This week, we’re beginning to see an inkling of the kind of attacks the far right will make against Howard Dean if he’s the Dems’ presidential nominee. As regular readers know, I’m not much of a Dean fan, but these kinds of attacks are maddening.
The ultra-conservative Washington Times reported yesterday, for example, that Dean has said that he never performed abortions while working as a physician.
“I did not perform abortions,” Dean told a Boston television station in July. “I’m a medical doctor. Nor did my wife.”
The flat denial apparently isn’t quite good enough for conservatives. The right seems to think there’s more to this, so they’re pursuing it.
The Times reported on this story under the headline, “Dean’s abortion ties,” implying that there are ominous ties to be made. The paper also reported, “Dean’s extensive ties to the Northern New England chapter of Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc., including an internship and work as a contract obstetrician/gynecologist at one of the group’s Vermont clinics in the late 1970s and early 1980s, are producing more questions about the nature of that involvement at a time when Planned Parenthood was cementing its role as America’s largest abortion provider.”
Note the phrase “producing more questions.” It’s entirely self-perpetuating. Right-wing papers like the Washington Times are talking about Dean’s ties to Planned Parenthood, so therefore, Dean’s record is “producing more questions.” Pure insanity.
Another far-right news service, CNS News, has done everything possible to push this story among conservatives, running lengthy pieces that suggest there’s more to Dean’s work at Planned Parenthood than meets the eye.
If you want to criticize Dean, fine, there are plenty of legitimate areas of Dean’s record to disapprove of. And if you’re an opponent of abortion right and want to criticize Dean for being ardently pro-choice, that makes sense, too.
But these kinds of attacks smack of McCarthyism. Dean is a doctor…he volunteered to work at a Planned Parenthood office…Planned Parenthood provides a variety of services, including abortions…therefore Dean must have performed abortions.
Indeed, CNS News quotes Ruth Dwyer, a Republican gubernatorial candidate who lost to Dean in Vermont in 1998 and 2000, saying that she believes Dean is lying.
“I have a hard time believing [he did not ever perform an abortion], just knowing Howard,” Dwyer said, offering no proof other than her own hunch.
“To have him refuse [performing an abortion] would not make any sense to it at all,” Dwyer added nonsensically. As for Dean’s past involvement with Planned Parenthood, Dwyer said, “I can’t imagine him not being offered the opportunity [to perform an abortion].”
This is absolutely crazy. The truth is the Planned Parenthood clinic at which Dean worked in Vermont did not even offer abortion services.
CNS News cryptically noted that there was another Planned Parenthood office in Vermont that did perform abortions, but no one’s sure “whether Dean’s work as an intern or contract physician with Planned Parenthood would have taken him to the clinic in Rutland where abortions were performed.”
No proof, no witnesses, no documents. Just a right-wing hunch struggling to become a campaign issue.
Keep an eye on this as a case study on how far-right attacks get started. They begin with a premise that they want to believe is true. They look for evidence to support it. When they can’t find any, they find people who offer rumors and innuendo to bolster their suspicion. Then the mainstream media picks up on the story, wondering what all the fuss is about.
If this non-story follows a predictable trajectory, Dean will continue to face questions about whether or not he personally performed abortions. His denials will be met with more suspicion. Fox News will start reporting that Dean “claims” never to have performed an abortion, but point out that “critics have their doubts.” Other news outlets will begin reporting that “questions are circulating” about Dean’s medical record regarding abortions. Soon, the mainstream media will simply start referring to this as the “Dean-performing-abortions issue.” Someone, somewhere, will produce a poll that shows 19% of Americans believe that Dean “isn’t telling the whole story” about this.
If you think I’m exaggerating, and that this doesn’t actually happen, one need look no further than how Al Gore was filleted by the media for lying about having uncovered Love Canal and inventing the Internet — even though he never actually made these claims in the first place.