Democratic circular firing squad commences

[Jason McCullough]

Ted Koppel of ABC News set the tone for the night with his first question. He asked the nine Democrats on stage to "raise your hand if you believe that Governor Dean can beat George W. Bush."

God, those fuckheads.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/10/politics/campaigns/10DEBA.html

[Bull]

One hand went up, and even Dr. Dean could not help laughing at his lonely place on the stage.

heh, how predictable

[Anders Hallin]

I think the whole "doubting" thing is a real negative for the Democrats among certain groups.

[Ben Sones]

I don't know what to say, other than state the obvious fact that the Democrats need to get their fucking act together. If they can't manage to oust Bush from the White House, I'm going to be pissed.

[Daniel Morris]

I'll let Howard Dean himself demonstrate why voters will reject him resoundingly.

When asked this week about the Bush administration's handling of the 9/11 investigative panel:

"There are many interesting theories about it. The most interesting theory I've heard so far -- which is nothing more than a theory that can't be proved -- is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis. Now who knows what the real situation is? By suppressing that kind of information, you lead to those kind of theories, whether they have any truth to them or not, and they get repeated as fact."

Later in the week, Dean is asked to clarify whether he believes Bush may have had prior warning of the 9/11 attack:

"I can't imagine the president doing that. But we don't know and it would be nice to know."

Note to my fellow Dems: This shit will not get it done.

[Jason McCullough]

Yeah, no idea what he was thinking.

[Jeremy Johnsen]

He continued by chastising his opponents for questioning Mr. Gore's motives, saying: "If you guys are upset that Al Gore is endorsing me, attack me, don't attack Al Gore. Al Gore worked too hard in 2000 to lose that election, when he really didn't lose the election. He got 500,000 votes more than George Bush. And I don't think he deserves to be attacked by anybody up here."


We're still bringing this up? Still! When are the candidates going to stop crying about what happened and tell us how they're going to fix it? I'm so sick of it. We need a candidate that can beat Bush without worrying about 500,000 votes going one way or the other, and none of these guys look like they can do it.

[extarbags]

Ted Koppel of ABC News set the tone for the night with his first question. He asked the nine Democrats on stage to "raise your hand if you believe that Governor Dean can beat George W. Bush."

God, those fuckheads.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/10/politics/campaigns/10DEBA.html

Sounds like that's Ted Koppel's fault. What would you expect? Why would, say, John Kerry just come out and say "Yeah... Dean can probably win. Don't bother voting for me."

I also have to say that I'm just a little bit tired of all this bitching and moaning about the Democrats not being unified. It's the primary for Christ's sake! What did you expect?!

[Jason McCullough]

The proper thing to do is say YES, even if they ask about Al Sharpton. Christ, can you see Republicans doing this?

[Bob Violence]

I can't believe it took seven replies for someone to point out what a fucking douche Ted Koppel is.

[Jason McCullough]

Didn't watch it, just read the summaries.

[JeffL]

Watched it, was depressed at how weak the main candidates were -again. Kucinich was the one who really started the attacks on Koppel - then the rest followed when they saw him get applause. Of course, Kucinich has nothing to lose, so he didn't have to worry about being careful.

Same old same old: We hate Bush, let's bash Bush, We need to take our country back, etc. What would you do differently about (issue?) "Well, I'll tell you that I certainly wouldn't (do what Bush did.)!" Applause.

I had real hopes that Clark would actually come on the scene and present a real vision, show himself a leader with some meat in what he would do and where he would take the country. That's fizzled. It's depressing.