Dean wants McAuliffe out? Don't think it

How can you tell that the GOP is worried about Dean? The misinformation is flying fast and furious.

Last week, it was the American Spectator, claiming that Kerry's oppo-research team was digging around Dean's metaphorical trash cans looking for dirt.

Kerry's folks have begun intensive opposition research on Dean, sending staff to Vermont to pull together whatever dirt they can find out about not only Dean but also his wife, who continues to work as a physician in the state.

"It's early, but not too early to start taking him down a notch," says a Kerry staffer. "We've gone head to head with Dean in debates, we've tried to shout them down and shut them up, and they are still hanging around. We're going on the offensive."

Then Sunday, Drudge chimed in:

Presidential contender Howard Dean has confided to associates how he desires a fresh course for the Democratic National Committee, including a dramatic change in its leadership, specifically chairman Terry McAuliffe, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

Whenever reading things like this, consider the source. While all of the candidates are doing opposition research on the others, the Spectator piece is a hack job designed to sow dissent between supporters of both Dean and Kerry. The Drudge piece is designed to sow dissention between Dean and the DNC (we don't want those energized Dean supporters backing other Democratic candidates in 2004, do we?).

It's all bullshit. Not because the source is suspect. Not because Trippi denied the Drudge allegation. But because it doesn't pass the smell test.

In the first instance, why the heck would Kerry's people be talking to the Rightwing Nutso Reactionaries over at the American Spectator? Had the New Republic run the piece, or the Boston Herald, then perhaps there would be something there. But the Spectator? Those guys ran the Arkansas Project, for gods sake!

In the Drudge instance, do you think anyone in the Dean camp would waste his or her breath talking to that slimeball? Yeah, and Karl Rove calls me up to fill me in on Bush's game plan for 2004.

And in any case, why the heck would Dean be worried about the DNC or McAuliffe? And who in that camp would be so stupid as to think that a NH victory would give Dean the power to strip McAuliffe of his position? And regardless of any hostility toward McAuliffe, do you think the Deanies are stupid enough to create dissension and disorder within the party so close to a presidential election?

Jeez. As I said, consider the source when reading about Dean or any other Democrat. The jokers on the Right don't have our interests at heart -- they speak for the enemy. EVERYTHING they write is designed to further the GOP's ascendancy.

Don't ever forget that.

Update: Josh Marshall also tackles the issue.

Am I overly suspicious? Or is Matt Drudge taking his, shall we say, talking points directly from Karl Rove?

Posted July 07, 2003 12:03 AM