to be interrupted. During the first hour of the debate I tried to count the number of times he petulantly snapped, "Let me finish," or "May I finish?" or "Wait a minute!" My pen ran out of ink before I completed the tally, but the point was clear: Bush, not McCain, appears to be the one with the temper problem."
In March, after the push polling and attack ads, McCain had enough. As a matter of fact, I remember McCain responding to the dirty tricks; soon the headlines screamed "Angry McCain lashes out". Of course, little mention of the actual push polling that egged him on was ever mentioned. The game is fixed, and the media fixed it. James M. Wall quoted Phyllis Schlafly of the conservative Eagle Forum who said, "People don't want to elect an angry candidate." There you have it.
A thorough look at McCain's anger and the pundits who fed the frenzy was done by the Daily Howler here:
Now we have the same label "angry Dean" and the same bad captions "trust him with the button" on similar horrible photos. In August a blogger by the name of Stinson asked: "The real reason that people in the press compare Dean to McCain is that the main schtick of both campaigns is to be "the very angry white guy." But McCain earned the right to be angry in Vietnam. Where's Dean's justification?" No torture, no life threatening experiences, no war to blame your psychological problems on. McCain did not survive the primary with the excuse; Dean has no chance.
Here's some headlines and commentary -- "Analysts: Iowans Rejected Dean's Angry Style," and Liberal Ideas by Bill Fancher says, "Associated Press says Dean's rivals "pummeled" him with criticism, saying he has neither the foreign policy experience nor the temperament to lead the country."
Of course, just as the Republicans bombed McCain, many are noticing party-line Democrats are doing the same thing to Dean, albeit much earlier. In Dec the UK News comments, "That's the rap that Republicans and, more viciously, Stop-Dean Democrats want to pin on Dr. Populist." Howard Dean "is continuing to feed the perception among some voters, campaign strategists and academics that he is angry, edgy and -- a cardinal sin in politics -- not cheerful," USA Today reported. Chris Suellentrop, says, "Howard Dean is testy. Doesn't play well with others. Has a chip of Vermont granite on the shoulder of his buttoned-down shirt. Is too negative. Acts like an angry short guy. Doesn't have the temperament to be President." That's a mouthful -- he must be a midget. Meanwhile The Chicago Tribune says, "Dean runs on high-octane anger."
Now Bush hasn't even started campaigning yet (unless you count his first three years in office) and he's already giving us pause about those angry Dems so says Jimmy Moore: "Bush Expresses Concern Over 'Angry' Demeanor of Democrat Presidential Candidates" -- of course the site I found the article on also sported an ad for Ann Coulter's book Treason on the same page. Coulter's not angry, she's just off her psychotropic drugs.
conservative blogs are all over the talking point of Dean's anger
While even Comedy central gets involved on Dean it's interesting to note that Saturday Night Live picked up the ball with a McCain anger skit in February before the primary:
tacitus has an interesting piece and discussion concerning the media's anger management problem:
Salon did two wonderful pieces on Dean and the Media's infatuation with his "anger".
Oh, but it gets better; remember the SC the turning point: the Push polling, whispers/rumors/innuendos? Check out what I saw earlier today:
"Statement from State Director Karen Hicks
Posted by Timothy Jones
on Sun, 01/25/2004, 12:50 pm
Today, Karen Hicks, Dean For America's New Hampshire State Director, made the following statement:
"In recent days, our campaign has been hearing reports from New Hampshire voters that they are receiving:
* phone calls early in the morning and late at night;
* "robo calls" from soulless machines, not calls from considerate people;
* calls claiming to originate from the Dean campaign, but do not;
* and even harassing calls and bigoted messages.
Let me be very clear. The Dean campaign does not call New Hampshire homes before 8:30 am or after 8:30 pm. Our calls are made by respectful people, not droning machines. Our callers tell the truth.
We call on the other campaigns to make the same commitments.
We are grateful for the extraordinary engagement of New Hampshire's people in this race. But our campaign believes that everyone deserves some peace, some respect, and a truthful message."
And we're only in New Hampshire. I have a feeling somebody didn't like that Dean stopped the freefall in the polls and wants to get Dean out the race now. Why did the Republicans go after McCain? Because they couldn't control him; they knew he wouldn't take marching orders from the party. I know who is making the calls in Dean's name, but it's eeirly similar to SC. I'm not saying the party establishment is in any way involved, but I think they want their boy, someone they know and for Dems, it's Kerry or Edwards. Dean: He's unelectable. At least that's what my friend in Maine tells me. I don't know. Of course, I went to hear McCain in South Carolina and liked what I heard and look at what happened to him.
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I was living in South Carolina when the Republican primaries were in full swing. McCain was hot, Keyes was still hanging around, and Bush was digging in. Bush needed SC and was doing anything he could to make sure he got it.
It was at that time that McCain's anger really made the headlines. Charles Memminger on November 5, 1999, opined, "The most serious political scandal of the day is that Republican presidential candidate John McCain has a bad temper." Oh boy, and how. Forget policies or platforms, he's worse than the Hulk on steroids. These types of comments and headlines were all over the place. Take John Dickerson's statement, "For McCain, the challenge is not to prove he has the fire, but the opposite: that if he carries the McCain flame into the White House, it won't set the mansion ablaze." Oh Lord, the Senate has survived his wrath, but the White House that's where THE BUTTON is and we don't want to see a remake of Kubrick's "Dr. (Dean) Strangelove" with McCain dropping the bomb then ordering all the conservative ladies into the tunnels, how boring. In December Saletan said, "McCain's anger is supposed to be bad because he can't control it--and therefore can't work with Congress and can't be trusted with nuclear weapons." Yeah right, and the joint cheifs, VP, and all the other checks and balances guys just go along with any crazy President on some pre-emptive war BS-- Oh wait....
