Mickey Kaus, meticulous researcher...

...or tinfoil-hat conspiracy theorist?

Here's Slate's Mickey Kaus, as my pal Josh Olson would say, jerking off on the grassy knoll:

Hello! Opposition Researchers! Here's a paragraph from a David Broder column dated June 30, 2002:

He had been asked where he would find fault with President Bush, and he replied, "As far as domestic policy is concerned, I can't think of anything he's done that I agree with." He ticked off a list of Bush "outrages," ranging from an education bill he called the "largest unfunded mandate in history" to Bush's "appointment of ideologues to the courts." Heads were nodding in agreement. And then he added, almost as a throwaway line, "I think he's done a good job on the war on terrorism." [Emphasis added.]

The "he" in question was Gov. Howard Dean, who is now on the verge of winning the Democratic nomination by virtue of his angry opposition to the war in Iraq. But Dean wasn't showing much of that anger at the end of June, 2002.

Kaus goes on breathlessly (and mindlessly) to write another 700 words or so speculating that Dean only chose to become anti-war after it became apparent that there was an opening for an anti-war candidate to appeal to a growing constituency in the Democratic Party.

Instead of excitedly spinning this elaborate theory, Kaus might have done some actual research.

For example, maybe by going to Howard Dean's own site and seeing if Dean now claims not to have supported Bush at any point. Kaus might have, oh, I don't know, taken a few minutes to read the very first statement by Dean in the foreign-policy section of Dean for America:

After the horrific attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 awoke America to the danger of terrorism, making Americans more secure should have been our nation's top priority.

Instead, after some initially positive steps, the Bush administration abandoned the war on terror for other misplaced priorities. It chose a domestic agenda of tax cuts for a few wealthy Americans and a foreign policy focused solely on Iraq. Almost two years later, the president has turned the largest budget surplus in history into the largest budget deficit, and much of the work necessary to protect us from the threat posed by terrorists remains undone. As a result, all Americans, at home and abroad, are less secure today economically, politically and strategically. [Emphasis added.]

Sounds consistent to me with a statement in June 2002 that Bush was doing "a good job on the war on terrorism." Dean did not oppose then, and does not claim now to have opposed, military action in Afghanistan or other actions against Al Qaeda. His problem with Bush is that the President "abandoned the war on terror," not that Bush never fought the right fight to begin with.

Dean mentions these "initially positive steps" by George W. Bush in the second sentence of an op-ed piece published September 6, 2003.

Doesn't sound like he's hiding anything to me.

Kaus klowningly klozes with:

Maybe Dean, like Kerry, is an opportunist and positioner, only unlike Kerry he's a smart opportunist and positioner.

Just a thought!

You're too generous, Mr. Kaus. A thought or two might actually have been nice.

Meanwhile, in other Dean news, the endorsements roll in.