When he said the U.S. must be "evenhanded" in the Middle East, rivals and critics accused him of selling out the Jewish state -- even though his position is similar to Bush's and his campaign co-chair used to run AIPAC.
Last Saturday, John Kerry gleefully predicted that Democratic rival Howard Dean was “imploding” over Israel. A meme was spreading in the Democratic Party that the former Vermont governor is insufficiently Zionist, that his views represent the antiwar fringe that’s said to constitute his base. An Israeli newspaper had predicted that Jewish donors would shun him. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote him an admonitory letter. Political strategists waxed catastrophic.
What made the uproar so odd is that Dean’s Israel policy hardly differs from that of Bush and his main Democratic challengers. His campaign is being co-chaired by Steven Grossman, who from 1992 to 1996 was president of AIPAC, America’s most powerful pro-Israel lobby. While Dean vehemently criticizes Bush on a range of issues, when it comes to Israel, he told an audience at Iowa’s Drake University in February, “The administration’s guiding principles in the Middle East are the right ones. Terrorism against Israel must end. A two-state solution is the only path to eventual peace, but Palestinian territory cannot have the capability of being used as a platform for attacking Israel.”
“His position on the Middle East is a right-of-center position,” says Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan. Yet Dean has been cast as the left-of-center candidate, and the self-propelling narrative of the current campaign ensures that nearly everything he says will be interpreted according to that conventional wisdom. And few issues in American politics are as sensitive as Israel, making a mere hint of dissent from the AIPAC line politically hazardous, even for a candidate whose campaign is being run by an AIPAC vet.
Actually, it’s unclear how much Dean has strayed from AIPAC orthodoxy. Some of his recent comments about Israel seem aimed at the liberal Democrats fueling his insurgency — many of whom disagree with his original position. His campaign managers, though, insist the current fracas is simply a result of Dean’s extemporaneous remarks being misunderstood and blown out of proportion. Either way, Dean is seen as having deviated from the narrow parameters in which Israel can be discussed in American politics. That threatens to slow his momentum, dampen his fundraising and tarnish his political reputation.
Dean’s Israel troubles began at a Sept. 3 campaign event in Santa Fe, N.M. When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said that day, “It’s not our place to take sides.” Then, on Sept. 9, he told the Washington Post that America should be “evenhanded” in its approach to the region.
The media and the Democratic establishment reacted as if Dean had called Yasser Arafat a man of peace. On Sept. 10, 34 Democratic members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, wrote Dean an open letter. “American foreign policy has been — and must continue to be — based on unequivocal support for Israel’s right to exist and to be free from terror …” they wrote. “It is unacceptable for the U.S. to be ‘evenhanded’ on these fundamental issues … This is not a time to be sending mixed messages; on the contrary, in these difficult times we must reaffirm our unyielding commitment to Israel’s survival and raise our voices against all forms of terrorism and incitement.”
The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported that Dean had badly damaged his own campaign. “Sources in the Jewish community say that Dean has wrecked his chances of getting significant contributions from Jews …” the paper wrote. “Many believe Dean’s statement will drive more Jews toward Lieberman and Kerry, enabling Kerry to take the lead again.”
According to the Dean campaign, the uproar involved semantics, not substance. “Here’s what I think happened,” says Grossman, Dean’s campaign co-chair. “Howard made some comments in someone’s backyard in New Mexico that were shorthand, if you will, for some of his Middle East views. In the course of those remarks and some others in the subsequent days, he used some language that gave people consternation, and it was immediately jumped on by Joe Lieberman and John Kerry that somehow Howard Dean was breaking faith with this 55-year tradition of the United States’ special relationship with Israel, which is patently absurd.”
Cole, though, sees more than simple misstatement in Dean’s comments; he interprets Dean’s rhetoric as signaling a subtle ideological shift. Last November, Dean told the Jewish newspaper the Forward that his views on Israel mirrored AIPAC’s, not the more liberal group Americans for Peace Now, which favors a land-for-peace deal with the Palestinians and the dismantling of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. Now, says Cole, “I think that he may have been signaling that he’s moving closer to the Americans for Peace Now position, and that is a genuine shift.” It’s a shift that aligns Dean with the mainstream of American Jewry. As Cole notes, recent polls show that more than 50 percent of American Jews share Americans for Peace Now’s views, compared with around a third who share AIPAC’s unequivocal support for the Israeli government.
Yet if Dean was moving even slightly to the left on Israel, he quickly backtracked, distancing himself from any damaging suggestion of evenhandedness. The same day the Democrats reprimanded him, Dean appeared on CNN and defended Israel’s extrajudicial assassinations of Palestinian militants. “There is a war going on in the Middle East,” he said, “and members of Hamas are soldiers in that war, and, therefore, it seems to me, that they are going to be casualties if they are going to make war.”
To a casual listener, this might have sounded like an affirmation of support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s security policies. After all, Israel’s targeted killings are widely denounced as violations of the 1949 Geneva conventions, and even the Bush administration has occasionally criticized them.
