Howard Dean On the Presumption of Innocence

RCL, who is amazing at remembering and finding these compare and contrast quotes, uncorks another great one.

Howard Dean thinks Tom DeLay should go directly to jail:

...Dean declared: ''I think DeLay ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence down there courtesy of the Texas taxpayers.'' Dean would jail DeLay without trial, without indictment and without accusation of any crime...

But he was far more reticent to declare Osama bin Ladin guilty before being adjudged so by a competent tribunal:

...Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean will not pronounce Osama bin Laden guilty before a trial...

It's easy to make too much of this, so that's why I'm going to do so. Because it's easy.

But in all seriousness, there are many on the left who consider domestic political rivals to be the real, actual enemy, whereas our murderous sworn foreign enemies are a somewhat "fictitious" threat.

Dean is very careful not to offend foreign sensibilities in "pre-judging" the admitted mass-murderer Osama bin Ladin, but that sort of care is nowhere to be found in his pronouncements regarding domestic political opponents.

I don't think this says everything about the left. But I do think it says something. There are silly and trivial people and there are more serious-minded folk.

I may write a stupid moronblog, but I'm always able to keep clear in my mind who the actual enemies are and who the mere domestic annoyances are.

I wish more on the left were capable of making this not-so-fine distinction.

posted by Ace at 10:52 AM

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