Well, he is a politician, isn't he (if we were to play a word association game using the word 'politician,' how much do you want to bet the most common response would be 'corrupt?')? Well, cynicism aside (maybe), it seems that Democratic front-runner Howard Dean is now being [url=http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...]criticized for his criticism[/url] of Cheney's secretive energy task force. As governor of Vermont, Dean had an energy task force that met in private, much to the dismay of the state lawmakers. To defend this action back in 1999, Dean made the same argument as Cheney has- that there are certain situations in which a private discussion yields better results than one involving the public. Now that Dean has criticized Vice President Cheney's similar implementation of a secret energy task force, Dean is saying that the two events are not comparable.
"Dean said his group developed better policy, was bipartisan and sought advice not just from energy executives but environmentalists and low-income advocates. He said his task force was more open because it held one public hearing and divulged afterward the names of people it consulted even though the content of discussions with them was kept secret."
While it is certainly a good thing to develop a good policy, be bipartisan, and seek advice from more than one source, does this really justify keeping the meetings secret? And if so, does it further justify a criticism of Cheney for doing the same thing, solely because Dean's results were better? Then there's this:
"Another secrecy issue has surfaced during Dean's campaign over his decision, before leaving office as governor in January, to seal for 10 years about 145 boxes of his official papers."
Hmm, seems to me that whether or not this is really that big a deal, Dean would have been much better off if he had avoided attacking Cheney's policies of secrecy. This, to me, takes away some of Dean's credibility and I really have my doubts as to whether Dean is the person to beat Bush- there's got to be someone better.
posted by: . (reply)
post date: 12.28.03 (11:36 pm)
Reply to: .
Well, I'm generally a non-violent person, but yeah, a baseball bat would probably do.
"Tragically, a nation that was created by intellectuals and visionaries has now been completely taken over by venal corporate gangsters, delusional Christian fruitcakes and hopelessly shallow Texas shit-kickers." -Tom Robbins
