Editorial from The Guide	Editorials Archive

Among the gaggle of candidates for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, former Vermont governor Howard Dean is held in reverence by many lesbigay organizations and publications. Indeed, Dean's support for gay civil unions in his native Vermont has won him the overwhelming support of gay and lesbian voters, thus providing his first-ever national campaign with a vital financial and organizational base that has startled television and op-ed pundits.

Many gay groups and publications note Dean's support for civil unions and anti-discrimination laws protecting homosexuals and thereby credit Dean as being a principled civil libertarian. Dean is, we are told by one gay paper, a "profile in courage," an image his campaign actively cultivates. Dean is spun as a plain-speaking advocate for the little guy, the oppressed, the down-trodden.

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And indeed, at one time Howard Dean merited such accolades.

But as so often happens, once he set his sights on the White House, Dean cast aside those commitments to the Bill of Rights which pollsters suggested were political liabilities. Thus, the Howard Dean who once understood that executing prisoners was inherently wrong, morphed into a Howard Dean who trumpets his willingness to kill those sufficiently hated by the voters.

Up until the mid-90s, Dean had opposed executing prisoners (the death penalty). He understood that killing prisoners was wrong, that it undermined the legitimacy of the state: if the state can murder, Dean's argument then ran, how can it credibly tell its citizens that murder is wrong? Furthermore, Dean argued that executing prisoners did not serve as a deterrent, that it only gave vent to vengeance. And Dean understood that vengefulness coupled with an imperfect trial system meant that it was inevitable that sometimes innocent people would be executed if the death penalty were allowed.

But now, as a candidate for president, Dean says its okay to execute those convicted of terrorism, killing a police officer, or raping and murdering a child.

Of course, it is in such politically-charged cases that citizen Dean would warn us judicial travesties are most likely to occur. But candidate Dean has abandonded his earlier ethical and rational opposition to executions and is now willing to give the mob the blood for which they howl.

Dean maintains that his death penalty flip-flop was the result of "deep" and "troubled" soul searching utterly independent of political concerns. To many, though, the 180-degree turn appears a campaign calculation designed to blunt Dean's image as "too liberal." Perhaps Dean hopes to couple his new pro-execution stance with his top marks from the National Rifle Association (Dean opposes most gun control measures) in order to avoid being tagged a wimp.

Whatever the case, Dean's new-found support for the death penalty must disabuse anyone of the notion that Howard Dean is a principled advocate of civil liberties. Dean reveals himself to be yet another ambitious politician who thinks that his election is so important that it demands abandoning politically inconvenient principles-- indeed, that it warrants killing people if need be.

Gay and lesbian people must recognize that if Dean is willing to jettison the very lives of those who are sufficiently despised, his "commitment" to our civil liberties is contingent on his own political motives. Far from being a profile in courage, Howard Dean is an all-too-common example of craven ambition trumping fundamental ethics.