Just Released!
Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush
You've got to read this book. It's stunning actually. It's the best book I've read in a long time, and it debunks Kerry's loss with wit and intelligence.
Check it out at
BrickBurner.org
Here's an excerpt:
"...Immortalized as the reason for the capsize of Dean's campaign is his famous scream after losing the primary in Iowa. The role the incident reveals a great deal about how our media works, a topic to which we will return. Putting that aside for a moment, it is instructive to see how the Democratic Party dealt with him apart from the issue. The moves of the DLC reveal a great deal about how tight the control over the party is and how narrow the range of acceptable debate can be. The minimization of this so-called debate also reveals how the Democrats and their liberal cohorts enabled George W. Bush to win his reelection effort.
Howard Dean's campaign first took on water after Al Gore endorsed Dean for president on December 9, 2003. Hailed by many in the mainstream press as a huge boost to Dean's bid, the endorsement came at the same exact moment Democratic insiders were meeting to discuss how to sink his advances. For they knew he was a potential threat to the Clinton Democrats.
Theories of why Gore endorsed Dean spread like fire through the media. As political commentator Adam Nagourney told Gwen Ifill on PBS's Newshour on the day of the endorsement: "One [theory] is that what is going on here is a proxy war between the Clintons and the Gores over the future of the Democratic Party. I think there is an element of truth to that. I don't think we want to exaggerate that."
He was right. The war had begun. Verbal bombs dropped -- with one target in sight: the future of the Democratic Party. Dean was out for establishment blood, and Gore gladly went along for the ride. "Howard Dean was assassinated in broad daylight. Unlike Kennedy's 'grassy knoll,' Dean's killers are not hiding -- it was the Democratic Party itself, and more specifically the Democratic Leadership Council, that successfully went after and sabotaged his candidacy ... The DLC reacted with fury to [Dean] ... going all out to torpedo his momentum," Naeem Mohaiemen correctly opined on Alternet.org following Dean's presidential death.
"Although Democratic nominees soon piled on the 'bash Dean' bandwagon, earlier attacks were carried out by DLC operatives. There was even the smell of scandal when two top Democratic candidates were found sharing information about Dean in an attempt to slow him down."
"But the great myth of the current [Howard Dean] cycle," DLC leaders Al From and Bruce Reed wrote in a May 15, 2003 memo, "is the misguided notion that the hopes and dreams of activists represent the heart and soul of the Democratic Party." "What activists like Dean call the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party is an aberration: the McGovern-Mondale wing, defined principally by weakness abroad and elitist, interest-group liberalism at home."
No doubt it was scandalous. But there was more to the drama than Dick Gephardt and John Kerry passing notes under the table and the DLC crying foul. In fact, Democratic insiders with deep ties to the DLC began funding campaign ads against Dean, hoping to bring his campaign to a screeching halt..."
Read the rest HERE.