Remember last week when Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen "Dean of Iowa's Political Reporting" said John Kerry would be a good nominee for 2008?
He's at it again. It's times like this why I feel it's so obvious Yepsen is a hack. I don't know if he sells papers, but he does put forth such stupidity that it's almost impossibile not to talk about him. He's like the mini-me Iowa version of David Brooks or something . .
Column quotes and my harangue follow.
The 2008 presidential election will be the first in which we choose a brand-new president following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The war in Iraq will also be a factor, perhaps a big one.
Those two items will shape the race and make it different from other presidential elections of recent times . . Oh, traditional domestic issues -- jobs, health care and education -- will still be there, but they'll now have to share the stage with these fresh concerns.
And where were you 11 months ago, David? Under a rock? Security is now a "fresh concern"?
Security was "the" issue in the 2004 election - or at least the Republicans made it that way and the Democrats made a mess of it. And here you are saying in 2008 the election will be all about what 2004 was about again? Nevermind what the economy could look like in 2 years time when the primary candidates begin to live and sleep in Iowa and New Hampshire.
In addition to Giuliani, some of the often-maligned "Washington candidates" may profit because their experience may now be worth more to voters who are looking for someone competent to protect the nation. (I've never quite understood the logic that says we should elect someone president largely because they're from "outside" Washington. That's a bit like picking a chairman of GE who doesn't care for electricity.)
You'd think this yammerhead lived in the beltway. If I see Yepsen in the skywalks Monday, like I always do, the legendary Iowan privacy be damned, I'm going to verbally kick his ass. He's been drinking the Washingtoon kool-aid.
On the Democratic side, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO commander, has spent an adult lifetime dealing with security questions. . .These are centrist Democrats who might be formidable contenders, if they can get past the angry left of their party.
I think we know who he's calling the angry left.
All you Clarkies are cheering now - I can't say I don't blame you. I think the interesting thing about this comment - and the one point really worth serious discussion in this column - is what it's saying about Clark inbetween the lines. Between his job on FOX as a military analyst and completely disappearing after Michael Moore's endorsement, Clark is reframing his image as a Democratic security centerist to the news media and party controllers. Yepsen, who is really just a rank-and-file political opinionist, and not an opinion-maker, has apparently picked it up.
There's another pattern you notice in looking at 30 years of caucus winners and losers: The most extreme candidates often don't win. Despite all the media attention they get, when rank-and-file party members show up on caucus night, they tend to pick candidates more in the middle of that year's political spectrum.
And who might be hurt by this changed emphasis in issues? Governors. They've done well in recent presidential cycles but could now be disadvantaged if they can show no particular competency on foreign policy or defense questions.
Shorter: Hey, DailyKos and you Deaniacs - You're losers! (Never mind that Dean wasn't extreme . .)
Yepsen read those angry emails and blogs last week and that was his little comeback - a non-reply telling you that you're a nobody, not even worth mentioning by name, except as the angry people who backed an angry extreme candidate who screamed in Des Moines after losing the caucuses.
I don't know about you, but I think the people that need to be scruitinized and appropriately beaten out of their jobs are the people in the press like David Yepsen. The how of removing Yepsen is what stymies me - Yepsen is part of the Des Moines Register like the floor and walls of it's 60-year-old buliding in downtown Des Moines. There's no way I can hope to remove this guy short of felonious physical force. Worse yet, as the Gannett company owns the Register and continues to cycle management staff through its promotion track that aren't locals, the management depends on stalwart 'fixture' employees like Yepsen to keep the paper connected to the local readership - no matter how erroneous or tenously-in-touch with reality those employees are.
Meanwhile - I'll suppose I'll just have to keep kicking back at David "Big Fish" Yepsen.