Oh, My.

Priorities and Frivolities points out this:

"I am disappointed but hardly surprised by the latest reports that the Bush Administration has withheld information regarding Senator Carper's bill," Dean stated. "What we need is openness in government, not secrecy. But this Administration doesn't even want us to know who the Vice President met with when he was concocting their drill and burn energy plan."

(Bold mine)

...in response to Pejman's pointing out of this:

Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean has demanded release of secret deliberations of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force. But as Vermont governor, Dean had an energy task force that met in secret and angered state lawmakers.

Dean's group held one public hearing and after-the-fact volunteered the names of industry executives and liberal advocates it consulted in private, but the Vermont governor refused to open the task force's closed-door deliberations.

In 1999, Dean offered the same argument the Bush administration uses today for keeping deliberations of a policy task force secret.

"The governor needs to receive advice from time to time in closed session. As every person in government knows, sometimes you get more open discussion when it's not public," Dean was quoted as saying. (Again, bold mine)

Now, I'm sure that we're going to hear all sorts of rapid-fire commentary and spinning tomorrow that will do its level best to explain away this entire thing, or at least confuse the issue enough to allow Dean to move on. If he can, well, that's how it goes: it's all part of the game and possibly the public will buy his explanation about why his policy was correct and Cheney's wasn't. I mostly just want to note one thing: it's nice to know that all of this demonstrates that the Dean campaign does not, in point of fact, consider the media to have a conservative bias.

If they had, it would lead one to wonder why they would have ever let their guard down against a knife in the back like this. From a known enemy, no less. And so easily-deflectable, too...

Comments

[Josh]

I have nothing to say about the substance of your post, I just want to say that if that last paragraph doesn't win some kind of award for torturing metaphors, it's a crime.

[Moe Lane]

"...I just want to say that if that last paragraph doesn't win some kind of award for torturing metaphors, it's a crime."

I honestly hope that this was meant as a compliment, because I am taking it as one. :)

[poputonian]

Good post. Impulsiveness is a part of Howard Dean's life pattern. His answers now all seem to be calculated, but they're only half-baked by the time he blurts them out; thus the frequent retractions, modifications, and/or clarifications. Very presidential.

[Harley]

Wow, Moe and Safire on the same day. It's almost as if....HEY wait a minute!!!

[John M]

Actually, there are two very real differences between what Dean & Cheney did. Dean's group volunteered the names of the people involved and the group did have participants from more than just the energy industry.

[Mark]

I was under the impression that what Cheney was refusing to turn over was who he met with, rather than the minutes of the meetings. No one that I know of is asking for what was said when or the minutes or whatever of Cheney's meetings, but just who was there. Given that the article states that Dean disclosed who had been at the meetings in question, the two situations sound fairly different.

[Realish]

Yup, they're very different. But drawing facile comparisons like this seems to be a bustling cottage industry on the right these days.

[Moe Lane]

What, I don't even get to draw facile and tawdry comparisons? What's the point if I don't get to draw facile and tawdry comparisons? :)

Moe

PS: I can take it, then, that your silence denotes your consent to the notion that one cannot seriously argue that the Dean campaign could ever really believe in a conservative media, based on their actions in this matter?