How many kinds of dumb is this post? Let's start with one really silly quote:

Tax cuts do not increase spending when a vast majority of U.S. employees are not, in fact, employed, thus, not having any incomes to tax, period.

Last I heard, the unemployment rate was running around 5 or 6%. How does that NOT mean that a vast majority of Americans are in fact employed?

Well, OK, let's have ONE more Mudd quote:

Dean is more conservative than Bush

What? Now you're just being silly.

Jebus H Criminy, the more I look at this post the nutsier it seems. Try this for your through the looking glass effect:

if Hillary Clinton entered the race in November of this year, but made a platform that was moderately conservative and raised the honesty issue, which she can, since her husband lied to her numerous times, as well.

What? Hillary running against Dubya on the issue of HONESTY???? Holy moly, I'd LOVE to see that.

Good liberals would likely demand a counterargument to establish the blindingly obvious, so start with the disappearing-reappearing Rose law firm records. She was obviously a co-conspirator in her husband's deceptions, even- nay, especially- the Lewinsky related stuff. Does anyone seriously think that she didn't know the score from the day Drudge broke the story?

Oh yeah, and she's going to even pretend to be any kind of conservative. She's somehow going to run right of Dubya?

I'm not sure exactly what John's smoking here, but I'd like to buy an ounce of it.

(1) Unemployment is still high, and it has reached record levels under the Bush Administration. When record numbers of Americans are unemployed, tax cuts for individuals do not help increase consumer spending, because the high level of unemployment decreases the number of taxpayers.

(2) Bush has overseen massive government growth nationally, which has contributed to our currently massive deficits. This is liberal when it comes to governing government spending. If you compare Bush's spending to Dean's, Dean does look conservative.

(3) You would be surprised about how powerful name recognition is in an election. Name recognition and money are usually the two most important factors. All Hillary would need to do is take on the right issues to recast her image, as Bill Clinton did in '92. If things continue the way they do, 1992 could happen all over again - Clinton vs. Bush, Clinton wins.

(4) Lying about the state of national security simply to gain public support and to increase opinion poll approval ratings is an abuse of power of the Oval Office. Cheating on your wife with an intern is adultery. If someone, say, in the insurance industry has sex with someone while they're married, their wife can divorce them, but if they lie to a client about an insurance policy, it is fraud or misrepresentation, or both. The American people are President Bush's clients. If he lied to us, he has committed fraud, misrepresentation or both. The insurance person would lose their license, be fined or put in prison. The President of the United States should also be punished if he did in fact lie to the American people about national security issues, especially if it was simply to gain public support.

(5) Running as a moderate conservative is running as a moderate conservative, not as a right wing nut. Bush's government spending record has re-created the massive deficits of the early '90s. The same deficits that the Republican Congress campaigned to eliminate and created a surplus from. Yes, to me, Bush is liberal on spending, and his tax cuts are not Reaganesque, either. They're chicken feed being given to various voting blocks to simply attain their vote in 2004. They're designed to attain political support, they're not designed to improve the economy, which is what is currently needed.

(6) Speculation is never dumb, but remember, it is just speculation. We'll see what happens as the election cycle progresses. I have my theories, you have yours, and we both have a right to them. There's no need to call people or their posts "DUMB" or anything else, for that matter.

I'll give you points #2 & 5, at least the part about Bush/Republicans being nutsy with the spending. And what is he doing even considering adding a huge new drug entitlement program when we're running $400+ billion deficits?

I find it exceedingly unlikely, however that Dean would be less of a spender, or that he could convince any significant part of the public that he would be tighter with the purse strings.

Note also that I specifically described THIS POST as "dumb," not the author- and explained why. I don't see how this is out of line at all. That's just normal debate, certainly not any kind of personal attack.

1) Just because there is a relatively high (though nowhere near record) unemployment rate, the affect that has on consumer spending vis-a-vis the tax cut will be small.

2) You're overlooking one big difference between the Clintons then and Clintons now - nobody really knew the Clintons in 1992. Hillary has picked up so much negative baggage in the last 12 years - name recognition can work against her as well.

Howard Dean has developed reputation among the ill-informed as an "anti-war liberal."

But he is neither anti-war nor a liberal.

He isn't a pacifist. He's not against war, and he's not for reducing defense spending. He was against Congress's giving Bush a blank check to wage a war that hadn't been properly justified.

