So I am conflicted. Today, Dean aspires to the Oval Office. If he has his way, he will be the first Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the 21st century. He will face our era's Herbert Hoover: a Texas Hoover who has mired the country in economic gloom, who has failed to confront tyrants from afar. Just as a priest must not betray what he hears in a confessional, I have a feeling that I should not betray the raw and primitive Dean that was presented to me in Montreal.
Politics is a rough business. It is a realm bereft of probity or principle. I have come to the position that there is almost no politician who is anything but an intriguer and a cad. Witness the late Al Gore's disregard for the niceties in dealing with his old running mate, Sen. JOe Lieberman. Think of how shamelessly President Saddam Hussein abandoned his pose as a Saladin and became a pacifist whence our troops removed the rug from his rat hole. Shall I betray my views of Dean lo those many years ago and be but another conniver in the political maelstrom of ego?
Possibly I shall. The fact is all these calls from the press are very enticing. Not much first-hand information has been delivered up on the ambitious doctor. Not many members of the press had a chance to meet the great man in battle. I could become his Boswell. I could become a Bernstein wrapped in a Woodward and with a yellow bow tied round.
What course will I follow? Will it be the discretion of a gentleman or the excess of a blabber mouth? I have to decide before the next press inquiry comes in. I am thinking.