Howard Dean to Guest Blog for Lawrence Lessig

Ethanol writes "Starting Monday, Professor Lawrence Lessig (whom we all remember from Eldred v. Ashcroft) is going on vacation, and his weblog will be guest-hosted by Democratic presidential candidate Governor Howard Dean. Could this be a sign that a serious contender for President (tied for first for the nomination in the latest polls) has his head screwed on right about copyright law?"

Comments

Well he has my vote

[javiercero]

I have seen a few of his appearances, and I must admit I am quite impressed with this guy. Then again maybe is that after 2.5 yrs of Mr. Bush my expectations for POTUS have been dramatically lowered.

Re:Well he has my vote

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got to be kidding. Have you done some background work on Dean? I live in VT, and the guy is as slippery as an Arkansas governor. If you look at his history on the issues he supports he's actually proposed and pushed the EXACT OPPOSITE over the last five years. He is, in fact, a centrist dem and not a far left evangelist.

I may not think Bush is the best option, but the better of two evils Dean is not. Basically Dean has repackaged himself to appeal to the far left which, because of the centrist nature of modern politics, has been disenfranchised by the dem party.

You could say hes trying to pull a reverse bush; solidifying his base with the democratic hearland and then moving out to centrists on specific issues... he'll probably make the push sometime six months or so before the election.

HOWEVER, there's a fundamental problem with that plan; the left isn't nearly as cohesive or well organized as the right, and he's depending on a skittish bunch.

He'll lose, but he'll guarantee no other democrats win either.

-rt

Re:Well he has my vote

[uradu]

> guy is as slippery as an Arkansas governor

At least the main things involving slipping with Clinton were women's panties. With our Chimp In Chief they involve things like wool and eyes. It's amazing how "outraged" some people managed to get over Bill's sex life, yet here the reasons for the Iraq war are being systematically deconstructed, and no-one seems to give a damn. Welcome to the Twilight Zone.

Re:Well he has my vote

[canajin56]

But lying about a blowjob is SO MUCH WORSE! That is worth impeaching over, not silly "falsified" reports. Besides, that's not even a LIE, didn't you hear him? All these CIA reports sent to the White House about how all this Iraq stuff was false, they like, totally got lost in the mail or something. Until just now.

Re:Well he has my vote

[Anonymous Coward]

All we are saying is if liberating the Iraqis is the main justification for removing Hussein (and it appears to be the current party line of the administration), why couldnt Bush just come out and say so from the beginning?

I am not sure about you, but I don't like it when the reason we do something keeps changing depending on political winds. I didnt like it when Clinton changed stories, why should I like it when Bush does?

This is not about Bush vs. Hussein! What sane person said Hussein is a great leader? There are plenty of petty tyrants and mass murderers out there, but we see fit to ignore or even aid them, depending on national security.

We just dont like liars, or at the very least, people who change their stories. I would be 110% behind this if Bush said from the beginning "While there is no link between Hussein and 9/11 we need to do this, because people are dying and we have the moral obligation to protect people from mass executions". Did Bush say that? no, he said "Hussein poses an IMMINENT threat to the US" he was the one who brought the sense of urgency of attacking, saying the UN inspectors were either too slow or not doing their jobs. Is it any wonder some people criticize the administration for not finding the WMD when they disparaged the UN inspectors so much for not doing so themselves? I find it funny that NOW the administration is saying "finding evidence for WMD programs WILL TAKE TIME". Isnt that what Hans Blix was saying all the time? But we had to push him aside and attack anyway?

How can you say for sure the world is a safer place for Americans? There was no link between Hussein and: 1) Al Qaida 2) Nuclear materials
3) (for now) WMD. So how is the US safer?

Pardon my cynicism, but I find it hard to believe that republicans (or rabid pro-Bush supporters), who think nothing of dismantling social welfare programs (I'm not saying this is good or bad) are all of a sudden so concerned about the welfare of another country's people. Heck most conservatives would support legislation to BLOCK these same Iraqis from immigrating to the US, so I find it laughable that they show so much concern for their well-being.

Re:Well he has my vote

[_xeno_]

The fact is, the United States had moral, legal, and political justification for removing Saddam Hussein.

