Billing itself as the Question Dean Blog, a new weblog attacks Howard Dean. It's written by a Vermonter under a pseudonym. We will support Dean if he's the candidate, and don't want to engage in Dean-bashing. We may endorse him before then --we just haven't made up our minds, and we like Clark and Edwards too. But we have, from time to time, pointed out his weaknesses on criminal justice issues and civil liberties. This article, from Vermont's Rutland Herald a few days after the 9/11 attacks, does cause us concern. We think the solution is for the Dean team to address and explain such prior remarks. If he doesn't think now that which he did but shouldn't have thought then, let's hear about it.

Dean's comments on civil liberties cause alarm
September 14, 2001

Gov. Howard Dean's call for a “re-evaluation” of some of America's civil liberties following this week's terrorist attacks was criticised Thursday by a Vermont Law School professor. “Good God,” Vermont Law School Professor Michael Mello said when read the remarks Dean made at a Wednesday news conference. “It's terribly irresponsible for the leader of our state to be saying stuff like that right now.”

....Dean said Wednesday he believed that the attacks and their aftermath would “require a re-evaluation of the importance of some of our specific civil liberties. I think there are going to be debates about what can be said where, what can be printed where, what kind of freedom of movement people have and whether it's OK for a policeman to ask for your ID just because you're walking down the street.”

Now, had we stopped reading there, we would be left with the impression that Dean was calling for a reduction of our civil liberties. But, reading the whole article, he didn't say that--he said he hadn't made up his mind and he expected there would be a debate on these issues.

Dean said he had not taken a position on these questions. Asked whether he meant that specific rights described in the Bill of Rights — the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution — would have to be trimmed, the governor said: “I haven't gotten that far yet. I think that's unlikely, but I frankly haven't gotten that far. Again, I think that's a debate that we will have.”

So, the Question Dean blog is valuable for pointing us to source articles, but not so valuable at telling us what they reflect about Dean. Again, we think it should be Dean's people that point this stuff out first and diffuse it.

On the other hand, we doubt Wesley Clark would have been indecisive on the issue--even right after 9/11.

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Tim O'Reilly informs his readers that "Dennis Kucinich has outfoxed Diebold by putting some of some of the more egregious Diebold memos up on his part of the House of Representative web site . Let's see Diebold serve the House with a DMCA letter."

Kucinich has written a letter to the House Judiciary Committee leaders demanding a hearing on Diebold abuses. [links via What Really Happened.]

California will be the first state to require a paper trail as evidence in electronic voting. This should be no-brainer in every state. Unfortunately, the requirement in California won't go into effect until 2006. Lucky Bush?

The New York Times reports that 33 Years Later, Draft Becomes Topic for Dean.

Dean got a medical deferment for back problems in 1970, at the height of the Vietnam war. He says he probably could have served but was happy with the deferment. His back didn't bother him enough to keep him from moving to Aspen to ski for a few years.

Kerry and Clark may try and get some play out of this but we think its a non-issue. Dean is anti-war now, just as he (hopefully) was anti-war in 1970. To us the issue is consistency of beliefs and actions.

Everyone we knew in 1970 tried to get a deferment. Everyone we knew then opposed the war in Vietnam. Everyone we know now opposes the war in Iraq. Ok, so we have a small circle of friends, but we're all consistent and true to our beliefs.

The same can't be said for the current President who dodged active service in the war (and who, according to many sources, went awol from the National Guard by failing to report , and now, because it suits his imperial purposes, has morphed into a hawk of the first order.

Howard Dean's lead has taken a big leap forward in an new poll released today. He's 21 points ahead of John Kerry. Two weeks ago his lead on Kerry was 14 points. Wesley Clark moved up three points.

Dean stayed the same with 38 percent in the American Research Group telephone poll, while Kerry dropped 7 points to 17 percent. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark had 7 percent, up from 4 percent two weeks earlier.

Next was Sen. Joe Lieberman, 5 percent; Sen. John Edwards and Rep. Dick Gephardt, 4 percent each; Rep. Dennis Kucinich, 3 percent; and former Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, 1 percent. Minister Al Sharpton had less than 1 percent, and 21 percent were undecided, unchanged from two weeks earlier.

MSNBC reports that Iowa is still up for grabs. The race appears to be down to Dean and Gephardt in that state.

Wesley Clark is drawing some major celebrities at his fundraisers:

Democratic Presidential hopeful Wesley Clark may have lured Boston's own Ben Affleck away from Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. Affleck and his fiancee, Jennifer Lopez, turned out to listen to Clark make his pitch Sunday night at a Hollywood fund-raiser. "Ben thinks very highly of Clark," a pal tells us. "He's not ready to endorse anyone, but he's leaning toward him."

Hosts of the evening were Norman Lear, Irving Azoff, Jordan Kerner and Peter Morton, who opened his restaurant, Morton's, for a performance by the Eagles.

