Howard Dean's Epic FAIL: Former Governor Refuses to Back Down From Opposition to Mosque

Howard Dean has published a statement on Salon.com that forcefully defends his controversial statements regarding the Cordoba House (or so-called "Ground Zero Mosque"). Yesterday, Dean said that the mosque proponents needed to compromise and that they should pick another site. Today, facing heated criticism from progressives, Dean has defended his comments.

Dean claims that he supports religious freedom and says that it is undeniable that the mosque proponents have the right to build near ground zero. Dean, however, argues that they should accept a compromise:

My argument is simple. This Center may be intended as a bridge or a healing gesture but it will not be perceived that way unless a dialogue with a real attempt to understand each other happens. That means the builders have to be willing to go beyond what is their right and be willing to talk about feelings whether the feelings are "justified" or not. No doubt the Republic will survive if this center is built on its current site or not. But I think this is a missed opportunity to try to have an open discussion about why this is a big deal because it is a big deal to a lot of Americans who are not just right wing politicians pushing the hate button again. I think those people need to be heard respectfully whether they are right or whether they are wrong.

Dean also tries to rebut the assertion that his arguments could justify other forms of intolerance, like homophobia and racism:

This has nothing to do with the right to build and unlike same sex marriage or the civil rights movement it is not about equal protection under the law. The rights of the builders are not in dispute. This is about ending the poisonous atmosphere engendered by fear and hate, and in order to do that there has to be genuine listening, hearing and willingness to compromise on both sides.

Epic FAIL
Dean's arguments, to use the vernacular of a younger generation than my own, are an epic FAIL. I do not doubt that Dean agrees that the individuals have a right to build the mosque. Dean also concedes that many individuals oppose the mosque because they are bigots.

Dean's arguments, however, fail to persuade me because he wants a group of seemingly well intentioned religious individuals to capitulate to irrational fears, bigotry, and "emotions" of individuals who oppose the mosque. No tangible evidence or logical argument can link mosque proponents with the 9/11 attackers.

Religious bigotry, however, makes it impossible for many mosque opponents to distinguish Cordoba House proponents from the radical individuals involved in 9/11. Rather than countering this bigotry, Dean argues that Muslims should acquiesce to its existence. This is hardly an emancipatory rhetoric.

Dean also fails in his effort to distinguish this discussion from other civil rights issues. Many bigots have said "I am not a racist, but. . . ." Others have said, "I have nothing against gay people, but. . . ." During the Civil Rights Movement, many liberals (e.g., President John F. Kennedy) claimed to agree that racism and segregation were wrong, but they urged black leaders to accept compromise, modify their demands, wait until society was more understanding, and refrain from protest. Thurgood Marshall famously said that the Negro waited nearly a century for Americans to respect the constitutional guarantee of Equal Protection. Further compromise was unacceptable.

The same twisted logic that Marshall rejected pervades discussions of Islam in this setting. It also serves as the basis for Dean's comments. While many people who oppose the mosque might stop short of explicitly denying that its proponents have the right to do so, this distinction is meaningless. By linking all Muslims with 9/11, the mosque opponents render their professed religious tolerance a nullity. Dean, who once excited progressives with his position on social issues, should be ashamed of his stance towards the mosque.

UPDATE: Howard Dean conducted an interview with Glenn Greenwald on this subject. During the interview, he tried to walk away from his argument that moving the mosque would be a "better idea." Instead he said he simply seeks discussion and compromise. Dean also criticized progressives for being inflexible.

Dean denied Greenwald's assertion that his arguments mirror efforts to get civil rights leaders to curb their activism due to social pressure. I highly recommend that Dean read Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter From A Birmingham Jail. It discusses the issue of delay, compromise, the fear of white moderates, and injustice.

Howard Dean on Mosque: "I Think Another Site Would Be A Better Idea"

Howard Dean has come out against Park51 (the so-called Ground Zero Mosque). During a radio interview, Dean called for a "compromise" and denied that the issue had anything to do with the "rights" of Muslims to have a place of worship.

