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

To: LindyBill who wrote (22016)	12/29/2003 7:59:26 AM
From: John Carragher	Respond to of 793696

End of year reflections Mona Charen (archive) December 27, 2003 \| Print \| Send Today's column is desultory. Kindly indulge me. I have Howard Dean and Time magazine on my mind. Time magazine has chosen the American soldier as its Person of the Year. Ha! Meaning no disrespect at all to the world's finest fighting force, I have a feeling that the excellence of our men at arms had little to do with this decision. No, it seems pretty evident that the editors of Time were desperate to find someone, anyone, to name instead of George W. Bush. The person of the year is supposedly selected for having had the most influence on events of the past year, for good or ill. But this standard is not always strictly applied. Think back to 2001, for example. It is blindingly obvious that the one person who shaped the world the most that year, very much for ill, was Osama bin Laden. But Time's editors could not bring themselves to name him -- not when they were receiving daily warnings from readers threatening to cancel their subscriptions; not when so many continue to see the person of the year as some sort of honor. So they punted and chose Rudolph Giuliani. But (again let me stress that I bow to no one in my admiration for the U.S. military), the persons of the year Time chose would be sitting in Fort Benning and Camp Pendleton, not in Saddam's palaces today had it not been for George Bush. Not only has Bush shown the courage to take the fight to the terrorists and made this a victory year for American forces and American values, he has begun the process of remaking the Middle East in a more democratic mold, a challenge he created and embraced, and on which he will be judged by history. You may consider it too ambitious, or you may think him a visionary, but either way, it seems to me, George Bush must be acknowledged as a huge actor on the world stage. Time magazine needs to work on its news judgment. I know that many conservatives are praying for Howard Dean's success in the Democratic primaries. They consider him, with good reason, to be the most beatable of the likely nominees. I demur. Despite what liberals always say about us conservatives (we're supposed to be the party of hate), I don't want to spend the year 2004 in a lather. I don't want to hate the Democrats' choice. If they nominate Dick Gephardt or Joe Lieberman, the country can have an honest debate, and bitterness need not reign in the land. Both candidates are honest, and even winsome. Not Dean. His arrogance is so hot it throws off sparks. Speaking of hate, his campaign has so far been about little else. One searches in vain for any flicker of humor, and his relationship to the truth is showing signs of Clintonitis. The latest example: Last August, the Quad-City Times of Davenport, Iowa, circulated a questionnaire to the Democratic candidates for president. The paper asked the candidates to complete the following sentence: "My closest living relative in the armed services is …" Dean wrote: "My brother is a POW/MIA in Laos, but is almost certainly dead." In point of fact, Dean's brother Charles, whose remains have recently been returned from Laos, was not in the armed services. He was a tourist, visiting Laos as part of a one-year world tour. The Quad-City Times editorially expressed dismay at Dean's mendacity. Instead of apologizing for misleading readers, Dean dashed off an indignant letter to the editor. What seemed so clear to outsiders -- that the Democrats' best bet was a war-supporting liberal like Gephardt or Lieberman -- did not seem to sway the nominating wing of the Democratic party. They are thirsting for a Bush-bashing, small America liberal -- someone who will genuflect before the United Nations. But Dean is more than a liberal, he is a liar and a narcissist. So if he is nominated, it's going to be long, long year. ©2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc

To: LindyBill who wrote (22016)	12/29/2003 1:26:12 PM
From: Brian Sullivan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793696