Yet Dean’s opponents quickly seized on his comments as further evidence that he is somehow anti-Israel, professing shock and outrage that Dean had dignified members of Hamas with the word “soldier,” instead of calling them terrorists.
On Sept. 12, Kerry issued an indignant press release: “In the wake of Howard Dean’s statements last week on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, many Democrats wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and dismissed his comments as the flippant remarks of an inexperienced politician. But in going out of his way to term members of Hamas as ‘soldiers,’ Governor Dean insults the memory of every innocent man, woman, and child killed by these suicidal murderers.”
Grossman dismisses Kerry’s comments as political opportunism. “Howard basically said these are combatants, they are fighting a war of terrorism, and they should be hunted down and given no quarter,” he said. Hardly the position of a stooge for the PLO.
Whatever Dean meant, though, some observers say he hurt himself. Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime Democratic political consultant who worked on the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign, says Kerry’s attack was justified and that Dean’s comments created an “an extraordinary imbroglio.”
Last November, Sheinkopf was quoted in an article in the Forward applauding Dean for naming Grossman to run his campaign. In that article, Dean disavowed Americans for Peace Now, saying, “At one time the Peace Now view was important but now Israel is under enormous pressure. We have to stop terrorism before peace negotiations.”
According to Sheinkopf, Dean’s recent comments represent an abandonment of that line. “He keeps changing his position,” Sheinkopf says. “Now he’s calling Hamas soldiers. Either they’re terrorists or soldiers. The nomenclature is clear. His language legitimizes terrorists and puts him far out on the left.”
If Dean’s Israel position really puts him far out on the left, it proves that not showing unequivocal support for the Jewish state remains a political poison pill — for members of either political party.
Last year, former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., learned that supporting the Palestinians can be a career-killer when pro-Israel donors poured more than $1 million into the coffers of Denise Majette, who successfully challenged the five-term incumbent in the Democratic primary.
Dean, though, is no McKinney. After all, according to Grossman, the candidate remains in sync with the goals of Bush’s Israel policy. Dean’s only real criticism of the president is that he hasn’t given the region enough sustained attention. “Bush made a huge mistake early on by absenting himself from [the region] for 18 months,” Grossman says. “He walked away from the Middle East and acted like the Middle East didn’t exist, while the Middle East was exploding in a cauldron of violence. Why? Because Bill Clinton had spent so much time there, and Bush was going to avoid doing anything Bill Clinton had done. Frankly, it was an immature decision. Howard, in contrast, has said, ‘I will be involved in this issue from day one because it is critical to the American national interest.’”
In fact, Dean is selling his Israel policy as a continuation of Clinton’s, and has called on Bush to send Clinton as an envoy to Israel. In a Sept. 12 letter to the Anti-Defamation League’s Foxman, he wrote: “I will follow in the footsteps of Bill Clinton from day one of a Dean Administration and make every effort to bring peace to this troubled region.”
That letter, written in response to Foxman’s earlier message of concern about Dean’s Zionist bona fides, said that, while the United States should play the “honest broker” in Israel’s dispute with the Palestinians, it wouldn’t try to extract concessions from Israel.
“There is no difference between our positions when it comes to my unequivocal support for Israel’s right to exist and to be free from terror,” he assured Foxman. “As I have said before, the United States must remain committed to the special, long-standing relationship we have with Israel, including providing the resources necessary to guarantee Israel’s long-term defense and security … I believe, however, that the United States has another important role to play in the region — that of an honest broker at the negotiating table — with the trust of both sides and able to facilitate direct talks between the parties … We are also in agreement that only the Palestinians and the Israelis themselves can make and keep the peace and work out the specifics of a lasting agreement. Peace cannot be imposed by outside parties. On the issue of settlements, both parties have acknowledged that Israel will have to remove a number of settlements. How many and which those are will have to be determined as part of a final agreement negotiated by the parties.”
One of Dean’s only statements in favor of putting pressure on Israel was issued in support of a Bush administration policy. Last week, the White House announced it was deducting money that Israel spends building West Bank settlements from American loan guarantees — essentially saying that America won’t fund illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Lieberman and Rep. Dick Gephardt opposed the move, placing themselves to Bush’s right, while Kerry and Dean supported it. “Without having read the specific language of the Bush administration’s decision, it seems in keeping with my view on conditioning the amount of our loan guarantees,” Dean e-mailed the Forward.
No serious candidate took a position to the left of Bush. Indeed, it’s precisely because there’s no real leftist alternative that Dean’s been cast in that role. After all, it’s unlikely that Dean’s critics ever really thought that he meant to honor members of Hamas when he called them “soldiers,” or that, if elected, he’d jettison America’s alliance with Israel. But a campaign is always more about images and impressions than carefully formulated positions, and that’s where Dean has blundered.
