So I'm reading Will Saletan's
new Slate piece on why you shouldn't vote for Dean. It's actually quite reasonable and not your usual nasty snark attack on the good governor.
But one line caught my eye. In his discussion of Dean's "religion problem" (the author doesn't think it's much of a problem), Saletan writes that he thinks Dean "admires Jesus' teachings but doesn't really think Jesus was the son of God. . . . [But] I don't see how a reporter or Bush surrogate could press Dean to answer the 'son of God' question without appearing to suggest an American Inquisition."
Saletan really should click on over to Salon once in a while. Just a few hours before his article came out, Salon published
"Newsweek's grand inquisitor," an article that points out that Howard Fineman, the mag's lead political reporter/Heather, had done precisely that. He'd asked Dean, "Do you see Jesus Christ as the son of God and believe in him as the route to salvation and eternal life?"
See, this is my problem with the "good guy" center-left columnists in TNR and Slate and the WaPo and the rest: they really don't seem to understand the world we live in. They really don't get how bad the media is, how virulently conservative and dishonest the media is. Will Saletan, professional political pundit, a guy who is paid to read and research and report all day about politics, can't imagine that his fellow journalists would ever do something so horrible . . . when in fact one of them already had just a few days ago.
This is why I have so little respect for or trust in the vast majority of these Dean skeptics: they don't understand the world as it is.
This is why I love Howard Dean: he does understand it, and he's not afraid to call it like he sees it. Mark Shields' pro-Dean column, which hasn't gotten nearly enough attention, concluded with just this point:
"British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once observed that the two indispensable prerequisites for successful leadership are that the leader know and understand himself, and know and understand the times in which he lives. Howard Dean, better than any of his opponents, has understood the times up to now. That is why he leads."