Dean's troopergate

I'm a Clark guy, but this ABC "news" piece is silly.  We all, no matter who you support, should slam ABC for carrying this story in a manner to suggest Dean knew his security guy battered his wife. And the media has a liberal bias? yeah right.

Dean's Trooper
What Did He Know About Abuse Allegations; When Did He Know It?
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/Investigation/dean_domestic_abuse_040114-1.html

•  Sorry for repost

  Didn't mean to post again on the same topic.  We overlapped.

  by gimmeaD on Wed Jan 14, 2004 at 09:00:37 PM PDT

•  Good Grief!

  Their scraping scum off the bottom of the barrel now.

  by kimo on Wed Jan 14, 2004 at 09:01:41 PM PDT

  •  Can't

    spell.

    by kimo on Wed Jan 14, 2004 at 09:36:01 PM PDT

•  thanks

  for agreeing that this stuff is stupid. no matter who wins the primary, they'll have to deal with this crap.

  Dean, Clark, Edwards, etc. we're all in the shitstorm together.

  by skaiserbrown on Wed Jan 14, 2004 at 09:07:26 PM PDT

  •  latest/stupidest

    Yeah, this "scandal" really seems a reach. On the other thread (where I posted some of the below), someone said this was hashed out in Dean's last Governor campaign. As far as I can see, this amounts to a "When did you realize your security guard was beating his wife?" gotcha ... practically the cliche!

    As the guy's employer, Dean was a natural to write him an affidavit; maybe it wasn't politically astute to get involved in a divorce, but unless it can be proven that Dean was aware of the guy's alleged behavior, and that the allegations were damning, it seems quite a stretch to make Dean out as a wife-beater enabler.

    The ABC source is the ex-wife's lawyer, for crying out loud! I'd have to see serious evidence that Dean should have known about this at the time he wrote the letter before I'd even think less of him (and with all due respect to the issue at hand, even with the worst current construction put on it this hardly seems a disqualifying incident.)  

    Part of what we need to be sensitive about vis-a-vis domestic violence is that one just can't tell who's an abuser from how they act away from the abusive situation. That's why it's so important that police reports on abuse calls be strictly taken and maintained ... past cover-ups protecting cop abusers have made pds very by-the-book on this sort of thing. I imagine that's part of this story too.

    by Ottoe on Wed Jan 14, 2004 at 09:29:30 PM PDT

•  Dean's Troopergate

  I just watched it and couldn't figure out what it was supposed to mean.  He aparently submitted an affidavit in a divorce proceeding for a couple he knew and said he thought that they were getting on well. But the woman had accused the husband of abuse: physical and mental. Well, lots of couples who are having problems manage to cover them up even to good friends, who then get surprised when the breakup happens.

  I think ABC was trying to say this causes doubts about Dean's judgements of people.  But basically he wasn't involved in any other way than providing the affidavit.  

  A couple years later, the State Police instigated their own investigation and fired the guy.  I believe at that point, Dean said he was shocked to learn the truth about this trooper (who was incharge of the governor's security detail). So make of it what you will....

  by DenfromWisc on Wed Jan 14, 2004 at 09:08:41 PM PDT

  •  Whooops! I just read...

    the link to the ABC news story.  That's what I was trying to briefly summarize in my posting.  Sorry, folks.  But I still don't really get the point of the story.  Or maybe I'm just feeling dense tonight.

    by DenfromWisc on Wed Jan 14, 2004 at 09:12:12 PM PDT

  •  I don't make anything of it

    Recalling several extremely nasty divorces of the parents of several childhood friends .. who seemed to get along perfectly and never argue .. you'd be amazed at what can be hidden from even those closest to them.

    by daria g on Wed Jan 14, 2004 at 09:14:11 PM PDT

  •  Supporting abusers

    I am involved into anti-abuse advocacy and I cannot tell you how many times I have seen people responding to allegations of abuse about people they know, work with, trust, etc.  The closer it is to you personally, the harder it is to see.  This is not because people are stupid and evil.  It is because they are human.

    I once dealt with a mother whose daughter was abused by a coach, who tried hard to warn her best friend that this coach was also abusing her daughter.  The second mother refused to believe it and their friendship became strained.  Months later, I was contacted by this same second mom, whose daughter had finally disclosed.  This second mom went through absolute shock and hell and guilt coming to grips with it.  And then desperately tried to tell a third mom that her daughter was being abused.  The third mom wouldn't listen, even though the police were called in.

    The angle of this story seems to be that Dean was using his influence to lie on behalf of an abuser.  If you look at everything through a purely political lens, I suppose it doesn't look good.  But things like this happen every day, even to people who aren't governors.   I have seen these messes up close - these tangles of friendship, loyalty, influence and pain - and they are never pretty.  
    

    by NYCO on Wed Jan 14, 2004 at 09:25:09 PM PDT

    •  Of course, but only if you forget the timeline

      The angle of this story seems to be that Dean was using his influence to lie on behalf of an abuser.

      The only problem with this is that Dean couldn't have known about any abuse allegations at the time he filed the affidavit, only about a divorce case.
      

      by Felix Deutsch on Wed Jan 14, 2004 at 11:20:36 PM PDT

•  The problem

  This is Dean's problem:  If he lied about taking the country into war or refused to turn over information about what he knew prior to a major terrorist attack, he would get no flack from the media.  The media needs to focus on the important issues, like this state trooper's behavior, and to bury minor issues like war, terror, lying and secrecy.

  by Paleo on Wed Jan 14, 2004 at 09:09:16 PM PDT