As Sheinkopf says, most voters don’t know or care who former AIPAC president Grossman is, or, for that matter, that Dean’s wife, Dr. Judy Steinberg Dean, and children are Jewish. “They do know that there are troops in Iraq,” he says. “They know Americans have been attacked by terrorists on their own soil and they know that Howard Dean calls terrorists ‘soldiers.’ It’s arrogant to believe people are following every word. What they’re following is the nightly news cycle saying Howard Dean is soft on terror.”
Yet that nightly news cycle, and the way real issues evanesce in it, might also work in Dean’s favor, making potential backers forget all about this interlude. Sheinkopf, for all his criticism of Dean, doesn’t think his comments on Israel will affect his fundraising among Jews. “If he appears to be ahead, the money’s going to keep coming in from Jews and others. Funders tend to fund winners, not losers.” No matter how many gaffes he makes, then, no one can say Dean’s imploding till the money dries up.
Howard Dean’s spokeswoman, Karen Finney, has responded to my story on Dean’s turn into paid advocacy work, accusing me of engaging in “lazy journalism.” I think the adjective is not accurate.
Salon has nothing personal against Dean. But we felt that a liberal champion’s reliance on paid advocacy work reveals something significant about our political culture, and possibly about Dean himself. Finney’s statement is presented here in its entirety, along with my responses.
While there may be fair criticisms to be made, its a sham that Justin knowingly ignored a number of relevant facts because they didn’t fit the premise of the story he wanted to write. Criticism of one’s positions or activities is one thing, lazy journalism is quite another.
On the issue of biologics, one that he’s known and had an opinion on long before he was DNC Chairman. For example, Justin did not mention Gov. Dean spent most of his time during the healthcare debate working with DFA and other grassroots organizations advocating for the public option as one of the most outspoken advocates. During that debate he was very transparent about his position on and support for biologics legislation sponsored by Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) in the House (H.R. 1548) and in The Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act introduced by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.).
Here’s the rest of what he said at the time about a commonsense and fair approach:
“A commonsense and fair approach, similar to the process and timeline currently in place for generic versions of chemical-based medicines, would allow the original developer of the biologic to protect the proprietary data used to develop the medicine for at least 12 years. A shorter exclusivity period would prematurely rob biotech innovators of their intellectual property and destroy incentives to develop new cures. Most firms would be unable to recoup their investments in new medicines, which ordinarily top $1 billion and involve 15 years of research and development. If we discourage investment, we jeopardize the development of the next generation of breakthrough medicines and cures.”
On the issue of the MEK, he is not a paid advocate. He was paid for a handful of speeches, but has not been paid for his advocacy. His focus has been on the human rights issues. In an op-ed on Huffington Post he outlined some of the facts he felt had been ignored in recent articles, but his key point is that there are 3400 unarmed men, women and children currently in Camp Ashraf who should not be left for slaughter after having been promised they would be protected. Here’s an excerpt:
“There are key facts, which have been obscured, omitted or ignored in recent articles written about these 3,400 unarmed people. First, a lot has changed since the MEK was classified as a terrorist organization in 1997. In recent testimony to Congress by Martin Indyk, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs under Clinton, it was revealed that the motivation behind the ’97 classification was to help open a dialogue with the ruling party of Iran.
Second, in July 2010, the U.S. Appeals Court in Washington DC ruled that the group was actually not given due process in 1997 and ordered the State Dept. to reevaluate the terrorist designation. Notably the governments of France, Britain and the EU have already ruled that the MEK is not a terrorist organization. Currently the only two nations that remain in agreement on what is now a discredited classification are America and Iran.
Third, in 2003 the U.S. military peacefully disarmed the inhabitants of Camp Ashraf. American FBI agents visited Ashraf and questioned all of the 3,400 residents. None were found to be associated with terrorists or terrorism. The US military made a promise in writing that each resident would be protected against outside threats.
Fourth, in 2009, and again in 2011, American troops were ordered to leave the vicinity of Ashraf by the Iraqi Government — then led by Prime Minister Maliki. Iraqi troops went into Ashraf and killed 47 unarmed civilians in cold blood. Most of the hundreds who were wounded were denied medical care as American troops stood idly by just a few miles away.
Fifth, while the residents of Ashraf are currently asking to be re-located to other countries, the plan currently being pushed by Lawrence Butler from the US State would instead relocate them to another area in Iraq and “guarantee” their safety. Yet neither the American or Iraqi governments have thus far kept their word to the residents of Ashraf.
“America gave its word to the MEK that we would protect them. We believe that allowing 3,400 people to be murdered in cold blood and breaking that promise is wrong. We believe that in the end this debate is about America, not the people in Ashraf. America is a country that values freedom and the rule of law. We must keep our word and help the people of Ashraf get out of Iraq. We must support those who peacefully and through democratic means fight for their freedom. If we fail and again stand by as 3,400 unarmed men, women and children, in Ashraf are murdered by the Iranian Government or its Iraqi proxies, we diminish ourselves as a great nation. Its time for America to keep its word to the people in Ashraf.”
