Armavirumque: commentary - Howard Dean, the moderate
[Posted 8:45 AM by Roger Kimball]
I've never thought of Paul Krugman as a comedian. But then I read his piece today in The New York Times informing us that Howard "Mr. Scream" Dean represented the sane, moderate wing of the Democratic Party.
nytimes.com
After I stopped laughing, I though about Howard Dean, his governorship of the People's Republic of Vermont, his sadly unhinged personality, his compendium of left-wing positions on . . . well, everything. As Larry Kudlow put it when Dean was just surfacing as a national figure, Howard Dean, like Ted Kennedy, is for "all-government-all-the-time."
But wait a minute. Maybe Krugman is right: I know that sounds like a contradcition in terms. And I don't mean that he is right that "It was always absurd to call Mr. Dean a left-winger." By any normal measure in American politics, Dean is a deep-pink Leftie who wants to emasculate the American military, accelerate the rise of the nanny state, and deliver the cultural and moral life of the country to the politically correct bureaucracy of a newly empowered state. Higher taxes. More government regulation. More rule by judges. The whole left-wing menu.
But even if Howard Dean is a bona fide leftie, Krugman might still be right that he now represents the "moderate" wing of the party. "Moderate," after all, is a comparative term. Compared with Paul Krugman, for example, Howard Dean might just be regarded as a moderate. But if it is true that Dean now passes for a middle-of-the-road Democrat, what does that tell us about the Democratic Party?
Among other things, it would tell us that it is even more far gone, more out of touch, than had been previously thought--than I, at least, had previously thought. Think about it: Howard Dean, a moderate. Frightening, isn't it?
newcriterion.com |
