Club for Growth, Ralph Peters on Dean
The attacks continue to escalate. The Republican “Club for Growth” is preparing an anti-Dean issue ad to be run in Iowa: Conservatives launch TV attack ad on Dean. And Ralph Peters goes to town in a NY Post opinion piece: Howard the coward.
The two attacks offer an interesting study in comparative bullshit. The Club for Growth just flat-out lies about Dean’s alleged raving-leftist pedigree:
In the ad, a farmer says he thinks that “Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading …” before the farmer’s wife then finishes the sentence: “… Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs.”
Peters is a bit more honest, but only in the sense that he begins with some actual Dean statements (basically, all the “gaffes” that have been circulating over the last few weeks) before launching into fantasyland. And he wins points for being the first Dean opponent I’ve seen to officially lose the debate under the terms of Godwin’s Law.
I really am looking forward to this election. It’s going to be a perfect test case of whether or not this country deserves to survive. On the one hand we have an incumbent who is an objective failure in every area, who has amply demonstrated his contempt for everything this country stands for, and who seeks to be reinstalled solely with blatant deception, good visuals, and truckloads of money. On the other hand we have a short, unfriendly Yankee who speaks the truth without much, if any, regard for how the other side will twist his words. He just tells it like it is.
Will we, as an electorate, choose the guy who tells us what we want to hear, even when it’s obvious with almost any degree of analysis that it’s horseshit? Or will we choose the guy who tells the truth, but doesn’t bother to sugarcoat it?
We’re very much going to get the government we deserve here. And if you choose not to vote, you’re going to be missing out on a a great opportunity to help define the kind of country you and your descendents are going to live in.
January 7th, 2004 at 3:31 pm
Beautiful summation of the political landscape, John. Unfortunately, when you put it in terms of will people vote for the guy who tells them what they want to hear, or the guy who tells the truth, the outcome seems sadly not in doubt.
January 7th, 2004 at 9:47 pm
I’m anxious to see if my theory I had earlier in the year comes to fruition — will the intellectuals who normally decide not to vote (due to the understanding vhat their vote makes almost no difference in the electoral college) come out in droves after seeing the abymal job of Bush? Or will they continue to abstain under the impression that ultimately one leader is the same as another, democrats just being owned by slighty less scary special interest groups.
January 9th, 2004 at 8:36 pm
After reading the above comments, I must say that the title of this page is very accurate.
January 10th, 2004 at 2:59 am
“I really am looking forward to this election. It’s going to be a perfect test case of whether or not this country deserves to survive.”
What a great statement. So if you lose, the country doesn’t deserve to survive? Are you going to join Al Queda?
This is what I find amazingly obvious in a lot of liberal opinions. They care more about their power, their “correctness”, their core beliefs than they do about the very country they are fighting for.
I’ve never seen in this a conservative column. EVER.
“Lets see if people agree with us. If not, the country can burn in hell”