My response:
On the issue of biologics, Finney contends Dean has “known and had an opinion on long before he was DNC Chairman.” Finney said as much on background to me, but in my reporting I found no evidence that Dean had weighed in on biologics before 2009, when he joined the D.C. lobby shop McKenna Long and Aldridge. McKenna works for the biotech industry’s trade group.
Finney did not allude to the facts she presents here when I originally emailed with her. If she had, I would have reported them. Since it’s always possible that I missed something, yesterday I invited Finney to provide a citation for Dean’s involvement on the issue before he was a paid advocate for the industry. She declined to do so.
Remember, the issue here was how long a certain class of drugs — biologics or biopharmaceuticals — would be protected from cheaper generic competitors. Consumer groups wanted a shorter period (five years) while Dean and the industry wanted 12 years of protection. So it’s worth noting that back in 2002, Dean was active in a similar debate — but back then he was arguing in favor of generic competition against brand-name drugs.
“It’s unconscionable how they’re exploiting patent-extension loopholes,” Dean told Forbes, speaking of Big Pharma. He actually founded a coalition to lobby Congress to make it easier for generics to enter the market sooner, thereby lowering prices for consumers.
It is true that the biologics industry is different from the traditional pharmaceutical industry but the fundamental issue is the same. By taking money from the industry, Dean has created the appearance of a conflict of interest.
When it comes to the MEK, Finney argues that “he is not a paid advocate. He was paid for a handful of speeches, but has not been paid for his advocacy.” That seems like a distinction without a difference.
Dean has publicly acknowledged he had never even heard of the MEK until his agent was contacted with a paid speaking opportunity for the group in Paris. (And, remember, the group is known for paying astronomical speaking fees.)
Finney also quotes Dean’s HuffPost column on the MEK and Camp Ashraf. A couple of notes here: First, Dean has misrepresented Martin Indyk’s comments on the MEK, as Indyk himself pointed out in a comment on HuffPost.
The full passage from Indyk’s book on the MEK is both a succinct argument for why the group should be classified as a terrorist group and a refutation of the idea that it was added to the terrorism list purely as (in Dean’s characterization) a way to “open a dialogue with the ruling party of Iran”:
[The MEK] in its early actions had killed Americans. After its expulsion from Iran, Saddam had provided it training bases in Iraq and logistic support for terrorist attacks in major Iranian cities. The MEK returned the favor by helping Saddam crush the Shiite revolt in southern Iraq after the Gulf War. The MEK clearly deserved to be on the terrorism list, but as an anti-Iranian organization it had managed to gain support from some influential congressmen through the sophisticated political operations of its front organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran … Here was one instance when Clinton could show that he applied the same standards to groups that used terrorism against our foes as well as our friends. We hoped it would be perceived in Tehran as a goodwill gesture.
I won’t quibble here with the broad strokes of Dean’s explanation of the situation at Camp Ashraf, where several thousand MEK members are holed up in Iraq. Finney asserts that Dean’s “focus has been on the human rights issues.”
In fact, his advocacy for the MEK has gone well beyond the question of human rights of the residents of Ashraf. Dean has at leasttwice argued publicly that Maryam Rajavi, one of the longtime leaders of the MEK, should be recognized as the president of the nation of Iran. That’s a remarkable position that is rarely heard even among MEK’s strongest supporters.
Finally, there are two areas in which Dean could be more transparent. As I noted in the story, he sits on the board of advisors of a venture capital fund, Vatera Health Partners, that invests in biopharmaceuticals. But neither Finney nor Vatera responded to my inquiries about when he took the position.
Why does it matter? Because Dean was doing public advocacy for the industry during the healthcare fight in 2009, and, if he was on Vatera’s board back then, that means he had a personal financial stake in the industry, a time when he was seeking to shape his future. I’m not saying he did. I’m saying he should disclose whether he did.
More important, Dean has declined to reveal whom he has worked for in his capacity as a senior strategic advisor at McKenna Long and Aldridge. It is possible that my story, which covered only advocacy work that has occurred in the public domain, understates Dean’s paid advocacy positions.
Howard Dean has long cultivated an image as the plainspoken doctor who speaks for the left wing of the Democratic Party, a role he still plays as a pugnacious pundit on TV. But since his term as chairman of the Democratic National Committee ended in January 2009, Dr. Dean has taken on a less-noticed role: paid advocate for interest groups that would find few fans among the progressive voters once energized by Dean’s 2004 presidential bid.
Dean may not be the worst of the “buckrakers,” those prototypical capital characters who exploit their name and connections without regard for principle. But his recent political forays seem to have diverged from his trailblazing left-liberal past.
As senior strategic advisor at McKenna Long & Aldridge, a heavyweight Washington lobbying firm, Dean played a prominent role representing the biotech industry during the healthcare bill debate, staking out a position on biopharmaceutical drugs that was decried by consumer groups.