Yeah. Wouldn't it have been so cool if the administration had actually - oh, I don't know - used them to justify going to war? But no. We didn't go in because Iraq had violated the UN resolution. We didn't go in to "liberate" the Iraqi people. We went in because Saddam had a dangerous stockpile of weapons of mass destruction and had recently purchased nuclear material to build a nuclear capability.

Whoops. No weapons of mass destruction. Oh, and it turns out he didn't purchase nuclear material. Our bad.

But, you claim, we helped the Iraqi people! Yeah, but when are we going to help people in Cuba, North Korea, China, Africa, Palistine...

There's plenty of evil in this world, and we can't be the policemen to the world. Did we help improve the situation in Iraq? Probably. (There's still plenty of time for us to mess things up. I hope we've learned past lessons and will remain there long enough to allow Iraq to become a stable representative government.)

Unfortunately, in reality, the ends do not justify the means. Likewise, a poor means does not injustify a good outcome. It is possible to believe that Iraq is better off without Saddam while also believing that the actions taken to remove him were poorly chosen. One does not contradict the other.

Re:Well he has my vote

[cje]

So I guess we should cover up all of those mass graves, put all those children back in prison, get Chemical Ali back into the lab, get those torture racks greased, throw all of those 'Big Brother Saddam' pictures back up in Baghdad, and leave a fruit basket with a letter of apology. You're right...we are indeed in the Twilight Zone.

You would have a point if the Iraq war had been justified in terms of "We need to remove Saddam because he's mean to his people." It wasn't. The entire war was predicated on the supposed threat that Iraq posed to the United States, and its status as a "terrorist state" with massive stockpiles of "ultimate weapons" (President Bush's words.) Tony Blair even told the British parliament that Iraq had the capability to launch an attack on the UK in as little as 45 minutes. It's been months now since the fall of Baghdad, and the only thing we have to show for this war is a piece of a nuclear centrifuge that some guy buried in his backyard before the first Gulf War. That may justify the war in your eyes, but the families of the hundreds of American servicemen (and women) killed in this conflict might have some different thoughts.

I'm glad that Hussein is gone. Dead or alive, let's hope he rots in peace. But all of this "Well, Iraq wasn't much of a threat to us, but look at the mass graves! Look at the torture devices!" is Monday morning quarterbacking. It's great that the Pentagon has media-savvy people that are able to invent scary-sounding nicknames (i.e., "Mrs. Anthrax") for the people that it kills or captures, but at the end of the day I would have had a lot more respect for the administration if they had just been honest about things. Hussein was a brutal dictator, but the world is full of brutal dictators, and the last time I checked, the United States wasn't drawing up plans to invade Burma or Zimbabwe.

You sound partisan, bitter, and illogical.

Whereas you are obviously objective, clear-headed, and perfectly logical. :-)

Everybody is sensible, so long as they say things that you agree with.

You have built your platform on the hopes that the United States will fail in its endeavours. That is disgusting.

I can't speak for the original poster, but do you want to know what's really disgusting? I have six friends who are in harm's way in Iraq right now. What's disgusting is people like you who implicitly suggest that I want to see harm come to them to prove a political point. I have no desire to see the United States will "fail" in any of its endeavours. That doesn't change the fact that there are endeavours that I would have preferred us to avoid in the first place. See, if it were up to me, these guys would be sitting in my living room and drinking beer with me instead of being stationed in a country populated by people that hate them even more than they hated the dictator that they just got rid of.

The world is a safer place for both Americans and Iraqis today than it was a few months ago, and it cost fewer lives than anyone estimated.

You've got to be kidding me. At my workplace, some co-workers and I were scheduled to attend a May conference in South America, and the trip was cancelled out of war-related concerns for our safety. It has never been more dangerous to be an American traveling abroad, and the Iraq war only made this worse. The primary contributing factor in the 9/11 attacks was fundamentalist Muslim hatred of the United States, and if you have evidence that the Iraq war helped to mitigate this, then I confess that I would be curious to see it. I want to be clear about this: I do not subscribe to the theory that the United States deserved the 9/11 attacks because of our foreign policy; it was a heinous and cowardly attack that no nation on this planet deserves. But our foreign policy in the past year or so has done much to fan the flames of the same hatred. And for who? For what? Saddam Hussein? This is a third-rate dictat