When asked whether he thought the project should move to another location, Dean said that "I think another site would be a better idea." The tape appears below this post.

Dean is a famed liberal who has challenged moderate Democrats on many issues. During his unsuccessful presidential run in 2004, he famously said that he represented the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party," a slight to hawkish candidates like Senator John Kerry.

But as Glenn Greenwald points out, Dean's position on this issue aligns him with folks like Newt Gingrich. His opinion also mirrors Sarah Palin's. Furthermore, Dean's position on this issue makes him more conservative than folks like Ted Olson and Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey.

Dean seems to want to end the conflict, but he does so by denying the religious rights at stake. President Obama's stance that acknowledges religious freedom remains a welcome intervention on this subject among Democrats.

UPDATE: Dean tries to defend his comments. As the kids today would say: FAIL.

NYT's Adam Nagourney Peddles New White House Attacks on Progressives

Adam Nagourney has written an article that purports to analyze ideological divisions in the Democratic Party. But the "article," which reads more like an op-ed, narrowly and incorrectly frames Democratic Party divisions in the same flawed terms as the White House has done: Obama, the pragmatist, is dueling with unrealistic and impractical leftist ideologues.

Nagourney repeatedly portrays Obama's progressive critics as political "outsiders," which supposedly makes them naive about politics and intolerant of compromise:

It is not just that the left wing of the party thinks that its centrists hold too much sway and are too quick to cave when faced with pressure from the right. It is also that this White House, stocked as it is with insiders, people whose view of politics is shaped by the compromises inherent in legislating, is confronting a liberal base made up largely of outsiders to the lawmaking process who are asking why they should accept politics as usual (boldface added).

Nagourney's portrayal of Obama's critics, however, is highly simplistic and deceptive. The growing list of progressives who have criticized Obama includes veteran lawmakers such as John Conyers, Maxine Waters, Russ Feingold, and Louise M. Slaughter. And while some of the more passionate critiques have come from independent journalists and writers, who are not professional politicians, that does not make these individuals ignorant of the political process or unreceptive to compromise. Instead, it simply demonstrates that they are either more liberal or freer to speak honestly, without worrying about maintaining access to the White House -- something Nagourney must consider when he writes his own articles.

Nagourney, however, chooses to rest his entire article on a simplistic dichotomy. To Nagourney, Obama is a results-oriented pragmatist, while his critics, especially Howard Dean, are ideologues:

As much as Mr. Obama presented himself as an outsider during his campaign, a lesson of this battle is that this is a president who would rather work within the system than seek to upend it. He is not the ideologue ready to stage a symbolic fight that could end in defeat; he is a former senator comfortable in dealing with the arcane rules of the Senate and prepared to accept compromise in search of a larger goal. For the most part, Democrats on Capitol Hill have stuck with him.

By contrast, Mr. Dean, the former Democratic Party chairman who has long had strained relations with this administration, said the White House was slow to fight and quick to make concessions — particularly on creating a public insurance plan — and demanded that Democrats kill the Senate version of the health care bill.

To build upon this theme, Nagourney uncritically quotes Senior White House adviser David Axelrod:

"The president wasn’t after a Pyrrhic victory — he wasn’t into symbolism. . . .The president is after solving a problem that has bedeviled a country and countless families for generations."

Earlier this month, Axelrod called liberal opponents of the Senate bill "insane."

Last week, I wrote an essay that criticizes the Obama-as-pragmatist rhetoric, which has flourished in response to liberal critiques of the Senate healthcare bill. Nagourney cannot resist employing this flawed script. The pragmatism rhetoric rests on a false understanding of political change. Historically, liberal change has been incremental. It has involved compromise. And it has involved dealing with setbacks from successful countermovements. But liberal change has never occurred in the absence of open and vocal criticism of politicians from progressives. Participants in abolition, suffrage, the Civil Rights Movement, feminism and GLBT rights have all employed criticism (as well as compromise) to effectuate change.

