Sullivan on Dean

[ludwigb]

Andrew Sullivan weighed in on Dean recently.

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20030803

A very good article but he repeats much of what is now becoming the conventional wisdom on Dean. I must admit I'm beggining to get confused about how much faith one should put into the punditocracy. On the one hand it would seem that if so many pundits are saying the same thing about Dean they are all coming to the same conclusion based on the evidence and their instincts. On the other hand they may all be repeating what may have been raised on some everyman's blog a few months ago without taking a sustainted look at the evidence.....

One thing Sullivan brings up that I thought worthy of discussion--Dean's infamous "I suppose that's a good thing" comment on the end of Saddam's reign. Frankly, I personally have no problem with the statement, because that was pretty much my attitude at the time as well. According to media spin this is a ridiculously callous and anti-american attitude and I can certainly understand why people would think that way. But to me Dean's statement perfectly reflects 2 things--1) Saddam is gone and that is a good thing; but 2) the worldwide loss of American credibility, the erosion of good relations with a host of countries, the frightening doctrine of preemption, the bombing of Iraq and the loss of lives, and on and on etc. etc.--these are things that were eminently tied up to our effort to oust Saddam and are by no means "good". The ouster of Saddam was one of the only "good" things that came out of an "bad" process and the media's desire to conflate a specific event with a more general process is nothing short of Orwellian.

Was Dean's statement politically stupid? Undoubtedly. I just wish America was really ready to hear Howard Dean speak his mind.