Dean's position on the war, I predict, will also be the position of most of the electorate come November 2004. Most people were against the war until Bush essentially said, "Trust me, we need to do this, and it'll work out well for us." Obviously, people are now realizing they shouldn't have trusted him, and it is not working out well because Bush apparently didn't form an actual plan for the post-war period.

Once his record as Vermont's governor is examined it will be utterly impossible to call the man a liberal. Dean laughs at the idea himself. He balanced the budget--against the fierce opposition of liberal groups in Vermont. Some liberals in Vermont still utterly detest the man for his hard stands on budget issues. He's a tough-on-crime supporter of the death penalty. He is against federal gun laws--i.e., he's "state's rights" on the issue of guns. This is "liberal"?

None of these positions are a newly developed to "move to the center." Dean is already at the center. The only seemingly liberal position he has is opposition to the war--and many conservatives and moderates are as we speak coming around to the idea that Dean's position that this war was a bad idea was the correct position.

so you are a Dean supporter then?

Hmm...could be.

Brian, in fairness, I can't say I know enough to judge his fiscal policies, so perhaps I should withold judgment. However, THIS PROPOSAL for further socializing the medical industry sounds pretty liberal to me. On the other hand, he'd be hard pressed to out-liberal Dubya on social programs at this point.

I've heard things suggesting that he's at least not particularly big on yet more gun control, so he might get some points there.

However, your support alone strongly suggests to me that he can't be much of a conservative.

Most significantly, though, he does not have a credible position on national defense issues. Opposing the Iraq war and bitching about Dubya does not constitute a foreign policy or a plan to protect the country.

"Brian, in fairness, I can't say I know enough--"

Brian- Alright, buddy. Keep it up, and I'll turn Nim Chimsky loose on you.

Conservatives often foolishly label things that they have no solution for as "liberal." Take the health care issue, for example.

I am a rather conservative Republican on taxes (but I favor deep across the board tax cuts to chicken feed to special interest tax cuts) and on the budget, however, I do favor some form of nationalized health care.

As a diabetic, lifelong, and as someone who has testified before Congress on others' horrible experiences with this disease, and as a Realtor (none of us get insurance from our R.E. companies), I can tell you two things: (1) The exorbitantly high costs of health care makes it impossible for some to get the care they need, and (2) People need health care to live, to survive, period.

Bush, and Republicans in general, except for Newt Gingrich in his recent proposal, have ignored health care, in general, even though creating a nationalized health care system could be one of the most compasionate things a conservative could do.

President Bush ran as a "Compassionate Conservative," but governs as a wiley warmonger without solutions to the nation's other lingering, festering problems.

Our party, the Republican Party, if it refuses to embrace compassion, if it refuses to create common sense competing solutions to "liberal" proposals will wane into the pages of history as the party that is good for nothing, except coddling wealthy, unaccountable businesses and those who run them. If it ignores important issues and refuses to put forth common sense solutions to national problems, then wane into history it should.

Our nation is a land that is of the people, for the people and by the people, and if "conservatives" refuse to take care of the people's needs while favoring an old, outdated ideology, then the people should not support "conservative" Republican candidates.

Health care is a need, not a luxury item. It should be provided to those who need it and it is not. If health care companies do not bridge this gap, then the government simply must. To those of us who do not have health care and who cannot afford nearly $3,000 a month premiums because of pre-existing health conditions that we didn't ask for, that's simply common sense.

Common sense and compassion both make sense when implemented into domestic policy and neither are unreasonable policies as the term "liberal" may label or suggest them to be. Labeling something "liberal" is simply a cop out to creating a solution to a national problem and it is unacceptable. In fact, labeling is incompetent, especially when no alternative is provided. Conservatives have no alternative to the health care issue, because our leaders are obviously not compassionate, take their health care for granted and are incompetent.

Perhaps Americans should sue the health care companies for unfair practices. I would guess that if the health care issue isn't resolved in the near future, that class action lawyers will probably will pick this group to go after next. Considering that health care insurance companies discriminate against people for pre-existing health problems all the time, they're really asking for it, and considering that they price products and services that are obviously needed to live out of people's reach, they deserve it.

In fact, if someone sent me a class action petition right now, based on this issue, I would sign it, but I would also sign the petition of any candidate who seeks to solve the long-lingering health care problem that has plagued this nation since a Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, first proposed nationalized health care in the early 20th century.

