This commentary induced by the recent PBS series on the Civil War, is the first really disappointing piece I have read on Powerline.

It is bellicose in tone and ignorant in content. I won't bother to refute Deacon's comments point by point but I will use a couple for illustration. He mentions a certain "Marshall Twitchell, a union officer who installed himself in upper Louisiana after the Civil War, became a wealthy planter, saw most of his family killed by a white gang, and lost both arms in an assassination attempt before escaping to the North. PBS found the great-great grandson of the leader of the gang that drove Twitchell out. This guy couldn't suppress his pride in his ancestor or his glee in Twitchell's fate. I couldn't help wondering whether there was any way to prosecute this yahoo for his great-great grandaddie's crimes."

Whoa! This type of namecalling and anger toward "this yahoo" is more in line with how liberals view the world than the conservatives on Powerline. What Deacon casually ignores is: How did a union officer "install himself"? Was it legal? Or was Twitchell just another crook using the cover of war to enrich himself? That he "installed himself" AND became a "wealthy planter" suggests that Mr. Twitchell was no saint. Perhaps he richly deserved what the yahoo's ancestor dished out.

Deacon's treatment of Andrew Johnson is also execrable, referring to him as "the racist egomaniac Andrew Johnson". While Johnson will never rate high on anyone's list of great presidents, he in fact carried out much of Lincoln's plan for the South. To make anything out of the fact that he was "racist" is absurd. Virtually every white person on Earth was racist in that time. Abe Lincoln himself was racist. When judging the people of the 1860's, one can not superimpose modern day feelings about race. In the time he lived, Johnson was a moderate who sided with the Union in spite of being a border state Democrat.

Finally, Deacon exhibits a pollyanna mentality when viewing the "white Northerners" of the Civil War period. Read any good book on the presidency of Lincoln, and you will find that "white Northerners" darn near drove him over the edge. Nothing Lincoln did made more than about 30% of the "white Northerners" happy at any one time. You had the abolitionists who demanded that Lincoln free the slaves NOW!, regardless of how many border states that action might deliver to the Confederacy. You had the other extreme, who demanded he NOT free the slaves because they believed the North would be flooded with Negroes (although that is not the "n" word they typically used). And there was a middle ground that disliked slavery, and wanted it contained to the South, but were unwilling to accept blacks as anything approaching equal.

The Civil War was brought about by stupidity and greed. On both sides. The vision of Lincoln was to preserve the Union, heal the wounds and get back to "normal" as soon as possible. Lincoln understood that it was slavery and the South's leaders who were rotten, not the common people. Cut off the corrupt head and the average people could be brought back into the fold.

What liberals (and seemingly Deacon) want, is to forever re-fight the war. Continue to punish the South and rub its defeated nose in the dirt. Pretend that the North was all sweetness and light, and the South was all venal and greedy.

Perhaps the most puzzling thing is why Deacon would swallow PBS's version of any serious subject matter in the first place.

Clark is cooked.

If this report just put out by Drudge is correct, it is difficult to imagine Wesley Clark surviving this revelation.

Clark is really worse than Dean. More unprincipled and more of a liar. I would imagine that it is unprecedented for a "serious" contender for a major party nomination, to be so clearly undeserving of it.

I am not a Democrat, but I hope that if I was, I would be grossly offended by this man's deceit and bald opportunism.

This combined with what is starting to come out about Howard Dean's past opinions on use of force, should make Gephardt and Kerry look like principled statesmen by comparison to the Wes & Howie vaudeville act.

The Race Tightens

I am shocked at the latest set of polls coming out of Iowa. Not so much that Howard Dean is falling back, but that John Kerry is apparently surging. The new numbers from a Zogby Poll reported by WHO-TV in Des Moines, show Kerry is now in the lead at 22 percent. Dean and Dick Gephardt are tied at second place with 21 percent. John Edwards is fourth with 17 percent. The margin of error is +/- 4.5%

My assumption all along was that Dean would move back and Gephardt would take the lead. I thought Kerry was dead, done for, toast. If Kerry can win in Iowa, he suddenly turns this contest into a very interesting race.

How Does Dean Aim To Win? Conclusion

My impression of Howard Dean (have you noticed that the N.Y. Times almost ALWAYS refers to him as Dr. Dean?) leads me to suspect that while he is clearly a savvy politician, he falls into an all too familiar trap: He believes his own PR.

I think Dean really believes that he has caught lightening in bottle. That he has found something no one else knows about, and that he is therefore unstoppable. Dean has the ability to come across as "honest", but as with many "honest" people, you quickly realize that honesty in this case is just Howard saying whatever pops into his skull.

Suggesting President Bush knew about 9-11 ahead of time was not honest, it was stupid.

Prattling on about his fight with a church over a bike path was not honest, it was stupid.

Saying the U.S. was not safer because Saddam Hussein was captured was not honest, it was stupid.

Going to some pains to defend Osama Bin Laden's right to a fair trail was STUPID.

Saying it did not matter who tried Bin Laden, was STUPID.

Howard Dean is a walking talking trash can who can't help himself. What should terrify all intelligent Democrats is the prospect of a Dean/Clark pairing. That would rival Mondale/Ferraro and McGovern/Shriver as the worst major party ticket of the last 100 years or so.

Now back to the issue of how Dean might run after sewing up the nomination. My educated guess is that:

1. He will track back toward the center on one or two major issues. Gay marriage is a likely target, along with maybe a pronouncement on race echoing Bill Clinton's Sister Soulja episode during 1992.
2. He will move his few moderate positions such as guns, front and center, and harp on them incessantly.
3. He will continue to hammer President Bush on the Iraq war, the deficit and tax policy.
4. He will maintain a number of very liberal policy positions to keep his base fired up AND because he actually thinks that helps him.

Now the match-up. I think Bush vs Dean is an outstanding match-up for Bush. Beside Dean, Bush will appear very serious and presidential. I think Dean's manner will wear on the American Public after a while. Actually I think his star is starting to dim already, ten months before the election. Chihuahuas can be fun but their constant yapping gets on your nerves after a while.

As has been pointed out by many, if Bush wins the same states as in 2000, he will increase his margin due to reapportionment. At this point in the game, my assumption is that Bush *will* win every state he carried in 2000. By the same token I simply don't see Dean holding every Gore state. Thus I see comfortable victory for Bush if no cataclysmic event intervenes.

Bush will win on LIKEABLE, QUALIFIED, and IDEAS. A clean sweep. Dean has not a prayer except prayer, and I seriously doubt that anyone will be listening to him.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Pompous Ass Fired

The book by Paul O'Neill, the former Treasury Secretary, is a prime example of how cheap and dirty the political culture has became. Lacking the decency to wait till Bush was out of office to indulge in his temper tantrum, O'Neill is now causing the President a slight amount of discomfort, while making a remarkable fool of himself.

I doubt the damage to GWB will be that extensive or long lasting, but O'Neill has pretty thoroughly destroyed any paltry reputation he had left after his disastrous turn as Treasury Secretary.

I find his pontificating on Iraq and WMD particularly galling, given the fact that he was the Treasury Secretary. I was never aware that war and peace was part of the Treasury Secretary's portfolio. I realize he was a member of the National Security Council, but it still strikes me as a bit like the boy with the Gatorade squirt bottle, dramatically announcing that he had no advance warning that Joe Gibbs was coming back.

Mr. O'Neill is a fly-speck on the roll of former government officials, and it is sad that he had to prove it in such a tacky, trashy way.