Since Clinton signed several pieces of the Contract with America into law, I think this is simply dirty pool on behalf of several folks going up against Dean. I'm not going to be confused as a Dean campaign contributor, but it *is* okay to agree with remnants of the other side from time to time.

I agree the pool is dirty, but that's because Gephardt is in it.

Reading over the column at Liberal Oasis, I see that Dean did what all of us as individuals do when money gets tight - cut back, not cut out. Dean's observations about the effects of actions like these certainly ring true after all these years. What it looks like to me is that Gephardt isn't getting the traction he wants, so he's going to drag down Dean. To hell with what the country needs! It like "If I can't win the nomination, then I don't care if Bush wins again."

Congressman, Archer Daniels Midlands is on line two.

Look at
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/dean/articles/2003/09/30/past_haunts_dean_on_medicare_issue/

Past haunts Dean on Medicare issue

HAD DICK Gephardt been more politically correct last week, he would have rebuked Howard Dean for standing with Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico on proposed Medicare cutbacks in the 1990s or with then-Representative John Kasich of Ohio. To those bosses of the newly Republican budget committee in Congress, he could have added the GOP revolutionaries running the House Ways and Means Committee -- Bill Archer of Texas and Bill Thomas of California.

Newt Gingrich, however, was a lightning rod for disbelief -- a distraction, really. Dean expressed wounded shock and horror that anyone would link him to the former speaker, who in turn tried to link slashes in eligibility and other restrictions on Medicare beneficiaries with a whopping tax cut for high-income Americans.

The truth, however, is that as a conservative Democratic governor, Dean really did do what Gephardt says he did, and his shifting attempts to wiggle off that hook have made his conduct an issue in a Democratic race that grows more serious by the week.