The White House and Nagourney, however, continue to approach politics from an ahistorical perspective. Broad social change has only resulted from and can only occur with political pressure. Indeed, even the passage of the watered-down Senate bill occurred as a result of decades of activism on the issue of healthcare reform and from the political activism that secured Obama's election victory and Democratic majorities in Congress. The White House and Nagourney, however, portray the healthcare victory exclusively as the product of pragmatic politicians making deals.

Nagourney also accepts the White House's belief that liberal opposition will be irrelevant in November 2010. According to Nagourney, if progressives could not persuade one Senate Democrat to vote against the healthcare bill, then they cannot impact midterm elections. This is a simplistic understanding of politics from someone who believes he is educating his audience about the complexity of politics. Politics involves short-term defeats and victories. The passage of the Senate bill does not guarantee that the Democrats will not be vulnerable in 2010 (or 2012) to forces on the left or right. Senators undoubtedly supported the legislation for numerous reasons (party unity, etc). Their interests, however, do not determine the outcome of elections. Voters do.

Final Take: Nagourney's article falls far short from useful political analysis. Instead, it sounds like White House talking points designed to marginalize progressive critics.

Update: NYT's writer Ross Douthat continues the Obama-as-pragmatist rhetoric. His opinion essay, however, is far more intelligent and complicated than Nagourney's piece. Douthat considers the downsides of pragmatism and cutting deals, including the reality that: "sometimes what gets done isn’t worth doing. The assumption that a compromised victory is better than no victory at all can produce phony achievements — like last week’s 'global agreement' on climate change — and bloated, ugly legislation" (boldface added). I concur.

See also:

Criticizing President Obama Is Pragmatic

Rahm Emanuel Tells Liberals To Kiss His Arse

Liberals Battle White House Over Healthcare Reform

White House Shows Its True Colors on Healthcare Reform

Irrational Robert Gibbs Says Howard Dean Is Irrational

Salon's Glenn Greenwald Says: Blame Obama, Rather Than Lieberman

Why Is Obama Still Protecting Lieberman?

House Democrat Louise M. Slaughter: Scrap Senate Healthcare Bill

Obama Falsely Claims that the Senate Healthcare Bill Matches His Campaign Promises

Ezra Klein's "Pink=Blue=Colors" Logic Regarding Healthcare Reform

Liberals Battle White House Over Healthcare Reform

The New York Times has now covered an issue that many liberal bloggers have discussed for several days -- the White House's anger directed toward progressives who oppose the Senate healthcare bill. Several liberals have criticized the bill because it does not include a public plan option or a Medicare buy-in.

Many Democrats -- including President Obama -- previously argued that such measures, particularly the public plan, could provide competition for insurers and reduce the cost of insurance premiums. Indeed, one of the strongest arguments in support of a universal mandate -- which the bill contains -- is that the public plan would reduce costs and make insurance affordable for the uninsured.

Under orders from the White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid deleted the public plan and Medicare buy-in from the healthcare bill. This move has angered liberals, who rightfully point out that Obama is betraying promises from his own very recent presidential campaign. Howard Dean, a medical doctor and former head of the DNC, has advocated that Senators "kill" the bill and craft a new measure that offers "real reform." Furthermore, Senator Bernie Sanders, who actually prefers a single-payer system, announced yesterday that he was not committed to voting for the legislation in its present format.

As Dissenting Justice has already reported, White House officials have moved to attack and discredit liberals who oppose the Senate bill. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, for example, said that Dean was acting irrationally. Also, White House Senior Advisor David Axelrod said that liberal opponents of the Senate bill are "insane." The White House response has only enhanced anger among liberals.