“Gov. Dean was very helpful to us,” biotech CEO Jim Greenwood told a trade publication “As a physician clearly focused on healthcare, a Democrat leader and clearly to left of center, his efforts were impactful.” Greenwood is the head of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), a trade group that lobbies for the industry in Washington.
Dean is also currently one of the most prominent paid voices in a public-relations campaign on behalf of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an obscure and controversial Iranian militant group that is aggressively lobbying the Obama administration to remove it from the official list of terrorist organizations.
Dean arrived in the comfortable K Street offices of McKenna Long & Aldridge shortly after his term as DNC chair ended in January 2009. He had been passed over by President Obama for the secretary of health and human services Cabinet post, and he needed a paying job.
In announcing his appointment, the firm said Dean would “provide guidance to clients, particularly in the areas of healthcare and alternative energy resources.”
Dean has been careful not to register as a lobbyist, a designation that would prompt legal disclosure requirements. Both McKenna and the governor’s spokeswoman declined to reveal which clients he has worked for.
Dean took on a very public role during the 2009 healthcare reform battle, specifically going to bat for the biotech industry — whose trade association is a client of McKenna.
At stake was how the government would regulate a growing class of drugs called biologics or biopharmaceuticals and their generic competitors. The industry argued for a longer period — at least 12 years — in which expensive brand-name biologics would face no competition from less costly generics. Consumer groups argued that, to keep costs down, the period of exclusivity should be just five years.
Dean jumped into the fight on the side of the industry, writing an Op-Ed in the Hill in 2009 arguing that a “commonsense and fair approach” would be to bar generics for “at least 12 years.”
“If we discourage investment, we jeopardize the development of the next generation of breakthrough medicines and cures,” he wrote, echoing a key industry talking point.
Liberal admirers were disappointed.
“It was devastating to have him involved because of his reputation,” says James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, a public interest group that fought for a shorter period of exclusivity. “He’s considered to be independent of industry and on the left, so it was really shocking to us when we first saw this. But there it was.”
Greenwood, the trade group CEO, said at the time that Dean’s work had involved talking to members of Congress about the issue. Dean never registered as a lobbyist, a legal category that involves spending at least 20 percent of one’s time for a client lobbying lawmakers or government officials.
One common dodge on K Street is for former elected officials to work for lobbying firms without actually registering as lobbyists. At McKenna, for example, former Sen. Zell Miller, the conservative Democrat from Georgia, and former Colorado Rep. David Skaggs hold the same title as Dean: “senior strategic advisor and independent consultant.”
Dean is not exclusive in his services. He currently serves on the board of advisors at Vatera Health Partners, a New York-based venture capital fund whose mission is “to support and grow emerging biopharmaceutical companies.”
It’s not clear from the public record how long he has served in the position. But his presence on the Vatera board indicates that he has a personal financial stake in the biopharmaceutical industry.
At the time of the biologics fight on Capitol Hill — which the industry won — Dean told Time that “I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t believe it.”
Dean has invoked the same argument when it comes to his work in support of the MEK, the Iranian militant group. Dean and other luminaries from across the political spectrum have been paid vast sums of money by the group — as much as $20,000 for a 10-minute speech — to appear at events pushing the Obama administration to remove the MEK from the official list of terrorist organizations.
Dean himself has acknowledged being paid but has not disclosed specific sums.
Critics of the MEK, including the State Department, say the group displays cult-like qualities; it has been led by the same husband-and-wife couple, Masoud and Maryam Rajavi, for decades. They also point to the fact that it killed Americans in Iran in the 1970s and the lack of support for the group among the people of Iran. Among the most enthusiastic supporters of delisting MEK have been neoconservative strategists who believe the group can help destabilize the Iranian regime.
Dean, for his part, has been distinguished by his particularly aggressive advocacy for the MEK. Not only has he argued for delisting MEK in print and in speaking appearances, he has also said that Maryam Rajavi should be recognized as the president of Iran. The Christian Science Monitor reported on a recent trip by Dean to Berlin:
“Madame Rajavi does not sound like a terrorist to me; she sounds like a president,” Mr. Dean said, gesturing toward the MEK leader from the dais. “And her organization should not be listed as a terrorist organization. We should be recognizing her as the president of Iran.”
While Dean has passionately argued he is on the right side of the MEK issue, he acknowledged to the Washington Times that he got involved through his agent.
“I got asked by my agent to go over to Paris to speak to a group I knew nothing about. I spent a lot of time on the Internet learning about them, and then I met them,” he told the paper.
Dean spokeswoman Karen Finney said that, besides paid advocacy work, the former governor spends his time on a range of other activities, including appearing as a paid contributor to CNBC; traveling as a board member for the National Democratic Institute, which promotes democracy around the world; giving paid speeches; teaching a class at Hofstra University; and serving on the board of Extendicare, a Canadian long-term care company. Finney said he also continues to do some work for Democracy for America, a political action committee Dean founded that is run by his brother, Jim.