Re:Well he has my vote

[Xabraxas]

you know, as i watched thoes people who danced in the streets, threw out candy and celebrated the deaths of innocent people after the september 11th attack, i sat and thought "oh man I hope each and every one of thoes scum bags die a slow painful death."

mr. bush, to a decent enough extent, has rose to the occasion.

for that i thank him, and regret nothing

I hope you know that Iraq had absolutley nothing to do with 9/11. So either you're just some dolt who wants to see someone else suffer because it makes you feel better or you're a racist. I hope you know that 7000 innocent Iraqi's died in the war. Now there is probably some equivalent Iraqi dolt over there just like you, hoping for more destruction and will in turn kill Americans. Now bacause of people like you, the violence will never end.

Until...

[pixelgeek]

Could this be a sign that a serious contender for President...has his head screwed on right about copyright law?

Until some lobbyist backs up to his house with a truck full of campaign contributions

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here

[Farley Mullet]

I actually kinda like Dean, but saying that someone is a serious contender for the 2004 election because he's tied for the nomination at this point is kinda like saying your kid has a serious NBA future ahead of him because he's tied for tallest in grade 3.

Re:Doesn't that suck?

[Jeremi]

... or you change the system so voters aren't forced to choose between "throwing their vote away" and "choosing the lesser of two evils".

Basically you want a system that allows the voter to express more than just a single choice. There are several systems that would suffice; I myself like instant runoff voting because the process is easy to understand, and it lets me express my preferences in an intuitive "first choice / second choice / third choice" format.

/. slow to comment on Howard Dean's web success..

[cowmix]

Shame on /.

Howard Dean has used the Internet, specifically blogs, better than any presidential candidate. Every day, you can read their official blog or countless other personal blogs that give up to the minute info on what doing on the campaign trail. I have never felt more involved, or informed in a presidential campaign until Dean's.

All this use of blogs and such as created a tremendous amount grassroots support. Unlike other candidates that have raked in 1000s of dollars from big interests, Dean's campaign raised more than any other Democratic candidate last quarter mostly via the web with the average donation being $66 dollars..

Anyway, I feel that no matter what Dean's positions are (btw.. I think they are great) /. should give a thumbs up to how he is doing biz..

Re:Kucinich is an unelectable nutcase

[Soong]

No, he isn't. He's just progressive and speaks his mind and heart. He's offering a real difference to the boring business-as-usual old-boy networks in both parties. I for one favor someone who's going to go as strong and as long in the right direction as possible, given that Congress and The System will drag him down to making a merely moderate effect. Starting out with a moderate is saying "No, I don't really want things to change".

http://www.kucinich.us/

PRIORITIES!

[Baric]

I believe that every Democratic candidate except Dean voted in favor of the Patriot Act. Dean didn't get a vote, but he was outspoken against it from the very beginning. Every other candidate was willing to vote for that egregious act because it was politically expedient at the time. That is not the kind of decision-making I want from the next President of the United States. Love him or hate him, Dean is the Democratic candidate best qualified to LEAD this country and not FOLLOW the whims of popularity. I will NEVER cast a vote for anyone who voted for that Act. Ever.

Re:There's a thing

[Daetrin]

Why not vote for someone who's views on issues are close to those of your own and not who has a better chance of winning the election?

Because if you actually care about the issues as you claim, you should really do your best to support those issues. The 3% or whatever of the vote the Green party got in 2000 has done far more to hurt the enviroment than it has to help it.

If you care about the enviroment, and Nader is 100% good for the enviroment, Gore is 50% good for the enviroment, and Bush is 0% good for the enviroment, you should only vote for Nader if you think he has a greater than 50% chance of winning in order to maximize the benefit to the issue you care about. Well, to be technical, you should only vote for Nader if the probability of his winning is twice the probability of Gore winning or more.

I hate Bush for many reasons, and the things he's done and is trying to do for the enviroment is one of them. However there is a small evil and vindictive side to me that can't help thinking "take _that_ Green party!" every time he pulls some new enviroment destroying stunt.

