Clinton did not diss Dean - the Washington Times made it up

[Woodstock]

From the LIBERAL source the American Prospect:

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/10/tomasky-m-10-23.html

The Times picked up this quote: "But I don't believe that either side should be saying, 'I'm a real Democrat and the other one's not,' or, 'I'm a winning Democrat and the other one's not.'" The Times account suggested that this was an implicit slam of Howard Dean.

Here's the whole context: I asked Clinton about the schism within the Democratic Party. I said to him that sometimes the arguments between the liberals and the centrists had taken on a tone of not mere disagreement but of mockery. "And this has happened," I said, "more from the centrists toward the liberals than the other way around," at which point he cut me off and said, "Yeah, and I think it's a big mistake."

Now how is that an implicit criticism of Dean? An agreement that the centrists have sometimes gone overboard in criticisms of liberals is pretty obviously an implicit criticism of Joe Lieberman and Al From, the head of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). If Clinton hadn't cut me off, I would have mentioned the DLC's attack on Iowa delegates awhile back, or the letter the DLC wrote to the attendees of a conference sponsored by the Campaign for America's Future, the DLC's liberal counterpart, with its silly joke about how they should all enjoy their Ben & Jerry's ice cream. I didn't get to say those things, but Bill Clinton is no dummy; he knew exactly what I was talking about, and exactly what he was saying.