Howard Dean
on Meet the Press

Howard Dean is one of the best things that ever happened to Republicans. Seriously.

Dear Dr. Dean gave a speech this past weekend to the College Democrats and here's what he had to say:

The president and his right-wing Supreme Court think it is 'okay' to have the government take your house if they feel like putting a hotel where your house is. . .

He's referring to the Kelo v. New London decision, so let's do take a look at how that decision came down.

JUSTICES IN THE MAJORITY:

John Paul Stevens -- liberal; David Souter -- no comment; Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- liberal; Stephen Breyer -- liberal; and Anthony Kennedy -- not liberal, though who knows these days. . .

JUSTICES WHO OPPOSED THE DECISION:

Chief Justice William Rehnquist -- conservative; Antonin Scalia -- conservative; Clarence Thomas -- conservative; Sandra Day O'Connor -- depends on the day. . .

Right. I see how one might characterize a decision by the liberal block of the Court as. . right-wing. And of course, none of these Justices were appointed by this President Bush.

Oh, and wait. Here is Dean's boffo conclusion:

I am sick of being divided!

* * *

Thanks to CNS News via Lucianne. . .

Go visit now ProChoice America's Extreme Makeover: Supreme Court. Funny. Thru Bush v Choice.

Is the public concerned about abortion and property rights? Perhaps spam is also the public's hot button issue. See Michael Parkh on IT at ON OVER-ZEALOUS BLOG COMMENT FILTERING SYSTEMS: "HALT! WHO GOES THERE?" Thanks to blogrollable Feld's Thoughts with The War on Spam Continues.

Captain's Quarters has more and points to an outstanding harangue at Patterico Pontifications.

Posted at 11:13 PM | Permalink
Comments (2)

Let's have more fun with numbers. I concluded the post below about Howard Dean's wholesale invention of abortion data on Sunday's Meet the Press (transcript) by asking:

Wondering what the political agenda is here? Why would Dean lie about abortion data (so outrageously)?

It's a question worth exploring a little further.

Glen Stassen

Dean's debacle appears rooted in an article that appeared in the Christian Century, this past February, "Supporting parents: A pro-lifer’s critique of Bush," by Glen Stassen, the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Seminary. (Variations of the same article are all over the web. See also here.)

Stassen makes Dean's argument that abortions are increasing because of President Bush's economic policies, which hurt women. . . and back them into having abortions:

During the 1990s, as unemployment steadily decreased and average real income rose, the annual number of abortions in the U.S. actually decreased by 300,000—from 1,610,000 to 1,310,000. But in 2002, the first full year of the Bush presidency, abortions increased in the 16 states for which I could find data by a total of 5,855. If the data from the rest of the nation fit that pattern, abortions increased nationwide in 2002 by about 24,000 a year, reversing the dramatic decreases of the 1990s.

Surely that increase reflects economic and social conditions.

Elsewhere on the web, at Malkin Watch, Stassen has argued that: "The thirty-year trend shows abortion rates moving in tandem with women's unemployment rates."

Does it? Let's see:

So where did Dean get the 25% abortion increase under Bush? Arizona in 2002. One year in one state, does not a nationwide trend make. Furthermore, Arizona's own Department of Health Services cautioned that their data reflected "a better response rate of providers." (More from the National Right to Life.)

In statistics we call this a sample size error (or "mining the data"). In politics we call it spin. (In raising children. . . we call it lying.)

See more at Shock and Blog

Posted at 01:35 PM | Permalink
Comments (2)

The good-guys over at the Unalienable Right had a hilarious response to Howard Dean's comedic appearance on Meet the Press. Here's the set-up:

Tim Russert

MR. RUSSERT: Let me stay on your rhetoric. [You said] that "I hate the Republicans, what they stand for, good and evil, we are the good." . . . you said, "Republicans are brain dead." You mentioned you're a physician -- "[Dean] did draw howls of laughter by mimicking a drug-snorting Rush Limbaugh. . . ."

But is it appropriate for a physician to mock somebody who has gone into therapy and the abuse for drug addiction?

Howard Dean

DR. DEAN: . . .The problem is it is galling to Democrats, . . .to be lectured to about moral values by folks who have their own problems. Hypocrisy is a value that I think has been embraced by the Republican Party. . .

MR. RUSSERT: But should you jump in the fray and be mocking those kind of people?

DR. DEAN: I will use whatever position I have in order to root out hypocrisy.

And here's the punchline response from Unalienable Right:

Hardly a day goes by that we don’t hear this silly “Republicans are hypocrites” meme.

This is the typical ‘thought’ on the left - Judging is wrong, hypocrisy is wrong, except it’s OK for us to judge people who are hypocrites, and that doesn’t make our judging hypocritical, because the people we’re judging are meanies, and judging is wrong, except when you’re judging meanness, and we’re good, so judging us is bad, but Republicans are bad, so judging them is good, so our judging is by definition good, and they’re judging is by definition bad. . .

Dead on.

And with all the criticism leveled at journalists (including mine) the last few weeks, it's worth pausing a moment to say: Tim Russert is a stand-up guy. Those are some great questions he leveled at Dean - more in the transcript.

Posted at 10:12 AM | Permalink

Here's what Howard Dean had to say on Meet the Press yesterday about abortion:


Howard Dean
on Meet the Press

DR. DEAN: . . .You know that abortions have gone up 25 percent since George Bush was president?

And here's the truth:

This data is from the Alan Guttmacher Institute (research organization founded by Planned Parenthood). In fact, this chart includes data from a press release just issued on Thursday, entitled "DECADES-LONG DECLINE IN NUMBER AND RATE OF U.S. ABORTIONS CONTINUES, NEW ANALYSIS SHOWS":

A new analysis from The Alan Guttmacher Institute shows that U.S. abortion rates continued to decline in 2001 and 2002, although the rate of decline has slowed since the early 1990s. The Institute estimates that 1,303,000 abortions took place in the United States in 2001-0.8% fewer than the 1,313,000 in 2000. In 2002, the number of abortions declined again, to 1,293,000, or another 0.8%. The rate of abortion also declined, from 21.3 procedures per 1,000 women aged 15-44 in 2000 to 21.1 in 2001 and 20.9 in 2002.

Wondering what the political agenda is here? Why would Dean lie about abortion data (so outrageously)?

The Guttmacher press release mentions "speculat[ion] that abortion has increased as a result of Bush administration policies," and then the President and CEO, Sharon Camp, says that: "It takes time for political decisions to be reflected in the statistical data, so it is too soon to tell what the impact of Bush administration policies will be on U.S. abortion rates."

So there you have it: It's President Bush's fault that the number of abortions has been increasing. Except that they haven't been. Yes, the truth. Such a pesky thing.

Take a look at the whole transcript. This is just a small slice of the comedy Dean served up yesterday. . .

For more abortion decline data, see here.
And here's a link to a series of articles Ramesh Ponnuru has written on abortion decline.

UPDATE May 27: Welcome Michelle Malkin readers. . . she has more great links and info here. See also my post above, "Those Pesky Facts," about the Democrat's underlying claim that abortion and unemployment are linked. Michelle links to a post by FactCheck.org which provides a response from Stassen.

LINK UPDATE:

More links: Michelle Malkin and Just One Minute here and here with excellent analysis on the Democratic talking points Dean was using.

Posted at 04:15 PM | Permalink
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