Dean's Democrats Remain Pathetic
By John R. MacArthur
06/10/05 "AlterNet" - - Is
there anything more depressing than watching the Democratic Party
lie down in front of the Bush administration's public-relations
and political steamroller? The latest cave-in -- giving Bush three
far-right judges in exchange for the temporary preservation of the
Senate's filibuster perogative -- was enough to make me violate
Jefferson's dictum against despairing of the commonwealth.
My question, unfortunately, is rhetorical, for I witnessed
something even more dispiriting two weeks ago, at a Democratic
National Committee fundraiser and pep rally in New York. It was
the sight of Howard Dean, erstwhile Democratic reformer and truth
talker, talking nonsense on behalf of a party leadership that
hates reform and despises the truth.
As chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the lapsed
physician now carries the stretcher for a party too sick even to
diagnose its own organizational self-interest, much less defend
the social and constitutional principles now under siege by the
White House. The only thing worse than Dean's prepared platitudes,
sometimes shouted, is his virtual silence on the two great issues
that Democrats work so hard not to confront: the hideous,
mendacious war in Iraq and the big-money corruption of electoral
politics and congressional legislation.
Granted, the gathering at the Essex House ballroom, on Central
Park South, wasn't an ordinary public event. The several hundred
attendees were mostly hard-core party faithful, aparatchiks,
office holders, and office seekers, led by New York State Chair
Herman "Denny" Farrell and state Senate Minority Leader
David Paterson. Nor was the Dean message for party regulars
exactly the one he uses for a general audience, such as that of
Meet the Press last month.
But it's not that different, either. And that message -- which
Dean recites with numbing consistency -- is all about image, and
almost not at all about substance: in short, the kind of empty
phrases that Dean so effectively ridiculed during his ill-fated
presidential campaign.
About all that remains of the old Dean is his "You have
the power!" slogan, which sounded absurd in front of this
crowd, partly made up of political hacks who already know they
have the power -- the power, that is, to slate candidates selected
from a pool of uncontroversial yes people, who have proven their
loyalty to the Democratic Party. When Dean used to bellow his
famous crowd pleaser, he meant quite specifically that his
supporters had the power to reclaim the Democratic Party from the
cynical Clinton-trained leadership that had voted for war in Iraq
and is addicted to campaign cash from corporations, lobbyists, and
plutocrats. For all Dean's up-from-the-bottom Internet rhetoric,
in today's Democratic Party all cash is created equal, but some
cash is still more equal than other cash.
It's significant that Andrew Tobias, picked as DNC treasurer in
1999 by Bill Clinton and his hotel manager, former DNC Chairman
Terry McAuliffe, remains treasurer under Dean, and introduced his
new boss at the Essex House. "The doctor is in!" whooped
Tobias, and so was the cash register.
The doctor followed with a jumble of self-contradicting
phrases, amplified with the old Dean lung power:
- "We are really not in the wilderness," because 48
percent of the people voted for John Kerry. (Maybe I'm naive,
but I thought the election was a disaster for the Dems, given
their losses in the House and Senate -- even despite Bush's
scandalous inattention before 9/11 and equally scandalous lies
about Saddam Hussein's weapons. And didn't Dean once call
Kerry "another special-interest clone in
Washington"? )
- "People think we should have good jobs that stay in the
U.S.," Dean declared. They disapprove of Bush's
"borrow and spend" fiscal policy, and pine for the
good old days of Clintonian fiduciary rectitude. (Didn't
Clinton ram job-exporting and trade-deficit-ballooning NAFTA
and China-trade normalization through Congress, over the
objections of many in his party?)
- "Maybe we can't win the presidency in Mississippi,
[but] we have a moral obligation to win the governorship in
Mississippi." (What's that mean? Why not a moral
obligation to win the presidency in Mississippi, and why
couldn't they win both? Wasn't Dean the guy who said,
astutely, that Democrats should appeal to working-class
Southerners with Confederate flags in their pickup-truck
windows?)
But the most remarkable thing about Dean's speech was,
literally, its thoughtlessness -- now a virtue in the Dean
playbook. Democrats, he said, need to take seriously the fears of
"moral Republicans," instead of saying "That's
ridiculous" ("Clinton would have said, 'I feel your
pain' "). Pointing to his head, Dean explained how to do it:
"We have to stop talking from here anymore"; then,
pointing to his heart, he said, "We have to speak to them
from here."
As for delivering this heartfelt message, Dean said, "When
we're talking to the television, we'll say it in ten seconds or
less," just like the "good politician" Bush.
(Wasn't the very thoughtful Dean famous for turning his campaign
rallies into town meetings, with extensive question-and-answer
periods? Can't a redneck tell he's being talked down to just as
quickly as a New York intellectual? Does Bush's lying in 10-second
sound bites make him a tactical role model for the Democrats?)
I could go on -- Dean did -- but it's too sad. I asked a
prominent New York Democrat standing near me why DNC Chairman Dean
never denounced the Iraq occupation/bloodbath, and the politician,
an old acquaintance, seemed to flinch. I promised I wouldn't quote
him by name, but his reaction was worth noting: "Maybe he
[Dean] should talk about Iraq. Nine American soldiers died in Iraq
in the last two days. If [Al] Gore were president, can you imagine
the screams from the Republicans?"
All I heard from Dean was a squeak; "the mess in
Iraq" was as far as he would go. Anyway, he had already
thrown in the Iraq towel in April, in a speech in front of the
Minnesota ACLU: "Now that we're there... we can't get out....
I hope the president is incredibly successful with his policy
now."
Thus is the tribune of the anti-war movement reduced to
realpolitik. Thus does the crusader from the "Democratic wing
of the Democratic Party" do the bidding of his natural
enemies, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, Joseph Biden, and Evan
Bayh -- each one pro-war and each an expert practitioner of the
old-school dollars-for-favors fundraising racket.
I can't believe that Howard Dean feels very good about what
he's doing. I can't believe that deep down he doesn't hear the
hypocrisy when he exhorts his audience, "We've got to stop
talking about programs and start talking about principles."
If he really means to pursue this unprincipled strategy in the
name of Democratic "victory," he'd do more good back in
Burlington practicing medicine.
John R. MacArthur is publisher of Harper's Magazine.
This article previously appeared in the Rhode Island Providence
Journal.
© 2005 Independent Media
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