If the Green party wants to transform the state of presidential elections in the US to a greater than two party system, they need to accept that unless a splinter party splits off the Republican side that is equal in size to their own, there is a fair chance that they will be condeming the US to the enviromental policies of the Republicans for however many election cycles it takes until the mainstream realizes that their party is viable. It's apparent that that number is greater than one, and for all we know it may not be less than infinity. Is it worth getting a Green president if there is no enviroment left to protect by the time it happens?

If Nader were smart, he would have tryed to hack a Parlimentary System approach to the problem by making a deal with Gore a few weeks before the election, that if Gore would agree to support certain Green positions (in writing of course) then Nader would tell all his party members to vote for Gore in the election, but to tell the exit pollers that they voted for Nader.

Thus they would have insured that the elected president had at least some intrest in the enviroment, a well publisized promise that he would support some of their issues, and still be able to point to the exit polls as a sign of their strength as a voting block.

not so well actually

[Trepidity]

Many European countries have unsustainable systems (even more unsustainable than the US's Social Security system). They've realized this, and so are cutting back and reforming them, particularly the pension systems. This has led, if you've been following the news, to widespread general strikes in several countries, notably Greece and France.

Re:Dean is a good choice

[Funksaw]

To paraphrase Dean: "Talk about gun control in Vermont and you talk about taking people's hunting rifles away - talk about gun control in LA and you're talking about taking uzis out of the hands of gangbangers. Gun control needs to be decided at the local level."

Check the history.

[Population]

The people pushing this war were the same people selling Saddam those weapons.

We didn't care about him killing his people when we were the ones selling him weapons. But now you think that it matters?

And where do you get off claiming that Bush is demonized more than Saddam? No one is saying Saddam is better than Bush (well, no one outside of Iraq).

The problem is that the CIA had already CHECKED the "information" MONTHS before Bush used it. The CIA even told the British that the info wasn't good. But Bush needed something scary to push this war so he used information that was known to be bogus.

As for this being another "Vietname" or "quagmire", check the body count since Bush claimed the war was "over".

No, we did not have any "moral, legal and political justification for removing Saddam Hussein".

We couldn't even get the UN to vote to support our invasion.

As for those Iraqis being "free" now, wait until the first "elections" are held. Wait until they elect a radical Islamic priest.

You'll never forget the image of those Iraqis and Saddam's statue. That's because our government doesn't want you to forget it. It was shot with a narrow lens so you couldn't see the US tanks and troops surrounding that "crowd" of Iraqis. It was all a publicity stunt.

And you fell for it.

http://www.counterpunch.org/statue.html

And you're the one talking about closed eyes?

Why? Why the Hell Not?

[Joe Trippi]

As Governor Dean's campaign manager I thought I could answer a few questions and make a comment or two as well. We have absolutely forbidden any staff from posting or writing anything for Howard Dean and then post it under his name. In other words everything the Governor blogs and everything he blogs for Lessig will be written and posted by the Governor himself. One of the reasons we thought Lessig would be a good place to guest blog is that it helps to build this trust that it is really the Governor doing the guest blogging -- and that the community will trust that Lessig would not have allowed it if it wasn't so. Any thoughts as to how to answer the issue of trusted identity would be appreciated. It is something we have been really trying to figure out -- as I have pointed out -- how do you know this is really me? And we are not trying to kid anybody -- particularly anyone here -- we know we ain't perfect -- and that we don't get it all -- but we are trying to get it -- trying to reach out to everyone using every tool we can -- because as someone who you will probably regard as a political hack -- who has worked on 6 Presidential campaigns -- I can tell you what you already know -- ITS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY -- The only way to put power back in people's hands is for the people to buy their government back. A million to two million Americans contributing $100 each or whatever they can -- will be a force that will not only win the Presidency -- but will also strike enough fear into everyone else in Washington -- that we can change our country's politics. The biggest challenge is to cut through people's cynicism -- nothing will change if we can not get beyond that and get people to participate in their self-government again -- and believe that together we have the power to protect our rights, and our civil liberties, and reclaim our government. That is what this campaign has been trying to prove -- that is why we are doing what we are doing eveyday to build a community that will carry that cause. That is why Howard Dean will guest blog for Lawrence Lessig -- to reach out -- in an authentic voice -- and see what happens. Why? Why the hell not? Joe Trippi campaign manager Dean for America please excuse the double post.