Reply #10: That's not the point

I don't want to belabor the issue, but this isn't about who's more left Dean or Kerry. It's about the fact that the system is rigged.

As far as claiming that Kerry's criticism of Bush proves something, all it proves in my mind is exactly what the article is saying about the limits of debate on issues like the war in Iraq and who sets up those limits. There is nothing interesting about saying that Bush isn't a good "world leader". The fundamental issue is where does Kerry stand on the actual Bush legacy? He supports the continuation of the War in Iraq and the deployment of more troops there. He supports Bush's work on the growth in the military's budget. He supports this whole conception of a war on terror which is simply a cover for more US instigated war around the world. He won't repeal the Patriot act. He won't reform healthcare. etc, etc, etc. The difference between Kerry and Bush is over tactics and not strategy. They have the same ultimate international goals, but Kerry wants France and Germany to be more active in the next country we invade.

I'm not impressed by august 8th 2002 report whose clear purpose was to consolidate the idea of Kerry as a frontrunner at the expense of his rivals. That is again a perfect example of what the article I posted is talking about. Conason's article served to train people into thinking about these issues in these narrow terms that we now see embodied by the Kerry and Bush candidacies.

As far as Russert is concerned I'm not surprised that Dean said that and I think it describes his point of view very nicely. Dean was never very far from the conservative end of the dem party until he started to flirt with the antiwar movement, which he was always (in my opinion) willing to drop at the first sign of political trouble. In fact I think he was doing that shortly before he was destroyed.

The point is not that Dean lost and Kerry won the point is that the ruling elite won and we all lost. If they had wanted Dean he would be in right now. His peak shortly before the primaries was fueled by the media and endorsements, i.e. the ruling class. They created him and they destroyed him, politically. In fact as James Carville advised the democrats it was good to let Dean go for awhile because he would bring people into the election that might have stayed out.