Saletan -- Nut case or menace?
Dec. 9th, 2003 03:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
libertangoLast week William Saletan had a bizarre column at Slate. Basically, his premise was that Dean was showing unmitigated chutzpah by... saying accurate but uncomfortable truths about Bush's "defense" policy.
Dean's direct experience with foreign policy issues may be light, yes.
But is he wrong on any of his points?
More than anything, Saletan's article reminds me of Bush's response to another event in the South Carolina primary. McCain supporters ran an ad that said Bush "lies like Clinton." Bush's response? "Them's fighting words."
Not, "No, I'm an honest man." No, Bush didn't disagree with McCain at all. He just thought McCain was frightening the horses and children by pointing out unpleasant truths in public. (Although it turns out McCain was factually wrong -- Mr. Bush has yet to rise to the level of honesty of Mr. Clinton.)
Saletan makes much hay that Dean and his staffers kept claiming the Administration is out to cut pay and benefits. They probably got their info from that well-known soft-on-defense rag, Army Times which had a cover story on the Administration's cuts on 03 Nov. Of course, Saletan never refutes either Army Times or Dean on this -- he just says there's something Not Quite Right about telling the truth about a "wartime" president.
Next thing you know, he'll call this post "fighting words".
So, today, Saletan has a new piece, whose basic idea is this: "Who decides this election—you or Al Gore?"
Yep, that's right... Al Gore is so amazingly, overwhelmingly powerful, that his mere suggestion that he thinks Dean is a good guy to vote for... Puts Our Entire Democracy At Risk.
Strangely, I have the funny feeling that if Gore had endorsed anyone other than Dean, Saletan would've been just fine with that.
But there you go.
(Thanks to Jesse Taylor at http://www.pandagon.net for the original pointer.)
Dean's direct experience with foreign policy issues may be light, yes.
But is he wrong on any of his points?
More than anything, Saletan's article reminds me of Bush's response to another event in the South Carolina primary. McCain supporters ran an ad that said Bush "lies like Clinton." Bush's response? "Them's fighting words."
Not, "No, I'm an honest man." No, Bush didn't disagree with McCain at all. He just thought McCain was frightening the horses and children by pointing out unpleasant truths in public. (Although it turns out McCain was factually wrong -- Mr. Bush has yet to rise to the level of honesty of Mr. Clinton.)
Saletan makes much hay that Dean and his staffers kept claiming the Administration is out to cut pay and benefits. They probably got their info from that well-known soft-on-defense rag, Army Times which had a cover story on the Administration's cuts on 03 Nov. Of course, Saletan never refutes either Army Times or Dean on this -- he just says there's something Not Quite Right about telling the truth about a "wartime" president.
Next thing you know, he'll call this post "fighting words".
So, today, Saletan has a new piece, whose basic idea is this: "Who decides this election—you or Al Gore?"
Yep, that's right... Al Gore is so amazingly, overwhelmingly powerful, that his mere suggestion that he thinks Dean is a good guy to vote for... Puts Our Entire Democracy At Risk.
Strangely, I have the funny feeling that if Gore had endorsed anyone other than Dean, Saletan would've been just fine with that.
But there you go.
(Thanks to Jesse Taylor at http://www.pandagon.net for the original pointer.)
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Date: 2003-12-09 05:40 pm (UTC)