Of course by February when the SC primaries were in full throttle, the raging McCain image was being used by the RNC and the Bush campaign pretty often. Someone forgot to give Tucker Carlson the memo:
February 16, 2000 "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- You didn't hear the phrase "compassionate conservatism" much in the Republican debate Tuesday night. Over the past week in South Carolina, George W. Bush has waged one of the roughest primary campaigns in memory. The man who describes himself as "a uniter, not a divider" has gone profoundly negative against his chief rival, John McCain. When he talks about his political philosophy, Bush typically goes out of his way to sound gentle and inclusive. He didn't bother during the debate on Larry King Live.
Instead, Bush sounded angry, raising his voice and scowling. He seemed close to losing his temper several times, usually when the three others on the set attempted to speak over him. Bush hates -- absolutely can't stand, won't tolerate -- to be interrupted. During the first hour of the debate I tried to count the number of times he petulantly snapped, "Let me finish," or "May I finish?" or "Wait a minute!" My pen ran out of ink before I completed the tally, but the point was clear: Bush, not McCain, appears to be the one with the temper problem."
In March, after the push polling and attack ads, McCain had enough. As a matter of fact, I remember McCain responding to the dirty tricks; soon the headlines screamed "Angry McCain lashes out". Of course, little mention of the actual push polling that egged him on was ever mentioned. The game is fixed, and the media fixed it. James M. Wall quoted Phyllis Schlafly of the conservative Eagle Forum who said, "People don't want to elect an angry candidate." There you have it.
A thorough look at McCain's anger and the pundits who fed the frenzy was done by the Daily Howler here:
Now we have the same label "angry Dean" and the same bad captions "trust him with the button" on similar horrible photos. In August a blogger by the name of Stinson asked: "The real reason that people in the press compare Dean to McCain is that the main schtick of both campaigns is to be "the very angry white guy." But McCain earned the right to be angry in Vietnam. Where's Dean's justification?" No torture, no life threatening experiences, no war to blame your psychological problems on. McCain did not survive the primary with the excuse; Dean has no chance.
Here's some headlines and commentary -- "Analysts: Iowans Rejected Dean's Angry Style," and Liberal Ideas by Bill Fancher says, "Associated Press says Dean's rivals "pummeled" him with criticism, saying he has neither the foreign policy experience nor the temperament to lead the country."
Of course, just as the Republicans bombed McCain, many are noticing party-line Democrats are doing the same thing to Dean, albeit much earlier. In Dec the UK News comments, "That's the rap that Republicans and, more viciously, Stop-Dean Democrats want to pin on Dr. Populist." Howard Dean "is continuing to feed the perception among some voters, campaign strategists and academics that he is angry, edgy and -- a cardinal sin in politics -- not cheerful," USA Today reported. Chris Suellentrop, says, "Howard Dean is testy. Doesn't play well with others. Has a chip of Vermont granite on the shoulder of his buttoned-down shirt. Is too negative. Acts like an angry short guy. Doesn't have the temperament to be President." That's a mouthful -- he must be a midget. Meanwhile The Chicago Tribune says, "Dean runs on high-octane anger."
Now Bush hasn't even started campaigning yet (unless you count his first three years in office) and he's already giving us pause about those angry Dems so says Jimmy Moore: "Bush Expresses Concern Over 'Angry' Demeanor of Democrat Presidential Candidates" -- of course the site I found the article on also sported an ad for Ann Coulter's book Treason on the same page. Coulter's not angry, she's just off her psychotropic drugs.
conservative blogs are all over the talking point of Dean's anger
While even Comedy central gets involved on Dean it's interesting to note that Saturday Night Live picked up the ball with a McCain anger skit in February before the primary:
tacitus has an interesting piece and discussion concerning the media's anger management problem:
Salon did two wonderful pieces on Dean and the Media's infatuation with his "anger".
Oh, but it gets better; remember the SC the turning point: the Push polling, whispers/rumors/innuendos? Check out what I saw earlier today:
"Statement from State Director Karen Hicks
Posted by Timothy Jones
on Sun, 01/25/2004, 12:50 pm
Today, Karen Hicks, Dean For America's New Hampshire State Director, made the following statement:
"In recent days, our campaign has been hearing reports from New Hampshire voters that they are receiving:
* phone calls early in the morning and late at night;
* "robo calls" from soulless machines, not calls from considerate people;
* calls claiming to originate from the Dean campaign, but do not;
* and even harassing calls and bigoted messages.
Let me be very clear. The Dean campaign does not call New Hampshire homes before 8:30 am or after 8:30 pm. Our calls are made by respectful people, not droning machines. Our callers tell the truth.
We call on the other campaigns to make the same commitments.
We are grateful for the extraordinary engagement of New Hampshire's people in this race. But our campaign believes that everyone deserves some peace, some respect, and a truthful message."
And we're only in New Hampshire. I have a feeling somebody didn't like that Dean stopped the freefall in the polls and wants to get Dean out the race now. Why did the Republicans go after McCain? Because they couldn't control him; they knew he wouldn't take marching orders from the party. I know who is making the calls in Dean's name, but it's eeirly similar to SC. I'm not saying the party establishment is in any way involved, but I think they want their boy, someone they know and for Dems, it's Kerry or Edwards. Dean: He's unelectable. At least that's what my friend in Maine tells me. I don't know. Of course, I went to hear McCain in South Carolina and liked what I heard and look at what happened to him.
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