Whom else does Dean work for as a paid advocate?
In January, he waded into another high-stakes healthcare fight, this one being waged in New York state between foreign medical schools and their American competitors. The issue was whether foreign-trained doctors would have access to hospitals in New York for their residencies. Dean wrote an Op-Ed in the Albany Times-Union, “N.Y. needs its foreign-trained doctors,” that repeated talking points of foreign medical schools, which, Dean’s bio blurb noted, are clients of McKenna Long & Aldridge.
While the firm won’t say whom Dean has worked for, his bio page on McKenna’s website offers some clues.
“Respected for his fiscally moderate policies as Governor, he understands first-hand the severe budget constraints that are challenging state and municipal governments,” it reads. “With an extensive set of contacts nationally, Governor Dean is uniquely positioned to develop partnerships between industry stakeholders and local governments.”
Dean is indeed uniquely positioned: Between his former followers and his current clients, between his idealist liberal past and the cynical culture of K Street, between independence and cooptation.
UPDATE: Read Howard Dean’s response to Salon here.
Will Howard Dean challenge Barack Obama in 2012? Politico columnist Roger Simon, who drew Dean from a hat full of cards that he’d written the names of various Democrats on, says probably!
First, Simon lays out the history: Reagan and Clinton were only reelected because they did not face serious primary challenges. But Jesse Jackson almost ran against Clinton, and he would’ve made Clinton lose, because of Whitewater, NAFTA and Troopergate. Thankfully, Rahm Emanuel and Harold Ickes made Jackson not run, thus saving Clinton from being Jimmy Carter.
But will Howard Dean seriously be Obama’s Ted Kennedy? The Speculative 2012 Primary Challenge Column Hat does not lie. Howard Dean is going to run against Obama and lose to the Palin/O’Donnell ticket. Simon proves this with facts:
Howard Dean sounded defiant on the phone.
“Obama’s people have long been thinking — grimly — about Dean.”
“Some of the most influential members of Team Obama do not like or trust Dean and have long feared he would challenge Obama for the presidency if only given an opportunity.”
Howard Dean has run for president before!
“Young people” and “liberals” like Howard Dean, because of “his pioneering use of the Internet as a political tool.”
Obama wants to compromise, which will make the left mad.
Howard Dean hates Barack Obama because he did not get a Cabinet position.
Howard Dean himself said no one should challenge Obama in 2012 but on the other hand he also said something mildly critical of the White House.
Bam. QED.
Congratulations to Roger Simon for writing a column about the 2012 race that somehow manages to be even dumber than the hundreds of columns about Michael Bloomberg and Sarah Palin.
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene
More Alex Pareene.
Harry Reid and Howard Dean had their reasons for coming out against the Park51 project in lower Manhattan last week. Well, at least Reid, who is locked in a tight reelection campaign in Nevada, did. Dean’s motives are a little harder to discern.
But whatever they hoped to accomplish, one thing is indisputable: Reid and Dean both did an enormous favor to the right-wing fear-mongers who have been pushing the “ground zero mosque” hysteria, equipping them with a compelling talking point for the cable news circuit. Here’s a sampling of how Reid and Dean have been invoked in the past few days, often (but not always) on Fox News:
Rick Santorum (“On the Record With Greta Van Susteren,” Aug. 23):
I suspect Howard Dean and others have been saying this to the Obama administration for quite some time that the arrogance and the dismissiveness of the American public’s opinion on a whole variety of things, including this one, is starting to corrode not just support for him but for the Democratic Party generally and is hurting candidates across this country.
And that’s why you see Harry Reid stepping out and saying what he said. They are walking away from him because he doesn’t seem to care what America thinks, and that is not good news for Democratic candidates across the country.
Rich Lowry (“Fox News Watch,” Aug. 21)
I think what’s complicated the simple media narrative here, which would ordinarily be, and to some extent, has been that everyone opposed to the project at this particular place must be a bigot, as the fact that President Obama pointedly refused to endorse the wisdom of that location. And you had Harry Reid and Howard Dean coming out and saying they don’t think it’s a good idea to be there. So that’s really complicated.
Bill O’Reilly (“The O’Reilly Factor,” Aug. 19):
Now, if you’re keeping score, it is Senator Harry Reid and Howard Dean against the mosque. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the president okay with it. That is a Civil War within the Democratic Party, no matter how they try to spin it.
Chris Wallace (“The O’Reilly Factor,” Aug. 19):
I think the issue will be a sense that the president and a lot of Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, we need to discuss what she said this week, that they are out of touch with the mainstream. They’re out of touch with the prevailing opinion in this country.
I mean, you had Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday say that we need to look into the funding of the opposition to the mosque. I mean, to the best of my knowledge, we’re talking about Americans who are exercising their First Amendment right of free speech to say they don’t like the mosque. They think it is as Howard Dean said an affront.
