I had high hopes for Dean, I must admit, but I was disappointed. He didn't seem credible to me. Just looking at him from the point of view of the skeptic, he didn't seem credible. It was obvious that, whenever he replied to Russert, he was doing a strategic calculation in his mind.
I realize that this is an artefact of "Politics As It Is Played Today In The USA". It's a very tough game. How to come across as being real and honest without opening yourself up to distortions by the likes of Limbaugh, and O'Reilly, and their imitators? (Even my hero Paul Krugman committed this sort of malicious distortion against The New Republic's Beinart
recently. I am not particularly fond of Beinart and I loathe TNR, but when I read the passage that Krugman selectively quoted, I must conclude that it was a gross distortion of Beinart's words.)
I'd suck at it. I can't be too hard on Dean for sucking at it too. But the fact remains that Dean came across to me as shifty. That was my gut reaction. And I am someone who, ideologically, is squarely in his camp!
The biggest irony of it all is that, the more honest one is, the more dishonest one comes across in a setting like Meet The Press, because honest people are keenly aware of even the slightest distortion, and this trips them. Conversely, the more truthful someone appears in this game, the worse the liar he/she is! Isn't that something? We have a system that all but guarantees we will pick the most duplicitous sonofabitch for public office! Truthtellers get weeded out early on.
Yes, call me cynical, but I just don't think it is possible to do politics nowadays and be a straightshooter. That's because politics is all about alliances, and it is impossible to have alliances in which all participants are in 100% agreement. Invariably there will be some issue on which two political "bedfellows" will sharply disagree. If given the opportunity, opponents will exploit these contradictions mercilessly.
Similarly, politics is about simple messages. There's little room for nuance in politics. But the simpler the message, the easier it is to clash with reality. This is another fertile source of easily exploitable contradictions.
And, to make matters worse, TV anchormen, like Russert, thrive on these contradictions, because they give them the chance to sound like they can "ask the tough questions." Russert tried it many times with Dean today. For example, he pointed out that, while virginia's governor-elect Kaine is a devout Christian, most of Dean's supporters don't go to church. Or he asked Dean how he would have voted on the Iraq war had been a senator, a clear attempt to force a statement that would embarrass the many Democrats who voted to authorize Bush's shenanigans in Iraq. Dean, of course, gave blatantly evasive answers, and therefore came across as being insincere.
I readily admit that I have no idea how to get around this problem. One possibility is that anyone like Dean, who goes on national TV, must do so only on the condition that the networks will grant them full rights to host the video of his/her appearance in his/her website. This is the only way that they can protect themselves, at least somewhat, against having their words cherry-picked for maximal damage. But, speaking of cherries, the cherry on this cake is that networks like CNN and NBC are likely to balk at granting such permissions, since this footage is their lifeblood. So politicians are confronted with the unpleasant choice of staying out of the MSM (thus risking irrelevance) or stepping into the media circus (thus risking being misrepresented). The only solution seems to be to go in there and fake it.
It's fiendish.
kj