Reporting on Howard Dean‘s appearance on the Tim Russert-hosted “Meet the Press” this weekend, New York Times reporter Katharine Q. Seelye slants her story as if her paycheck were signed by Rupert Murdoch, rather than by the bastion of the so-called liberal media:
Dr. Dean, a Democrat who prides himself on his straightforwardness, equivocated on several issues. He sidestepped answering whether he would support the prescription drug plan backed by the Bush administration and some Democrats.
Asked whether he would support a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, he said, “I go back and forth on that.” Asked whether a same-sex couple that was married in Canada could be considered legally married in the United States, he said, “I can’t answer that question because it’s a legal question.”
He’s not a lawyer, he’s a doctor. Is it a terrible thing to neglect to take a position on a complicated issue of interenational law if you are not qualified to answer it? Is it wrong to “go back and forth” on controversial issues like Dean admits he does, or is it better to believe in the gospel truth handed down by the radical wing of his party on every issue, like our current president?
And he didn’t know numbers!
Under questioning, he said he did not know how many American military personnel were on active duty around the world, guessing there were one million to two million. According to the Pentagon’s Web site, there were 1.4 million as of March.
Dr. Dean estimated that there were 135,000 American troops in Iraq and said there should be more. The actual number is 146,000.
How dare this man even think about running for president! His estimate of the troops in Iraq are off by 8%! (Of course, the current administration’s estimates of WMDs in Iraq are off by 100%, but… let’s not go there.) And he doesn’t have tip-of-the-tongue access to information which Ms. Seelye had to go to the Pentagon’s web site to confirm!
If this is the kind of crap we’re going to see in a newspaper which is purportedly on “our side” this early in the season, then this is going to be the most disgusting presidential race in history. I’m not sure I’ll vote for Dean — I go back and forth on the issue — but after that trashing and a similar trashing in that other pillar of the SCLM, I felt compelled to donate to his campaign tonight.
Emma, over at Late Night Thoughts, has a seemingly logical proposal. In an essay in which she considers the possibility that she may have benefited from Affirmative Action in her college career, she comes to the conclusion that the solution to the problems of affirmative action is to “…make sure that every kid at the elementary and high school level get the same good education…” And then she continues with her proposal, suggesting that we should
draw up standards for a good elementary school and a good high school. I’m not talking perfect. Just a good basic education that will allow kids to get into college. Then, the government supplements the funding of those schools that do not meet the standards. That way, kids in an inner-city school struggling with lousy funding due to a miserable tax base can compete with kids from a suburban school with an average parental income of $75,000
Emma, Emma, Emma. Don’t you realize that’s not how we do it in Bush’s America. In this world, if a school and its students are struggling, we take funds away from the school. We encourage parents with money to take their kids out of the school and into private for-profit schools. We criticize the teachers for their students’ poor performance on tests — tests which are created for students in schools with working bathrooms, not to mention functioning libraries. Then we punish the teachers by lowering their salaries below their already laughable levels, and wonder why those people entrusted with the education of our children are so woefully under-prepared and under-qualified. We withhold state and federal aid and remove the school’s capital budget, until the building is a crumbling asbestos- and cockroach-ridden mess, serving solely as a sub-minimal daycare center for minimum-wage parents who cannot afford any other kind of care, and whose children should be taught early not to expect any other kind of life than the miserable one their parents inhabit.
That’s how we do it today! Now aren’t you ashamed about that silly proposal?