Clifford May (National Review, Aug. 26):
Mr. Horowitz informs us that the planned Islamic center has become “the prime target of national conservatives who, after years of disparaging New York as a hotbed of liberal activity, are defending New York against a mosque that will rise two city blocks from Ground Zero.”
The hypocrisy! Have they no shame?
Mr. Horowitz was no doubt so busy reporting this big story that he missed the bulletins about Senate majority leader Harry Reid and former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean — no nasty national conservatives, they — also opposing the Ground Zero Islamic project.
NYC blogger and construction worker Andy Sullivan (CNN, Aug. 20):
ANDY SULLIVAN: Well, I’m familiar about what he said. And it’s kind of profound, actually, Howard Dean, very much the Democrat liberal, being on the side of moving the mosque. I find that pretty moving.
DON LEMON: What’s your response to those who have said that — who think this is a left-vs.-right issue or a conservative-vs.-Democrat issue?
SULLIVAN: Oh, I completely disagree. Just look at — you have got the top Democratic guy, Harry Reid, saying it’s not a good idea to put it there.
And then you have Obama saying, they should have the right to put it there. So, I think this goes beyond left-right, Democratic- Republican lines.
James Pinkerton (“Fox News Watch,” Aug. 21)
Let’s just focus on the pundit sector. There’s been a chance for them to demonstrate their moral superiority over the average American by taking this enlightened multicultural position. Now that’s fine for the Democrats until they notice that Obama and Harry Reid and Howard Dean were not on board. And now, they’re slamming them too. So they’re living in their little isolated world — ivory tower, where they reign.
Unknown reply to Juan Williams (“Fox News Watch,” Aug. 21)
WILLIAMS: You can speak out against it if you like, but what I’m saying is the opposition, Chris, is coming from one place, the right wing in the country. It’s coming from Sarah Palin. It’s coming from Newt Gingrich.
(UNKNOWN): And Howard Dean and Harry Reid.
Rick Lazio (“Hardball,” Aug. 24)
MATTHEWS: You said this is an issue of security. Well, they don’t agree with you.
LAZIO: How about Howard Dean? How about Harry Reid?
Steve Kornacki writes about politics for Salon. Reach him by email at SKornacki@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveKornacki
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Top left, clockwise: Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Harry Reid, President Obama
The bizarre, ginned-up controversy surrounding the Park51 project — a proposed Islamic community center, like the 92nd Street Y, including a space for worship, to be built at the site of an old Burlington Coat Factory (which is a store, not a factory) on Park Place in lower Manhattan, near, but not in sight of, the site of the World Trade Center — has exposed not just the blatant Islamophobia (and cheerful willingness to exploit bigotry) of many luminaries of the right, but also the cowardice of many supposed liberals. Just so we know where we stand, and using, as criteria for placement, my own inexact impressions of their public statements, I present the official War Room lists of “ground zero mosque” heroes, villains and cowards.
Heroes
It’s not a particularly hard case to make: The Constitution guarantees the right of the Cordoba Initiative to construct a house of worship on private land without any interference from the government, “Muslims” as a whole did not attack “us” on 9/11, Feisal Abdul Rauf is a well-respected, progressive imam with a history of performing outreach for the Bush administration, and even if the project was a “ground zero mosque,” celebrating its construction would demonstrate an admirable commitment to the founding ideals that we are supposedly fighting for Over There. At a time when Islamophobia appears to be on the rise, in part because xenophobia always tends to get louder during periods of economic uncertainty, liberals and progressives should be forcefully making the case for tolerance and liberty. But only a couple have bothered. Still, we should celebrate them!
Rep. Jerry Nadler, whose district actually includes ground zero, has been a loud and unflinching supporter of the project. He makes the case well, and without tossing in wishy-washy qualifications:
Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s speech in support of the Park51 project has been rightly celebrated as a courageous moral and intellectual defense of religious freedom.
Outside of New York, Sen. Russ Feingold accused mosque opponents of “gutter politics” and affirmed his support for “freedom of religion,” the simple answer that all Democratic politicians and candidates should give. Minnesota’s Al Frankenalso attacked opponents, and even cracked a joke.
I think the best response for a non-New York politician to give is probably Sherrod Brown’s.Brown said, first of all, that it’s a local, New York issue, which it is, and also said, “We’re not at war with a religion,” which is the sort of thing that needs to be said, constantly, by people with consciences, in order to rebut assholes like Gingrich.
Pennsylvania candidate Joe Sestak has been accused of “dodging” the question, but his answer seems straightforward to me: He believes it’s a New York issue and he supports the Constitution. (He has received the endorsement of Michael Bloomberg.)
Some perhaps surprising heroes include Grover Norquist, who makes the political case for supporting the project, and Ted Olson, a longtime Republican attorney whose wife died on 9/11. Olson forthrightly said, “We don’t want to turn an act of hate against us by extremists into an act of intolerance for people of religious faith.”
