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January 7, 2004 – My my, things are heating
up in the two man Democratic race. It seems former lone
frontrunner Howard Dean is not happy that he now has company at the
top. And so, just days after asking Democratic National
Committee Chairman Terry Mcauliffe to stop attacks between
Democratic rivals, the Dean campaign plans to launch an
orchestrated, large scale personal attack on General Wesley Clark
for the express purpose of deflecting criticisms people have of
himself.
All of this came out when the Dean campaigned
gaffed, yet again, by giving us reporters the number to call in for
a conference call. Mistakenly, they held another conference
call on the same number just prior to the planned one, which was to
deal with Head Start. While not aware reporters were
listening, Dean’s campaign staff talked first about a problem their
own campaign was having – that people recently polled are finding
him to be “indecisive” – and to deflect that criticism by using a
henchmen-led personal assault on General Wesley Clark. Dean
planned on using former Senator Bill Bradley and other supporters to
carry out the attack.
As reported by the Arizona Republic ("Dean Called 'Real Democrat'"), “(A Dean) staffer
indicated that in a survey of voters Monday by telephone, people
expressed concern that "this guy (Dean) is indecisive" and Bradley,
a former Hall of Fame player in the National Basketball Association
and a three-term senator from New Jersey, could help counter
that.
"The Bradley message could be, like, (Dean) knew
where he stood on the war, is still a Democrat, takes . . .
positions, blah, blah, blah," the staffer said.”
“The next day, the speaker said, "surrogates" for
Dean, both local and national, could "then hit Clark on the flip
side of the argument: that he's indecisive, didn't know what party
he's with, doesn't know his position on the war," she
said.”
Dean claims he is running because President Bush
is liar and there is no place for such a thing in Washington.
He claims President Bush claims the high road while taking the low
road, citing things like the “Clear Skies” initiative as evidence of
the President’s knack for claiming to be pious while plotting
something heinous. He also regularly attacks the President for
using henchmen to do dirty work for him.
Now Dean has shown himself to be no
different.
Last week he launched the massive tirade begging
for intervention to stop personal attacks by his rivals. Now
we see that while he was claiming to be an innocent victim, he was
plotting to launch the exact type of personal attack against the one
candidate who was not attacking him to begin with, General
Clark.
We already reported how absurd it was for Governor
Dean to complain about personal attacks, as he launched his campaign
as one big personal attack against then-frontrunner Senator John
Kerry (D-MA) and his other opponents. And now we see he not
only was being hypocritical in that regard, but flat out dishonest
in a Bush-like manner, begging for civility not because he has
manners or morals, but because he wants to be able to launch
personal attacks against his rivals without them doing the same
against him.
One of the main hopes any Democratic candidate
would have of beating President Bush would be to present true
integrity and make the case against a dishonest, Machiavellian
President.
In addition, we Moderate Independents look for
candidates who share our values, mainly valuing two things above all
else: the truth, and what is best for America. We would
never support a candidate from either side that is a lying
hypocrite. In fact, if you’ve read even a single article from
The Moderate Independent, you know we have been relentless in our
attacks on President Bush and the Bush/Limbaughians for their lack
of integrity and flat out Machiavellian dishonesty.
Now, Governor Dean has shown himself to be no
different.
This is the usual setup, with each party being as
dishonest as the other, that leads us to be Independents.
While President Bush has taken integrity to new lows, Howard Dean
can no longer claim to be someone who can save America from the
degrading wrath of the Bush/Limbaughians. He is just more of
the same. | 
