Will the Real Howard Dean Please Stand Up?

Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly, reporting this evening from Boston, Massachusetts.  Thank you for watching us.  Will the real Howard Dean (search) please stand up?  That's the subject of this evening's Talking Points Memo.

Former governor of Vermont got a couple of big Labor [union] endorsements this week.  And many in the press have already anointed him President Bush's challenger next year.  But it's hard to get a handle on Dr. Dean.  The NRA, for example, loves him, but so does the far left.  How does that happen?

Since Dr. Dean doesn't like one-on-one interviews, I have to say I don't know much about the guy.  Most of the other Democratic candidates have entered the No Spin Zone, but it is apparently too much for Dean.  But I do know this, Dean is against parental notification laws (search) regarding abortions for minors.  He is on the record as saying that 12-year old girls should be allowed to have abortions without telling their parents, even if the notification laws provide protection for kids who are raped, the victims of incest or other sexual abuse.  Even if.

Now that kind of position can't be changed.  That's a defining position.  And it is directly against what the overwhelming majority of Americans believe.  So if I'm running against Dean in the South or the Midwest, that's all I have to say.  He's immediately put on the defensive.  Allowing children to have abortions without telling the parents is simply unacceptable in this society.

Now the lawmakers have made every attempt to protect the child while writing these notification laws, but the far left fringe continues to define this issue, not as a family concern, but as a Roe vs. Wade (search) litmus test.  That is spin of the worst kind.  And I'll say it again, most Americans don't want the government intruding on the family in this way.

So what say you, Howard Dean?  The reason the doctor won't come on and do an interview with me is that I'd ask him that question and a number of others, and he would have to define his positions.  It's obvious Dean does not want to do that.

So Talking Points believes Dean can raise all the money he wants, have all the labor unions he wants backing him.  All the far left advocates can go out and hold his signs all day long.  But in the end, Howard Dean's positions will be exposed.  And the folks will see it.  And I don't believe he will be the Democratic candidate for president.

And that's The Memo...but I could always be wrong.

The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day

Time now for "The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day."

The National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum (search) -- Wow, that's some business card--is hopping mad because a restaurant in Seattle is engaged in some bad taste.

Apparently, to make sushi more inviting, these people are serving it on the skin of an Asian-American model.  Now we realize sushi is raw, but this might be going far, not to mention the hygienic issues.

Ridiculous?  No question.  Sushi is best enjoyed on a plate.