Dean Had Own Secret Energy Group By JOHN SOLOMON Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean, who has criticized the Bush administration for refusing to release the deliberations of its energy policy task force, as governor of Vermont convened a similar panel that met in secret and angered state lawmakers. Dean's group held one public hearing and after the fact volunteered the names of industry executives and liberal advocates it consulted in private, but Dean refused to open the task force's private deliberations. In 1999, he offered the same argument the administration uses today for keeping deliberations of a policy task force secret. "The governor needs to receive advice from time to time in closed session. As every person in government knows, sometimes you get more open discussion when it's not public," Dean was quoted as saying. His own dispute over the secrecy of the task force that devised a policy for restructuring Vermont's nearly bankrupt electric utilities has escaped national attention, even as he has attacked a similar arrangement used by President Bush. In an interview with The Associated Press, Dean defended his recent criticism of Vice President Dick Cheney's task force and his demand that the administration release its private energy deliberations. Dean said his group developed better policy in a bipartisan manner, seeking advice not just from energy executives but environmentalists and advocates for the poor. He said his task force was more open because it held a public hearing and divulged afterward the names of people it consulted even though deliberations were held in secret. The Vermont task force "is not exactly the Cheney thing," Dean said. "We had a much more open process than Cheney's process. We named the people we sought advice from in our final report." Dean said he still believes it was necessary to keep his task force's deliberations secret, especially because the group was reviewing proprietary financial data from Vermont utilities. "Some advice does have to be given in private, but I don't mind letting people know who gave that advice," he said. An expert in political rhetoric said it was risky for Dean to attack Bush and Cheney on an issue where he was vulnerable. "In general, what is good for the vice president should be good for the governor. A candidate who attacks on grounds he is vulnerable is foolish," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a University of Pennsylvania professor who helps run a Web site that compares presidential candidates' rhetoric with the facts. Dean's campaign said it was "laughable" to equate the two panels. "Governor Dean confronted and averted an energy crisis that would have had disastrous consequences for the citizens of Vermont by bringing together a bipartisan and ideologically diverse working group that solved the problem," spokesman Jay Carson said Sunday. "Dick Cheney put together a group of his corporate cronies and partisan political contributors, and they gave themselves billions and disguised it as a national energy policy." In September, Dean argued that the task force Cheney assembled in 2001 and the Bush energy policy that were unduly influenced by Bush family friend and Enron energy chief Kenneth Lay. He demanded that records of its deliberations be made public. "The administration should also level with the American people about just how much influence Ken Lay and his industry buddies had over the development of the president's energy policy by releasing notes on the deliberations of Vice President Cheney's energy task force," Dean said on Sept. 15. In 1998, Dean's Vermont task force met in secret to write a plan for revamping state electricity markets that would slow rising consumer costs and relieve utilities of a money-losing deal with a Canadian power company, Hydro Quebec. The task force's work resulted in the Dean administration and state utility regulators advocating that Vermont have the first utility in the country to meet energy efficiency standards. It also freed the state's utilities from burdensome costs from a long-term deal with Hydro Quebec that had left them near bankruptcy by passing as much as 90 percent of those costs to consumers. Utility shareholders also suffered some losses. The parallels between the Cheney and Dean task forces are many. Both declined to open their deliberations, even under pressure from legislators. Both received input from the energy industry in private meetings, and released the names of task force members publicly. Dean's group volunteered the names of those it consulted with in its final report. While Cheney has refused to formally give a list to Congress to preserve the White House's right to private advice, known as executive privilege, his aides have divulged to reporters the names of many of those from whom the task force sought advice. The Bush-Cheney campaign and Republican Party received millions in donations from energy interests in the election before its task force was created. Dean's Vermont re-election campaign received only small contributions from energy executives, but a political action committee created as he prepared to run for president collected $19,000, or nearly a fifth of its first $110,000, from donors tied to Vermont's electric utilities. One co-chairman of Dean's task force, William Gilbert, was a Republican lawyer who had done work for state utilities. At the time, Gilbert also served on the board of Vermont Gas Systems, a subsidiary of Hydro Quebec. Many state legislators, including Dean's fellow Democrats, were angered that the task force met secretly. "It taints the whole report," Democratic state Rep. Al Stevens told the AP in 1999. "I'd have more faith in that report if the discussions had been open." Elizabeth Bankowski, a Democrat who co-chaired the task force with Gilbert, told the legislature that the secrecy requirement "was decided in advance by the governor's office and the governor's lawyer." customwire.ap.org