Even the columnist Colbert King is gagging on Dean.
washingtonpost.com
Dean's Faith-Based Folly
By Colbert I. King
Saturday, January 10, 2004; Page A19
Howard Dean took a pass on yesterday's Democratic presidential candidates debate, hosted by WTOP radio and George Washington University. Too bad. He missed a chance to show Democrats in the nation's capital that he cared enough to come to their first-in-the-nation presidential primary. Most of all, though, Dean lost out on a chance to be publicly declared the victor in a contest that he won even before the first Democratic votes are cast Tuesday in the District or later in the month in Iowa and New Hampshire.
It would have been my pleasure, had he chosen to be there, to personally give the former Vermont governor this year's prize for "Panda Bear of the Year."
A panda bear is my own humble way of recognizing the politician who is most shameless when it comes to pandering or ingratiating himself or herself with the voters. Dean is this year's winner, hands down. The second-place finisher wasn't even close.
Dean captured the suck-up prize with his revelation that -- praise the Lord -- he has finally found a way to talk about his deeply held religious faith. Most remarkable, and the reason he won going away, was his explanation for how he reached this exquisite moment of sudden understanding. Was it a particular scene, some road-to-Damascus experience, that occasioned such a flash of insight in Dean? What, pray tell, set off Dean's new compulsion to openly discuss Jesus and his mastery of the Bible?
Dean disclosed that his willingness -- no, make that eagerness -- to start sharing his faith with any reporter, microphone or voter within the sound of his voice comes as a result of his travels on the campaign trail. Yes, credit Dean's journey -- not to Damascus but on the road to the White House, which happens to take him down to the Bible Belt in South Carolina -- for bringing about the Democratic front-runner's epiphany. Dean discovered, to use his words, that way down south in Dixie, "The people there are pretty openly religious."
So, Dean, who rarely sets foot in a church, and until recently campaigned for president as if religion was the farthest thing from his mind, has now decided to give full voice to his faith as he attempts to win the hearts, souls and, most important, the votes of South Carolina's Democratic faithful.
Now, does that man deserve a panda bear or what?
What's most amazing is Dean's fearlessness in messing around with the Lord's people. In my book, it's okay to make up to corn growers in Iowa and to toady to the anti-George Bush wing of the Democratic Party. It's even understandable -- though not forgivable -- to get on the good side of good old boys driving pickup trucks with Confederate flags in the back. But a politician is treading on thin ice when he starts trying to creep into the good graces of the faithful by pretending he's one of them, or by suggesting that his political value system reflects his faith.
After all, this is the same Howard Dean who said that "we have got to stop having the campaigns run in this country based on abortion, guns, God and gays," the same Howard Dean who once said his policy views are not formed by his faith. But now this new Howard Dean, faced with having to pass the test of the South's faithful, turns on a dime and tells The Post that his decision as governor to sign a civil union bill benefiting gays was influenced by his Christian views.
That apparently is news to Vermonters, who recall Dean saying nary a word about God when he signed the civil-unions bill into law. Just as those who know him well say Dean never mentioned his religious views the entire 11 years he was in office.
So what's going on here? Politics.
Where Dean stands depends on where Dean finds himself sitting, and at the moment he thinks he's sitting pretty in the front of the Democratic pack. With the nomination in sight, and facing the prospect of taking on a popular born-again Christian in the White House, Dean figures he needs to start making up to voters who take their religion seriously.
Part of that equation is correct. The polls show that religious values rank high with most voters. And as Alabama Democratic Rep. Artur Davis, an African American, wrote this week in the Democratic Leadership Council's magazine, Blueprint, Republican conservatives have "seized the language of faith, and turned it into a conservative value." Davis observed that a significant number of people, particularly in the South, are people of faith, and they are very open about it. Said Davis: "If we leave faith to the Republican Party, we have lost a very important connection with a lot of people." So there is much to be said in favor of a public figure expressing his or her faith.
Dean's problem is that he's not coming across as being genuine.
He says he prays daily and has read the Bible from cover to cover, but then reports that he rarely goes to church except for political events. He cites the New Testament's gospels as guiding influences in his life, and then holds up Job as his favorite book in the New Testament -- a flub he has to call back an hour later to correct.
You've got to be careful when you go courting Christians.
Maybe Dean ought to stick with his original secular game plan. Besides, TV evangelist Pat Robertson has already announced that Dean's presidential quest is in vain. "George Bush is going to win in a walk," Robertson advised viewers of his "700 Club" TV show last week. "I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord, it's going to be a blowout election in 2004. . . . The Lord has just blessed [Bush]. . . . It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad. God picks him up because he's a man of prayer and God's blessing him."
Why on earth does Howard Dean want to compete with that?
Just put the Panda Bear trophy on the mantelpiece and return to the regular order.
The last two columns have been devoted to the D.C. corrections department and the D.C. jail shooting that wounded four inmates.
Are you ready for this? Word on the inside is that the shooting was part of a scheme cooked up by the four inmates to extract money from the D.C. government, to wit: They get shot and then sue the District for failing to protect them while in jail. Still unsolved: How they got the gun. Is this a fun town or what?
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