Reply #127: Here's the problem

[Armstead]

I wish I could find a copy of Dean's whole statement, because the substance was not as outrageous as it seemed by just that one sentence.

In fact, Dean was much tamer than Murtha has been. If you take individual sentences from Murtha it's possible to make him sound like a really defeatist loser. In fact, that is what they tried to do to Murtha.

But, despite the smear attempts, Murtha's comments resonated with the public. Why? because he is a hawk and a war hero. So Murtha's real point got through the filter, and put Team Bush on the defensive.

The problem is that Dean was set up from the beginning of his national career as a punching bag. The right wing, the GOP and the Media Ho's and too many Democrats portrayed him as a wild eyed leftist and took him out of copntext throughout the campaigns last year, and it continues to this day.

But usually, everything Deanm has said has merely been a foreshadowing of what is subsequently said by the so-called "mainstream." Despitye being a punching bag at the moment he says things, it has been Dean who has done a lot to advance things, and other Democrats have followed behind.

Without people like Dean -- who is not afraid to say what is on many people's minds -- the Democrats will remain a party of warm flat beer.

It is inevitable that the GOP and Media will attack his use of words. But dermocrats should not be joining in that attack. Instead, IMO, they should support him, because that kind of "fighting Democrat" spirit is what is needed to reinvigorate the party.