Axelrod conducted a conference call with liberal bloggers on Wednesday, and he faced numerous questions regarding the White House response to progressive opponents of the Senate bill. One blogger asked Axelrod whether the White House would respond with similar anger to Ben Nelson, the moderate Democrat who also announced his opposition to the Senate bill because he wants tougher provisions related the delivery of abortion services. According to The Nation, during the conference call, Axelrod tried to back away from the harshness of his previous comments regarding liberals:

"I'm not professionally qualified to judge insanity and maybe I should have used a different word," Axelrod said, and he noted that "everybody's a little on edge at this point" in the long legislative battle. He also stressed his respect for allies in the "progressive community," but reiterated his view that it would be "wrongheaded" to squash all of health care reform at this point, which is "infinitely better" than the status quo.

My Take: I suspect that liberals will remain disappointed. The White House did not describe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu or Bill Nelson as "insane" or "irrational" when they threatened to vote against or filibuster the proposed legislation. Instead, the White House moved to appease them.

Liberal activists, many of whom worked to elect Obama, feel betrayed by the White House's angry response to their legitimate complaints. Furthermore, this is not the first time liberals have felt let down by the White House. On issues as diverse as gay rights and the Afghanistan War, liberals believe that President Obama has not taken their interests into account or that he has moved away from his campaign promises. These types of feelings do not vanish easily.

See also: Rahm Emanuel Tells Liberals To Kiss His Arse

White House Shows Its True Colors on Healthcare Reform

After appearing asleep at the wheel during much of the healthcare debates, the White House is now passionately advocating passage of a Senate bill that betrays many of President Obama's campaign promises. The bill, if passed, would force people to purchase health insurance. The bill, however, does not contain measures like the public plan option or a Medicare buy-in that Democrats -- including Obama -- have long advocated as ways of increasing competition and making health insurance affordable.

According to several media reports, Rahm Emanuel instructed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to remove the public option and Medicare buy-in to appease Senator Joe Lieberman, who threatened to filibuster the bill. Lieberman, however, is probably a scapegoat.

Left Critiques of the Senate Bill
Several liberals commentators have condemned the Senate bill. Howard Dean, a medical doctor and a veteran advocate of healthcare reform, wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post which contends that the watered-down bill does not represent "real reform." Dean criticizes the removal of the public plan and Medicare buy-in provisions because he believes that the measures could reduce insurance premiums. Although Dean says he would not vote for the bill in its current format, he believes that Senators can improve it.

Furthermore, while many political commentators have focused on Lieberman's filibuster threats, Bernie Sanders, a Senator from Vermont, has threatened to withhold support for the Senate bill as well. Sanders, who, like Lieberman, is an Independent, says that the removal of the public plan option caused him to oppose the measure.

White House Bashes Liberals
With liberals voicing strong opposition to the measure, the White House, which has often appeared indifferent on the specifics of healthcare reform, has heated up its rhetoric. Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that Dean was not acting rationally by opposing the bill. Today, White House Senior Advisor David Axelrod (who also ran Obama's presidential campaign) said that liberal opponents of the Senate bill are "insane."

Axelrod's argument, like Gibbs' claim, rests on an erroneous conclusion. Both men apparently believe that the public must either accept the watered-down Senate bill or abandon healthcare reform altogether. But liberals seek a viable alternative option -- pursuing more substantive and rational reform than the current bill offers.

My take: Liberals were actually "irrational" and "insane" for believing that the Obama Administration would deliver dramatic liberal reforms. I have made this argument repeatedly on this blog (see here, here, here and here, for example). To date, the administration of "change" has given hundreds billions of dollars to banks and corporate America and is about to offer a boon to insurance companies by mandating individual coverage without increasing competition and reducing costs. The more things change, the more they look the same.

See also: Rahm Emanuel Tells Liberals To Kiss His Arse

Irrational Robert Gibbs Says Howard Dean Is Irrational

For liberals who wondered why President Obama did not pick Howard Dean to serve as the Secretary of Health and Human Services, I think it is safe to conclude (as many of us did at the time) that ideology influenced the decision. Dean, who is a medical doctor, passionately supports the creation of a public plan as a dimension of healthcare reform. President Obama also strongly supported the idea during his presidential campaign.

