Sunday's Democratic debate

I don't know that I should even ask how many actually watched the candidates' debate yesterday. After all, there was competing "early" tax filers, game watchers, people catching up on holiday-postponed jobs and these debates are indeed tough even for the more inclined viewer, because watching more than 4 people debate is like an unsatisfying tennis game (and I remain sure of the fact that no game is as fun watching as playing).

What struck me more than the debate itself was the early and late headlines coming from it. Before it began, Wolf Blitzer on CNN always sounded so incredulous as he asked people, "Can any of these people even think they can win against George W. Bush?" Polls and Republican-owned and controlled electronic, paperless voting machines as well as the conservative Bush/Reagan appointed Supreme Court majority aside, I don't see Mr. Bush as unbeatable.

But even after the debate began, I saw interim headlines like, "Lieberman trounces Dean", "Dems gang up on tiny state governor", and "Dean's Biggest Fight with Other Dems."

First, as I've said before, I haven't chosen my candidate. Dean, I thought, was a good governor of my state. I think some of what worked well for him could work well for our country. Nor do I think the things people typically hammer Dean for are legitimate. Reading many of the more right-oriented blogs over the weekend, I saw some pretty incredible charges about Dean's convenient Christianity, questioning his faith because he's married to a Jew and has Jewish children, horror over his training at a Planned Parenthood center (I'm sorry folks - Planned Parenthood does FAR more than perform abortions; much of the cases I've seen them handle are breast exams, Pap tests, fertility and infertility counseling, and helping women find the best birth control method - all delivered at a sliding scale cost so that poor women can be caught early for signs of disease and cancer), that he didn't protect the VT nuclear plant (please tell me which of the nuclear plants are safe - as I recall, every one of them offers huge concerns), and that he's hiding something by not requesting his VT records be unsealed.

Go to any of the VT newspaper sites, and you can pretty much determine Dean's record just from their archives. But the records are just one of a number of convenient excuses to jump on Dean.

What I find far more interesting is that Karl Rove and company keep putting out word that they want a match-up between Dean and Bush. There are rumors going around that Rove is actually raising money for Dean to ensure he's the candidate. There are many different things that could mean, just from a strategy standpoint - some of them indicative of the possibility that Rove and Bush want just the opposite, any candidate but Dean. Jeb Bush on Saturday or Sunday said Dean wouldn't make it because all he's done is summon "mock anger" (his term).

I don't know, Jeb. I can think of a few things for people to be angr about. Let me just tick a few off:

- no one has taken accountability for the series of events that allowed all those different incidents on 9/11 to occur
- in fact, this administration has done almost everything in its power - and perhaps a few things outside of it - to be sure that a full independent investigation into the events of 9-11 has not occurred
- that there turned out to be truth to the old conspiracy tale that Bush allowed the U.S.-based bin Laden family to leave the country after 9-11 when none of the rest of us could travel
- huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans while some of the most disadvantaged are removed from health and housing programs, public assistance, and even decent public education
- an administration so corporate friendly that they've been wanting to push a special tax cut just for those companies sending jobs overseas - not to encourage them to keep jobs here, but to reward them for removing jobs from the US workforce
- a foreign policy that has left us hated in much of the world and thus, in more danger of extremists acting out upon us
- a shift in tax policy to make more and more of the burden borne by the lowest income earners
- draconian measures enacted by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security that makes it possible for them to monitor every aspect of our lives and potentially confine us without due process
- a recovery that is noticeably invisible to most Americans

Sadly, I haven't begun to start this list. More so than perhaps any other Administration at any time in our history, this one has instituted measures or forced their policies through to change the very fabric of the American ideal and way of life.

I don't see those who are angry wanting to "trump" Republicans or see Bush carted off to prison. We're not fighting against the GOP or Bush. We're fighting for what America has meant to us. We're fighting for the America we wanted our children raised within. We're fighting for justice. We're fighting not to have to watch everyone who doesn't earn $100K/yr or more wither and die. We're fighting to be respected in the world again. We're fighting for smarter kids rather than the emphasis on smarter bombs.