The Hinterland Rants from the hinterland. A Denver writer and pretend anthropologist rips into artistic treason and random acts of ethical violence.
May also contain gushes of enthusiasm.


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Friday, December 26, 2003


No smearing required

A good friend of this site who switched from Dean to Clark awhile back--mirroring my own dalliance, they I came out on the other end--wrote me several weeks back about an ex deaniacs for clark site he was building.

Sounded intersesting and I intended to plug the finished product, but I didn't find the message again in my ever-exploding inbox again until tonight. (A fringe benefit of sickness is all this time on your hands with no ability to go out an play or do anything too taxing. So you clean out your inbox, at least I did.)

Hennyway, what a sad coincidence that I read it just after publicly declaring my unabashed love for Dean, all the way. So I just didn't feel right linking to a site trying to persuade you guys away from him.

But here's the thing. I like this site. (At least as far as I've gone, which I admit it only moderately far.)  It's actually a really nice example of a way Democrats can disagree on their candidates without ripping each other--or the potential nominee--a new one.

This is especially important now that we have gotten to the point where there is about a 95% chance that either Dean or Clark will be the nominee (with the bulk of those odds going to Dean. But there will be a period where the opposition clusters around one opposing candidate, and it's hard to see it being anyone other than Clark. So there you go.)

The site in question is thoughtful and tasteful and non attacking. And I really enjoy the big graphic it starts with, even if I don't agree with it. No smearing involved, because no smearing is required.

Refreshing, actually. So here's the link.

Update: I screwed up the link. Fixed it Saturday night. Sorry.
Comment                        10:38:30 PM                        



Impotent pundits still lined up against Dean

Very interesting piece this week from Eric Alterman:

Washington Goes to War (with Howard Dean)
A bit of a head shaker. He goes down the list of pundits and editorial boards still writing Dean off. Tough to stomach, but illuminating.
Just how do they keep their jobs?
Oh, right. They work for each other. And they're apparently still impressing the hell out of each other.
Speaking of writing for each other, and their incredibly inflated sense of themselves, here is the biggest howler from the piece:

In its self-appointed role as semiofficial punditocracy politburo, the Washington Post editorial board issued what ABC News's The Note properly termed "a button-popping, eye-bugging anti-Dean editorial" that it undoubtedly hoped would serve as Dean's political death sentence. Expressing editorial shock and awe over Dean's unarguably accurate observation that Saddam Hussein's capture left the United States no safer than before, Post editors termed the candidate's views to be "not just unfounded but ludicrous" and complained of his "departure from the Democratic mainstream."

The Note observed that "history might record that this piece stops The Doctor from being his party's nominee" . . .

Kinda sad, isn't it, how they invoke the word history. These are people who live/write/relate entirely for the moment. Miniscule Picture guys, reporting only what's directly in front of their eyes, with virtually no grasp of the past or future. History will record nothing about them, except perhaps a comic anecdote now and then about the court jesters howling in constantly from the sidelines, prognosticating incessantly in the gravest and earnestnest tones, almost never getting anything right, including the events right in front of them. Because they never noticed anything going on to either side.
That's the only explanation I can find. I think they really do sense how petty a role they play, how historically insignificant they are, and how at odds it is from the role they envisioned for themselves. So they squawk and quake and rant about how they're making history, in the sad silent hope they can somehow make it so.
So which is funnier: the idea that a Washington Post editorial would stop the Dean phenomenon dead in its tracks and derail his nomination, or that history would be paying attention to their petty sniping?
I guess it comes down to the same thing, huh? History might begin to notice, if the Post editorial board were suddenly elevated to kingmaker. But the Post and the Times and the networks and all the rest of the newsjesters had nothing to do with creating this Dean wave, and they're not about to stop it with a single silly editorial.
They have been doing their best to stop him for six months now, and he only keeps getting stronger. And the frustration at their impotence is really getting comical.
Comment                        12:12:23 PM                        


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