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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (19142)	12/9/2003 3:35:31 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793624

Pundits Piling Into Dean's Corner By Howard Kurtz Tuesday, December 9, 2003; Page A04 They have no get-out-the-vote organizations and dispense no walking-around money. But some liberal pundits are starting to line up behind Howard Dean. Unlike Al Gore, who never had much of a media cheerleading squad, the former Vermont governor is winning some converts with his two-fisted style -- even if he's not quite as liberal as they would like. "I'm for Howard Dean -- because he's going to win," writes Texas columnist Molly Ivins. She says Dean "gives a hell of a speech" and "fights back if you get in his face," even if he is, well, a centrist. The Nation's William Greider, while calling Dean "an odd duck," writes that "the man also stands his ground in a fight. When someone jabs him, he jabs back. . . . What a refreshing departure from the rope-a-dope calculations of the Clinton era." Even the conservative National Review has a cover with an angry-looking picture of Dean and the headline "PLEASE Nominate This Man" -- although the accompanying story betrays a belief that Dean would be an easy mark for President Bush. Other prognosticators are tired of waiting for the voters and want to thin the field immediately, if not sooner. The New Republic's Gregg Easterbrook is urging Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) to "drop out now, so that your campaign ends on a high note." And Slate's Mickey Kaus questions whether Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) should "save his pride" and bail out before he faces "utter humiliation." Does that mean all the journalists who once declared Kerry the front-runner should feel humiliated as well? Kerry's Slips Seems presidential aspirant John F. Kerry made a gold rush to judgment on Friday when he released a statement claiming Joe M. Allbaugh, Bush's 2000 campaign manager, had spoken of a "gold rush" in Iraq. Allbaugh, who has formed a company doing business in U.S.-occupied Iraq, said through a spokeswoman yesterday that he said no such thing. It appears the candidate's goof, quoted by The Washington Post on Sunday, comes from an Oct. 27 article in Fortune quoting an anonymous "principal" at Allbaugh's firm, New Bridge Strategies, explaining the company's business in Iraq by saying, "In a gold rush, you can make money by selling picks and shovels." A Kerry spokeswoman, Stephanie Cutter, said the senator from Massachusetts had previously identified the gold-rush line correctly as coming from an Allbaugh partner. "We regret any pain that our error has caused Mr. Allbaugh," she said. Staff writer Dana Milbank contributed to this report. washingtonpost.com