The event, which raised $350,000, also drew Kelly Lynch, Larry David, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen (Steenburgen's and Clark's moms were best friends in Arkansas). Clark didn't stay to eat. Ever campaigning, he headed to Madonna's house for dinner with her Madgesty and about 10 other potential contributors.

[thanks to Hamster for the link]

Howard Dean is surging in New Hampshire in the latest Marist poll. 39% for Dean, 23 for Kerry. Clark slips to 4%. Voters there think Dean has the best chance of all Democrats of beating Bush. But Gephardt is leading Dean in Iowa.

Dean has released his first ad attacking Dick Gephardt over Gephardt's support for Bush's war.

Using photos of Gephardt in the White House Rose Garden with Bush, Dean questions Gephardt's work with the Bush administration in drafting the congressional resolution authorizing the president to use force in Iraq, and Gephardt's support for the $87 billion for rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan.

"October 2002, Dick Gephardt agrees to co-author the Iraq war resolution -- giving George Bush the authority to go to war," the ad says. "A week later, with Gephardt's support, it passes Congress. Then, last month, Dick Gephardt votes to spend $87 billion more on Iraq." "Howard Dean has a different view," the ad says. Dean then says, "I opposed the war in Iraq, and I'm against spending another $87 billion there."

Clark is going to spend almost $1 million a week on ads from now until January 27. Will that get him back in the race? As much as we like Clark, it seems doubtful.

Louisiana has its first female Governor-- Kathleen Blanco--and she's a Democrat!

John Kerry becomes the second Democrat to announce he will forego federal funds for his campaign. Kerry will spend his own money and take out a loan.

Kerry's decision to skip the $18.7 million in public money comes despite a slowdown in his fund raising after a promising start, and the acknowledgment by his campaign that he cannot tap wife Teresa Heinz Kerry's multimillion-dollar Heinz food fortune for the race.

Under campaign laws, Kerry can take out loans on the full value of property he owns, and on half the value of property he co-owns. His wife can co-sign loans if the bank requires, but she cannot pay them back. She is limited to the same $2,000 limit all individual donors face.

Howard Dean made the same announcement last week. Wesley Clark says he will accept federal funds. The other candidates also will accept federal funding, including Dick Gephardt, John Edwards and Joe Lieberman.

We see a big difference between Dean and Kerry in that Dean has been a very successful fundraiser to date, while Kerry has not been. As DHinMI over at Daily Kos says,

...unlike Dean, whose decision appears based on his ability to raise money, Kerry's decision appears based on his desperate need to spend money in Iowa and New Hampshire if his campaign is expected to survive past the New Hampshire primary.

[Ed. grammatical errors corrected.]

It's official. Howard Dean has picked up the endorsement of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union. The vote was unanimous.

First John Kerry fires his campaign manager and then two staffers quit. Op-Ed columnists are already conducting the post-mortem. We tend to agree with those who say he was too arrogant--he thought the nomination was his--and his vote for the Iraq War did him in.

Kerry's malaise can be traced to one act, one decision, one vote: his support of the resolution giving President Bush the authority to invade Iraq. Had Kerry voted "no," he'd be the Democratic front-runner right now, bringing credibility on foreign policy because of his military service while also easily upstaging Wesley Clark on domestic policy.

Even now, a year later, Kerry has trouble giving a cogent rationale for his vote to go to war. You'd think a man like Kerry -- a decorated Vietnam veteran who later became an outspoken critic of that war -- would have a succinct, indeed passionate, explanation for his vote. But Kerry stammers, sputters, doubles back, never able to give a short and simple response. Perhaps that's because Kerry's vote was based on politics, not principle.

From the Washington Post:

"It's been a little overwhelming. We're getting phone calls from all over the state, ringing off the hook. Everyone is telling me that I'm the only moderate, electable candidate."

-- First-term Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.), telling the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel why she is "seriously" considering a run for the Senate next year.

If she's moderate, the conservatives are neanderthal. Not a chance.

Former Vice President Al Gore spoke in Washington today at an event sponsored by Moveon.org. He accused Bush of invoking "Big Brother" policies and urged repeal of the Patriot Act. The upshot:

In fact, in my opinion, it makes no more sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama Bin Laden. In both cases, the Administration has attacked the wrong target.

.... I believe the Patriot Act has turned out to be, on balance, a terrible mistake, and that it became a kind of Tonkin Gulf Resolution conferring Congress’ blessing for this President’s assault on civil liberties. Therefore, I believe strongly that the few good features of this law should be passed again in a new, smaller law – but that the Patriot Act must be repealed.

TalkLeft reader Kellol writes in:

It was a beautiful speech, delivered with eloquence and passion. Where was this Al Gore in 2000? Here's the text of the speech as prepared but the website also has streaming video. I think this is a very important speech and, let's hope, a turning point.

We hope Howard Dean is listening. Anyway, here are some parts we liked, but it's a very long speech so go over and read the whole thing. It's well worth the time.