Ronald Reagan said that government isn't the solution to our problems; government IS the problem, and it makes itself part of the problem when it fails to or refuses to provide solutions to long-existing national problems, such as health care, whether it be health care for senior citizens, young people or any other American.

You can quote me on that, too.

Here's a little snippet from an article from today's St. Petersburg Times:

"NEW YORK - Consumer confidence took an unexpected tumble in July, rattled by a jump in unemployment to a nine-year high. That could mean a longer road to economic recovery if consumers allow their shaken feelings to curtail their spending - a key driver of economic growth."

Nine-year high for unemployment. Wow. That's a lot of people who not only need jobs, but also need health care.

Here's another snippet:

"The Consumer Confidence Index fell to 76.6 in July, nearly a seven-point drop from 83.5 in June, the business industry group that performs the survey said Tuesday in New York. Analysts had expected a 1.5 percentage point increase."

Wow. Consumer confidence down again, which means less people are spending money, in part due to the high unemployment rate.

Does the term "conservative" mean sit on your hands and do nothing?

Bush/Cheney seem to think so. Perhaps they should give companies grants and targeted tax relief that encourages them to expend capital and hire new employees, which would not only allow the American people to earn money and in some cases be insured, it would also increae the nation's productivity rate, which would create a supply-side effect of increased tax revenues, over time, to the federal government.

New problems demand new solutions, especially when the old solutions have failed to work.

Oh, and yes, you can quote me on that.

Curses!

It's always good to know that McDonald's and Wal-Mart are hiring, but the simple fact that those job openings do make the new unemployment claims registered lower doesn't create jobs that constitute the fulfillment of the American Dream, and in most cases, those jobs do not allow working parents to take care of their families, but yes, they can affect the statistics released from the Department of Labor, which is likely what we are seeing in this article.

Double Curses!

Nearly half a million Americans stop looking for a job due to being discouraged by the lack of good jobs being available.

9.1 million Americans are currently unemployed according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Record high unemployment. Record high trade deficit. Record high national budget deficit and national debt, too.

Yep, those are definitely curses. The curses from the Bush Administration to the American people.

The point is that you can look at the facts discretely and spin it however you want. Sort of like saying record high. Record high for what? This year, decade, century...

Additionally, it's about as meaningful as banking on the current situation to sway the elections. A lot can happen between now and then, as the article you cited points out.

If anyone was looking at the facts they would all agree that neither Congress nor the White House actually create or get us out of recessions, they simply implement policies that encourage the American people to fix them through their spending, investing and saving activities.

Of course, that fact still would hold no wait in an election, where spin runs rampant, and on both sides - Democrat and Republican.

It's been fun playing devil's advocate with this piece and the comments. I am hopeful that it reminds President Bush and his chief strategist Mr. Rove not to take for granted what they have, which I believe lead to One Term, Sr.'s re-election loss.

Things can change over night, yes, but banking an election victory on positive change is simply foolish.

It's the economy all over again, stupid. Believe me now or believe me later, with the number of Americans unemployed now, positive change that allows Mr. Bush to take credit for a strong economy is highly unlikely, therefore, President Bush should steal a move from President Clinton and make the economy the center piece of the 2004 campaign, and he should start now.

If he doesn't, well, I don't foresee Jr. becoming Two-Term, Jr., unless another catastrophic event occurred that made personal safety the No. 1 issue on Americans' list of important issues.

If W. begins a massive push to jump start the American economy this fall, or early next year, and the economy rebounds, he can take full credit for it, but even that's risky, but better than nothing.

George W. Bush is not the only one capable of fighting a war on terror. In fact, I think the military and the intelligence community are doing a fine job of handling it, and probably so do most Americans, so it's not too far fetched to think that if war is what comes to mind when people think of President Bush, which most do, he would not be elected if other issues are more important to the American people (i.e., the economy).

Now, don't get me wrong, the order of the world must be maintained and order must be created where it's not, but war does not have to be the centerpiece of your entire Administration, and if it is, it isn't likely that your support will remain strong while numerous Americans are suffering from the slow economy.

The term "record" was taken from the news media, who you may note do not site specifics, but it doesn't stop voters from watching or reading, and most do get their information from the media.

I still think the economy and the deficit will be primary issues in the 2004 election, and for any candidate to not be ready for those issues is just plain stupid politics. Saying that they may not be main issues or relevant ones may deflect them in the short term, but in the long term, the smart candidate, incumbent or not, should be ready for anything, no matter what the issue may be.