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We need to do better than this as we confront Dean. This article is more about what the author perceives Dean to believe than what Dean himself has stated. It is also more about other Democratic presidents than it is about Dean.

However, thankfully, we will be doing better. Karl Rove has had his tape recorder on lo these many months. Indeed, the best analysis I have seen of Dean the candidate was given by our own Common Tator, the summation of which is presented here:

Anyone who thinks Dean is a Democrat with firm ideological beliefs should look at his past actions. He has all the firm beliefs of a snake oil salesman. He will say what ever it takes to get what he wants. He wants the nomination. If he gets it he will want the office.
I am convinced Dean thinks the public has a very short memory. Perhaps the public does, but video tape is a fantastic memory jogger. Dean is not hedgeing his bets. He has not learned the skill of saying something that appears to mean one thing now, and can appear to mean another a year from now.
It is a major flaw. No major league candidate would make that mistake.

Once again, thanks to the Common Tator for some of the best political analysis on the web today.

Dean can be beaten. Badly, too. And by his own mouth. He is making mistakes now that Bill Clinton did not make at this point in 1991. Dean is digging himself into a hole now that Karl Rove won't let him out of later. Bill Clinton never made that kind of mistake. He was a snake oil salesman, too, but he knew that the essence of selling snake oil was the ability to talk out of both sides of your mouth. Dean is shrewd, but doesn't have that ability.

He needs the Left Base to get where he wants to go: the nomination. He talks their language to get there. But it is not the language that will connect to the Center. That is why he will fail.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

Dean can be beaten. Badly, too. And by his own mouth. He is making mistakes now that Bill Clinton did not make at this point in 1991. Dean is digging himself into a hole now that Karl Rove won't let him out of later. Bill Clinton never made that kind of mistake. He was a snake oil salesman, too, but he knew that the essence of selling snake oil was the ability to talk out of both sides of your mouth.

This is partially true, but there have been quite a few articles by compliant liberal presstitutes that try to pass him off as a moderate (the old saw "fiscal conservative and social liberal" is just one such device favored by these presstitutes). You'll see much more of these as time goes by if Dean gets close to winning the nomination.

The Media Research Center has documented quite a few instances where this was done.

As far as Clinton goes, he said quite a few liberal things during the primaries such as supporting socialized medicine, forcing the military to admit queer soldiers, railing against Reagan's tax cuts and Bush's cap gains reduction...

The thing is that he never called himself a liberal so the media could get away with calling him a moderate. Dean has not done so either. He avoids the label assiduously, preferring euphemisms like "democratic" or "progressive.

Dean will try the same stunt. He has, in many ways, patterned himself after Bill Clinton. However, he has gone somewhat further in his denunciations of conservatives (but not too far since Clinton routinely railed about the "worst economy in a generation...") and there are now many sources to challenge the spin from the liberal press.

I don't think Dean will get the job, especially once everyone realizes that he is not serious about actually running things. He has basically no knowledge of military affairs and does not appear to have any foreign policy other than to do the opposite of what Bush does. His close association with the pervert movement will also harm him, too.