Dean's 'Outsiderness' Demonstrated

Annie

Diamond Member
Nov 22, 2003
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He doesn't yet possess the 'know-how':

At an event meant to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a stern if not angry Howard Dean, told the news media to “get a new life.”

With the start of the Iowa Caucus only hours away, the former Vermont governor arrived at the Iowa Historical Museum for the State of Iowa King remembrance.

Dean, who was not scheduled as one of the speakers, arrived with the national and local media waiting. The event had been posted on the media roster by his campaign.

After Dean’s bus pulled in at about 10:30 a.m., he circled the large building, just blocks from the golden-domed capital, as hordes of press and orange-capped Dean “storm troopers” followed in tow in the subfreezing weather.

When Dean finally made his way into the building, chaos ensued - although nothing out of the ordinary for the kick off of a closely contested caucus race.

“Dean came here and he was hoping that his henchmen would get the job done," said 26-year-old Seville Lee, who heads a mentoring program for at-risk youth in Des Moines. "He thought he was going to speak."

“I’m offended that Dean would even try and do this,” said Lee, who organized a children’s play that day in honor of King. “He wasn’t scheduled to speak.

"If he wanted to come he could go sit down like everyone else.”

After Dean entered the packed auditorium with a mostly black audience of about 300 people, the former Iowa front-runner took a seat in the front row for about five minutes.

Photographers and camera crews followed, positioning themselves at the foot of the stage. A clearly perturbed Dean sat through the flashes, but soon walked up on stage and had a discussion with local organizers.

A while later he exited the auditorium, making a beeline to the front entrance and to his bus. Wedging through the media, he stopped at the front step before boarding the bus to answer a reporter's question about how he was feeling.

"You know why I wasn’t able to attend this event,” Dean said, “because you guys are behaving so badly you’ve got to get a new life.”

Upbraiding the media, Dean told the press: “I’m feeling great, we’re going to win but you guys got to behave yourselves out of respect for Dr. King.”

Blaming the media for the commotion of his arrival, Dean refused to answer any more questions.

“Dean did not come there to speak," Dean’s national spokesman Jay Carson later said. "He came there to pay his respects, and he felt that the crush of the press was distracting and not showing the respect that Dr. King deserves.”

Organizers were left confused and frustrated, as the bulk of the media quickly followed Dean out of the auditorium.

“I think it was very disrespectful," said Donna Graves, who was on the planning committee for the commemoration ceremony. "The intent of today was not to look at Howard Dean.

“The planning committee didn’t know he was coming as we invited a lot of people. It was very hectic and this is a day that is supposed to be about Martin Luther King.”



©MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 
The idealist in me says hooray for him, telling off the press like that. The cynical side thinks it was staged. If I could just sit and have a few beers with each of them and bush I could tell who was full of shit and who ain't...
 
LOL You don't get it, so how could you possibly figure it out with beer? Dean thought he could use the forum to drum up some Black support, assuming the stupidity of his audience. Duh, the organizers and audience were ahead of him.
 
“The planning committee didn’t know he was coming as we invited a lot of people. It was very hectic and this is a day that is supposed to be about Martin Luther King.”

Dean, who was not scheduled as one of the speakers, arrived with the national and local media waiting. The event had been posted on the media roster by his campaign.

"If he wanted to come he could go sit down like everyone else.”
Dean = oppurtunist
 
That's one possibility from the reading, but what we don't know makes the difference. It doesn't say he was not invited, it said that they didn't know he was attending and there was some suggestion it might be due to a planning committee oversight (the planning committee for the mlk memorial that is). When dean went to talk to the local organizers he might have been apologizing for the commotion and that he was going to leave to move the press out. If it was a stunt it was no different than the visit to the mlk center by bush, well maybe dean had less booing...

Bush booed in Atlanta visit
 
Here's the difference, MLK's family knew and prepared for Bush's attendance. They and he knew his place. Some protestors appeared, were accomodated and respected. Difference with Dean, to wit his not prepared, he stayed 5 min., went to confer with organizers, left hall, blasted the press.
 
Are you assuming that bush was there simply to pay his respects and not to stage a photo op? and also that Dean was not invited, and that he (or his staff) had not replied to the planning committee? The article implies neither directly.
 
Photo op? May be or not be. Either way, the MLK people knew what was going down. THAT'S the difference.
 
do you admit the possiblity that the planning committee in dean's case might have been the one's that dropped the ball? In my initial response I pointed out that both were possible scenarios given the information available from the article.
 
Aquarian, it really doesn't matter. Kind of like, 'the dog ate my homework.'
 
not really, if they invited him, he accepted, they received the reply and subsequently 'lost' it due to the 'hectic' nature of planning the event (which is possible according to what's actually stated in the article), how can anyone place blame on him for attempting to make good on his promise to attend? I'm not saying that it's the case here, the article does not allow me to come to that conclusion, but it did not allow me to conclude that dean did anything wrong either.
 
nowhere in the article does it say he was not invited to attend. he was not invited to speak, nor did he attempt to according to the article.

?The planning committee didn?t know he was coming as we invited a lot of people. It was very hectic and this is a day that is supposed to be about Martin Luther King.?

leaves it open as to whether or not he was one of the 'a lot of people' that were invited, it specifically does not say that he was uninvited, it states only that the committee did not know he was coming without citing a cause for that lack of knowledge. To me, it could go either way based on what is written. Personal feelings about dean or politicians in general may make one draw conclusions from the article, but a conclusion either way in this case at this point cannot be logically supported.
 
Ok, the alternative is that he didn't know this was the federal observation date. duh!
 
Dean blew his own candidacy with his Angry Man schtick which, for a time, concealed his Park Avenue Waspy Arrogance.

In the end of the day, he is just another elitist drone who gets angry when the little people do not jump up and do his bidding. This incident, as well as his yelling at the older Republican man in Iowa a few days ago, highlight how out of touch he is with moderate America.
 
agreed WW. Proven out last night in Iowa, he looked like he was going to stroke out. No congratulations to the others; tiny, little man.
 

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