Is Howard Dean a Liar?

Brent Bozells latest article makes this claim. "It's also not promising that Dean can make "factual" statements about Team Bush that cannot be located in the realm of reality. In one answer to Newsweek, Dean claimed that Bush's "environmental record is widely understood to be probably the worst in most people's lives." Would anyone try to argue against the facts and say that, for instance, air quality is worse than 1970? Newsweek had no space for corrections. Bush also apparently "massed trillions of dollars' worth of debt" -- not yet he hasn't -- as if Bush is the only politician in Washington in favor of loading up the federal budget. Newsweek doesn't put an asterisk by that whopper, either."

So let's look at these two lies Mr. Dean is proported to have told. Apparently he claimed that President Bush has the worst environmental record in most people's lives. But that can't be true because air quality was worse in 1970. Is it too much to ask for Mr. Bozell to have even the most basic grasp of environmental science? Yes, because that would conflict with his conservative worldview. At any rate, environmental damage is usually an incremental damage. The bad air of the 1970s was caused by the 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s.

President Bush has proven that he will put the interests of corporate polluters over the interests of the American people. One obvious example was his decision to weaken the Superfund program. Under Superfund, corporations are taxed in order to clean up the toxic landfill they make. Some of the cost came out of the general revenue (and thus from the American tax payer; in 1995 this amounted to 18% of the revenues for site clean-ups. Under President Bush's leadership, the American taxpayer will pay 54%. For more information, see this article by the Sierra Club. But making you pay for corporate polluters is only one piece of President Bush's environmental record. I think Mr. Dean was on pretty solid ground when he made that statement.

The second lie Mr. Dean is proported to have made is that President Bush has plunged us trillions of dollars in debt. Bozells weak response is that it hasn't happened yet, and that President Bush would really really like to cut spending so it doesn't happen. Well why doesn't he Mr. Bozell? Why hasn't President Bush made shutting down government programs to save money a priority?

At any rate, every sensible analyst, liberal or conservative, acknowledges that President Bush's economic policy will plunge us into debt. Granted there could be factors that come into play that keep us from debt. Say, Superman showing up and doing that thing where you turn Coal into Diamonds? Or Santa Clause actually making his Christmas run for once instead of leaving it all up to the parents, and putting several trillion dollars in President Bush's stocking. Anything is possible.

If this is the quality of attacks that are going to be leveled at Dean, perhaps he has a better chance than previously assumed.