perfidy

The Ministry of late has not talked much of politics. This could be because the Ministry feels that politics is beneath us. Because we operate on a higher plane, and do not wish to sully our hands with the stinking, encrusted cesspool that is politics. Or, it could be because politics gets in the way of dick jokes.

Our recent reticence to discuss politics is not a hard and fast rule. Its more a guideline. And today, a political item caught my eye. It is perhaps passe to pile on Howard Dean; he of the scream, the pulsating cranial veins, and overheated rhetoric. Shooting ducks in a barrel, some might say. Nevertheless, today's performance before a group of business types in Florida is remarkable even for our Rove-controlled Deanomatic android.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Down with divisiveness was the message Wednesday delivered by Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean as he told a group of Florida business leaders that Republican policies of deceit and finger-pointing are tearing American apart.

With a lead like that, one could expect to hear soothing, healing words follow. Something about how infighting and rhetoric distract us from sober and responsible discussion of the issues of the day. Maybe a nod toward respecting differences, knowing that human knowledge is forever imperfect, and however much we differ in our policy proscriptions, we all reconize that everyone has the best interests of the nation and its citizens at heart.

But wait, this is Dean:

"the most divisive president probably in our history."

Divisiveness is bad, you fucking divisivist!

"He's always talking about those people. It's always somebody else's fault. It's the gays' fault. It's the immigrants' fault. It's the liberals' fault. It's the Democrats' fault. It's Hollywood people,"

Ending divisiveness by accusing others of bigotry, zenophobia, partisanship, blinkered ideoloical fixation, hatred of the Lindsey Lohan, and, well, divisiveness, is probably not the most well thought out scheme. Maybe even risky. What it looks like is what the psychologists call projection.

The Republican agenda "is flag-burning and same-sex marriage and God knows what else,"

Is Deano suggesting that the Republicans are for flag-burning and same sex marriage? I mean, big tent and all, but I don't think that's what there about. Oh wait, they're against all that. Which, if Dean is against the evil Republicans who can do no right, does that mean that he supports flag-burning? Or is he suggesting that "flag-burning and same-sex marriage and God knows what else" is the sum of the Republican agenda? That God knows what else leaves a lot of room for fiscal, national security, and lots else. Regardless, casting your opponents' agenda in such terms is hardly conducive of unity.

Dean also attacked the president on national defense, health care, education and Social Security.

"He is bankrupting the middle-class," Dean said.

"Attacked." A key ingredient in any effort to end divisiveness. And a little class warfare fearmongering to liven up the mix.

"The president made a big deal about bringing the Iraqi prime minister to address Congress," said Dean, the former Vermont governor and 2004 presidential candidate. "The Iraqi prime minister is an anti-Semite."

Calling the only elected Arab leader in the whole fricking world an anti-semite is perhaps unwise. Especially when his next door neighbor is the real deal. Dean opposes the President. The President hates Ahmedijubabbul, who is an anti-semite and has called for the extinction of Israel. If Dean supports the right of Israel to defend itself, supporting the President might be a useful first step.

The AP article neglected to mention one thing, though. Dean also compared a Republican to Stalin. The irony here is delicious, a leftist calling... oh, never mind:

"Thank God for Bill Nelson, because we'd have another crook in the United States Senate if it weren't for him. He is going to beat the pants off Katherine Harris," Dean said during his 20-minute address. "She doesn't understand that it's…improper to be chairman of a campaign and count the votes at the same time. This is not Russia and she is not Stalin."

There isn't a Godwin's Law for comparisons to Stalin, but there should be. Dean loses the argument on style points alone, no matter Harris' actual character.

It really, truly amazes me. I am astounded that a public figure, the head of one of America's two major political parties, could have the unmitigated gall to call for an end to divisiveness, and then say all of... that. What kind of cognitive disconnect exists in his brain that allows the simultaneous presence of such mutually exclusive ideas? It becomes ever more plausible, at least to this observer, that Dean really is a covert Rovian operative, and possibly a more animated version of the original Gore-class andoid.

[wik] GeekLethal reminds us in the comments of a salient bit of movie-quotery; or rather, indulges in some creative movie-quote-paraphrasery:

"The Gore series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy, but these are new. The Deans look human - sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot. I had to wait till he moved on you before I could zero him.”