All, though Lieberman the least, in the thrall of polls.
Dean got spanked pretty good today in our local paper. AS will like the second editorial, LOL...
reviewjournal.com
Thursday, October 30, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
EDITORIAL: Dean's pandering
Democratic presidential front-runner Howard Dean dropped by town Tuesday to attend a $100-dollar-a-plate reception, further padding his money lead over his challengers.
At a press conference prior to the event Mr. Dean, former governor of Vermont, engaged in the usual tap dance on the issue of Yucca Mountain. "Nevada will vote Democratic this time simply because George Bush tried to make you into a nuclear waste state," he said.
That's a laugh. Mr. Dean is no less likely to endorse Yucca Mountain than any other candidate, Democrat or Republican -- and his support as governor of Vermont for the repository provides evidence of that. The notion that Mr. Dean has now "seen the light" (his words) on the matter reeks of cynical pandering.
This kind of disingenuousness is becoming more and more typical of the Dean candidacy.
For instance, during the 1990s, Mr. Dean -- a physician by trade -- endorsed a handful of market-oriented Medicaid reforms. Having had first-hand experience dealing with the federal Medicaid bureaucracy, Mr. Dean correctly recognized that structural changes were necessary to ensure the program's long-term survival.
Yet once a few of his fellow Democrats pointed out that those same reforms were embraced by -- gasp! -- Newt Gingrich (flash slide of the devil himself), Mr. Dean turned tail and ran from his previous position on the issue.
Then there's affirmative action. In 1995, Mr. Dean backed the perfectly defendable idea that such programs be based "not on race, but on class." So when race-baiter Al Sharpton this week accused Mr. Dean of pushing an "anti-black agenda," in part due to that quote, what did the candidate do?
Again, Mr. Dean turned tail, saying he now believes "affirmative action has to be about race."
And this guy is supposed to be the straight shooter in the crowd.
reviewjournal.com
Thursday, October 30, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
STEVE SEBELIUS: The case against Howard Dean
When it's time to party, everybody loves Las Vegas.
Count among our latest fair-weather friends Dr. Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and now a Democratic candidate for president of the United States.
Dean, whose straight-talking campaign has made him the Democratic front-runner, came to town Tuesday for a pair of fund-raisers. And while he was greeted by questions about past support for Yucca Mountain, he was spared the Democratic protest -- featuring "Yucca Man" -- that has afflicted pro-dump Republicans who come to town to gather cash.
And that's too bad, since Dean's support for the nuclear waste dump has been fairly strong.
In 1996, when Dean was still governor of Vermont, he wrote a letter to then-Republican U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords of his home state, urging Jeffords to support a bill that would have set up an interim nuclear waste dump at Yucca.
That's interim as in before we know if this whole Yucca thing is safe.
Dean gamely explained to the Review-Journal's Erin Neff on Tuesday that "I wanted to get that stuff out of my state" but added that "now that I'm running for president, I've seen the light."
More like he's seen the need for cash and votes.
Too cynical? Dean refused to renounce Yucca Mountain entirely, saying only that he'd stop work on the project while he reviews the science. That's consistent with what he told the online magazine Grist in a May 21 interview: "As governor of Vermont, it (Yucca) was a grand idea because it would get the waste out of Vermont. But now that I'm running for president, I've got to reassess it and see what the science looks like."
This is straight talk? Susan Sontag may have dubbed courage a morally neutral virtue, but Dean is proving the same can be said for candor.
Did the science not matter that much to Dean when he was dreaming of shipping his state's nuclear waste to the Nevada desert? And if he's suddenly "seen the light" when he's trolling for cash in Las Vegas, will he see even more light when the good folks from the nuclear energy industry come calling?
Too cynical? Not really -- it's already happened. The Associated Press reported back in 2002 that Dean's early fund-raising was boosted significantly by Vermont's electric utilities, including Robert Young of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. Young and Dean, the AP reports, have had a "long and friendly" relationship.
Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. CEO Ross Barkhurst, of course, joined the rest of his industry in praising President Bush's decision to move forward on Yucca after years of delays under the administration of former President Bill Clinton. In February 2002, the AP quoted Barkhurst as saying "this is a giant step forward."
Are these the folks who Dean said in a subsequent AP interview in February 2002 get access in exchange for their contributions? "People who think they're going to buy a contract or buy some influence are mistaken. But they do get access -- there's no question about that. ... They get me to return their phone calls."
Now that's some straight talk, baby.
Maybe it was because Dean just wanted to get that stuff out of his state that he signed off on a deal in 1993 that would have sent low-level nuclear waste from Vermont and Maine to a dump in Sierra Blanca, Texas, a small, largely Hispanic town.
Before a Texas environmental panel ultimately rejected the deal, it was roundly criticized as an example of environmental racism. (And how bad, one wonders, does an environmental deal have to get before even Texas rejects it?)
Dean defended himself in interviews with Iowa and Texas newspapers by saying the legislature in the Lone Star State chose the site, not him. But several sources told those same newspapers that Dean was aware that Sierra Blanca would be the final resting place of Vermont's nuclear trash, and did nothing about it. In fact, according to a Vermont Sierra Club official interviewed by the Des Moines Register, Dean "didn't seem to care."
It's probably naive to expect a presidential candidate to come to Las Vegas and promise to get rid of Yucca Mountain once and for all. But there are at least some politicians running for president who have stood against it.
Both U.S. Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., voted against overriding Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of President Bush's action to move the dump forward last year, as did U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton. Kerry opposed the 1996 interim storage bill that Dean seemed so eager to persuade Jeffords to approve, and said last year there were "too many unanswered questions" to allow Yucca to go forward.
By the way, Kerry represents a state with one active and one decommissioned nuclear power plant, giving him plenty of reason to support Yucca. You know, to get that stuff out of his state.
Lucky for us that, even before they decide to run for president, some people have principles that don't change.
That's straight talk we all can appreciate.
Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at SSebelius@reviewjournal.com. |