Cowards
The coward’s usual formulation of wishy-washy nonsupport is to proclaim that “they have a right to build it, but …” While I’d argue that even if you don’t feel like issuing a spirited defense of the specific project being debated, you can simply stop at “they have a right to build it” and retain some dignity, these politicians seem to think that they have to balance their respect for the Constitution with a healthy dose of skepticism about Muslims and acknowledged sympathy for hysterical opponents whipped up into a frenzy by lying propagandists.
Harry Reid decided to point out that while the First Amendment protects the rights of religious minorities to practice their religion, that doesn’t mean that they should practice it where it might upset someone.
Howard Dean, too, thinks that religious minorities should respect the wishes of majorities of Americans and not go around building houses of worship in places where Americans don’t want them. (Memo to Gov. Dean: One of the reasons so many Americans polled about the subject are opposed to it is because right-wing liars defined the entire debate from Day One. If you’d polled everyone in the nation back in, say, March, and asked, “Should there be an Islamic community center with a pool and an auditorium in lower Manhattan near City Hall and, yes, the WTC site?” I’m guessing it would’ve been a three-way split between support, oppose and don’t give a shit. And even if “oppose” had still won that theoretical poll, it still wouldn’t have been a good reason for the organizers to be more “sensitive” and find a new building.)
Some New York Democrats are just completely punting on the issue. Anthony Weiner refused to say anything about it for weeks, then issued a baffling letter that says nothing.Chuck Schumer, a man who stands no chance of losing reelection, and from whom a defense of religious liberties would’ve been celebrated and important, will only say he isn’t opposed to the project.
Villains
They are mostly the obvious ones: Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani — all Republicans with a history of exploiting racial and ethnic tensions and resentments without regard for the consequences.
New York Democrats John Hall, Tim Bishop, Mike McMahon and Mike Arcuri all decided their best shot at reelection was joining the chorus against the project. Cowardice may have inspired them, but Arcuri’s move, in particular, seems more villainous.
The proposed $100 million Muslim center offered one such contrast. Greene echoed President Barack Obama’s recent defense of religious freedom but said, “When those families go to mourn their losses, they shouldn’t be looking at a mosque right there.”
(His opponent, Kendrick Meek, merely said he wouldn’t “step in front of a decision that’s already been made in New York City,” which is halfway between cowardly and acceptable.)
The Confused, and Confusing
I think New York politicians have a responsibility to defend the project itself, while I’ll let most non-New Yorkers off the hook for stopping at a defense of the principles involved (as long as they don’t add a Reid-ian “but …”) and an acknowledgment that it’s a “New York issue.” But what about New Jersey politicians?
Back in New York, Carolyn Maloney and her primary opponent, Reshma Saujani, both signaled their support for the project, but Saujani (a born panderer) supports it super hard, and claims Maloney only kinda supports it. I’m not convinced by Saujani’s argument, but you can read Maloney’s statement for yourself.
I might need to invent a separate “I think he actually means well but what the hell” category for Gov. David Paterson, who is, I think, trying very hard to be a peacemaker, as part of his “fuck it, I’m out of office soon anyway” tour ’10. But his claims that he will give state land to the developers (which would be constitutionally iffy) and his repeated insistence that he’s meeting with Cordoba Initiative representatives about moving the site (which they keep disputing) are just serving to support the idea that there’s some compelling reason why they should move.
Kristen Gillibrand’s support for the project seems halfhearted and overly cautious, but it’s there.
And, yes, then there’s the president. Had he stopped at his Friday night statement, a simple defense of religious liberty, I’d happily put him in the heroes category. But his Saturday non-clarification, stressing the fact that he doesn’t explicitly support the project, completely muddied the issue. Was it a walk-back? Sort of! But also not quite! His response is a Rorschach test, and interpretations of it necessarily depend on impressions of the president himself.
The heroes list is depressingly short, the cowards and villains lists populated with people I wish weren’t included, and while I understand that defending the project could be interpreted as “politicizing” the issue, I’m still depressed at how few “progressive” leaders are unable to mount simple, surprisingly necessary defenses of the fundamental rights of Americans to worship, or not, as they see fit.
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon and is the author of "The Rude Guide to Mitt." Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene
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Howard Dean 
Howard Dean 
Governor Howard Dean, physician and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaks during the "American Technophile: "How Technology is changing Politics, Governance & Healthcare" panel at the Fortune Tech Brainstorm 2009 in Pasadena, California July 22, 2009. REUTERS/Phil McCarten (UNITED STATES BUSINESS)(Credit: © Phil Mccarten / Reuters) 
Governor Howard Dean, physician and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, speaks during the "American Technophile: "How Technology is changing Politics, Governance & Healthcare" panel at the Fortune Tech Brainstorm 2009 in Pasadena, California July 22, 2009. REUTERS/Phil McCarten (UNITED STATES BUSINESS)(Credit: © Phil Mccarten / Reuters) 
Top left, clockwise: Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Harry Reid, President Obama 
