WASHINGTON -- Dr. Howard Dean poses for me an unanticipated
moral dilemma. Throughout the 1990s I debated him on a little-known
public affairs show taped in Montreal -- beautiful Montreal, I
should add. It is a grand city with much of the elegance of France
and the added asset of having almost no native-born French.
But to return to Dr. Howard Dean and my moral dilemma. Owing to
his combative politics and my impatience with political hokum, we
found ourselves going tête-à-tête often to the
exclusion of anyone else on the show, which by the way is called
"The Editors." I was reminded of the dramatic nature of our
confrontations on the show a couple of months back when a member of
Dr. Howard Dean's campaign team stopped me in public to introduce
himself. He had just spent a week reviewing those tapes of our epic
confrontations on "The Editors," and naturally he had become very
familiar with my face. Though we never met he said "Excuse me. You
are R. Emmett Tyrrell, are you not?" And he proceeded to ask me
some questions about our debates.
Now of course the political press is viewing those tapes. Just
the other day the Washington Post quoted some of Dr.
Dean's characteristically ill-conceived quips from "The Editors."
Journalists are beginning to call me to ask what Dr. Howard Dean
was like in those faraway days of his political virginity. "He
seemed fiery, but was he genial?" "He seemed very much a
conventional mainstream Democrat, but was he really ideologically
driven?" One caller asked if the Dr. Howard Dean whom I encountered
in the 1990s was a "George McGovern type or a McCarthy type?" I
assumed he was referring to Gene not Joe McCarthy.
Well, how am I to answer the increasing number of inquiries I
receive from my brethren in the press corps? I try to observe the
discretion of a gentleman. I try to keep confidences. When Dr.
Howard Dean confronted me it was a turbulent time. His Democratic
colleagues, the Clintons, had created problems of a moral nature
that compromised other Democrats. Is it ethical to judge him today
for sentiments he impetuously expressed in those days?
Frankly I feel a protective sense regarding his youthful
appearance back then. In terms of his political life he was a mere
pup. He was frisky with the urge to yip and gambol in the sunshine.
And he was a loyalist. One could tell he wanted to leap to the
defense of his party's standard-bearer despite the squalor that
that standard-bearer backed into.
So I am conflicted. Today Dr. Howard Dean aspires to the Oval
Office. If he has his way he will be the first Franklin Delano
Roosevelt of the Twenty-First Century. He will face our era's
Herbert Hoover: a Texas Hoover who has mired the country in
economic gloom, who has failed to confront tyrants from afar. Just
as a priest must not betray what he hears in a confessional, I have
a feeling that I should not betray the raw and primitive Dr. Howard
Dean that was presented to me in Montreal.
Politics is a rough business. It is a realm bereft of probity or
principle. I have come to the position that there is almost no
politician who is anything but an intriguer and a cad. Witness the
late Al Gore's disregard for the niceties in dealing with his old
running mate, Senator Lieberman. Think of how shamelessly President
Saddam Hussein abandoned his pose as a Saladin and became a
pacifist whence our troops removed the rug from his rat hole. Shall
I betray my views of Dr. Howard Dean lo those many years ago and be
but another conniver in the political maelstrom of ego?
Possibly I shall. The fact is all these calls from the press are
very enticing. Not much first-hand information has been delivered
up on the ambitious doctor. Not many members of the press had a
chance to meet the great man in battle. I could become his Boswell.
I could become a Bernstein wrapped in a Woodward and with a yellow
bow tied round. What course will I follow? Will it be the
discretion of a gentleman or the excess of a blabber mouth? I have
to decide before the next press inquiry comes in. I am
thinking.
topics:
Business, NATO