The White House, however, has only tepidly advocated the public plan since the election. And recently, several media outlets have reported that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel instructed Harry Reid to drop the public plan and a Medicare buy-in from pending legislation in order to appease Senator Joe Lieberman. Lieberman, who represents the state of Connecticut, has received over a million dollars from the insurance industry in campaign donations. His wife is also an insurance industry lobbyist.

Dean has apparently angered the White House by arguing that Democrats should "kill" the gutted/watered-down bill pending in the Senate and start over again. Dean most recently expressed this position in a very cogent op-ed in the Washington Post.

The White House, however, believes that Dean is behaving irrationally. Responding to questions about Dean's position, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had very harsh words for the former presidential candidate and DNC Chair:

I don't know what piece of legislation he is reading," said Gibbs.

"I would ask Dr. Dean, how better do you address those who don't have insurance: passing a bill that will cover 30 million who don't currently have it or killing the bill?" he added. "I don't think any rational person would say killing the bill makes a whole lot of sense at this point."

Asked if Dean was acting irrationally, Gibbs replied: "I can't tell what his motives are, to be honest with you."

Gibbs Is Irrational -- Not Dean
Gibbs' argument is irrational because it reduces the public's options to either expanding coverage under the terms of the pending bill or killing this bill. Another option, which Dean advocates, would involve expanding coverage with more sensible legislation.

One of the most irrational aspects of the pending measure involves the individual mandate -- which I have defended repeatedly as within the powers given to Congress by the Constitution. Imposing a mandate without providing a lower-cost alternative to private insurance or without increasing market competition which could reduce the price of private insurance is unsound.

The Democrats have long advocated an individual mandate alongside some type of public plan. Discarding this at the last minute (whether pre-planned or otherwise) is irrational -- not Dean's argument rejecting this unwise decision:

In Washington, when major bills near final passage, an inside-the-Beltway mentality takes hold. Any bill becomes a victory. Clear thinking is thrown out the window for political calculus. In the heat of battle, decisions are being made that set an irreversible course for how future health reform is done. The result is legislation that has been crafted to get votes, not to reform health care.

Dean's argument is abundantly rational.

Nate Silver Calls Progressives "Batshit Crazy"; Readers Turn the Table

Nate Silver, host of the popular political blog FiveThirtyEight, has written an essay that describes progressives who oppose the watered-down healthcare legislation pending in the Senate as "batshit crazy." Silver argues that the proposed legislation would substantially reduce healthcare costs for most American families.



Fortunately, Silver's readers have turned the table on him. Most of the reader comments that accompany the article offer scathing criticism of Silver's analysis. One striking defect in Silver's analysis lies in the fact that he fails to take into consideration the removal of the public plan (and now the Medicare buy-in) from the proposed legislation. Despite the fact that President Obama touted the public plan as a cost-cutting measure, Silver argues that the failure to implement the plan "shouldn't change [his] numbers much." Many of the readers, however, view Silver merely as a "cheerleader" for the White House position that "something" (however flawed) must get passed.



Meanwhile, Howard Dean, a medical doctor and respected progressive voice on healthcare reform (whom President Obama skipped over as a pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services) has blasted the Senate measure and encourages Democrats to "kill" the bill and start the reconciliation process in the House of Representatives. I suspect that some Democrats will agree with Dean -- even if the bill passes in its current form.





See also:



Obama Falsely Claims that the Senate Healthcare Bill Matches His Campaign Promises



Criticizing President Obama Is Pragmatic



Ezra Klein's "Pink=Blue=Colors" Logic Regarding Healthcare Reform



Rahm Emanuel Tells Liberals To Kiss His Arse



Liberals Battle White House Over Healthcare Reform



White House Shows Its True Colors on Healthcare Reform



Irrational Robert Gibbs Says Howard Dean Is Irrational



Salon's Glenn Greenwald Says: Blame Obama, Rather Than Lieberman



Why Is Obama Still Protecting Lieberman?



I Wrote This In October 2008. . . .