WEEKEND MEMOS

'Weekend memos' give our editorial writers a chance to express their own opinions, comment on topics they have been writing about, or take a lighter approach. The opinions in 'Memos' do not always follow the Enquirer's editorial positions.

Uggh. It's happening already. Recent news reports about Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean look a lot like presidential political reporting in 2000, when strategy and "horse-race" competition of politics dominated the news while actual issues were on the back burner.

I'm not suggesting we journalists ignore Dean's sudden surge in the polls and fund-raising campaigns. But very few media reports go any further than that. Instead of examining what he stands for and evaluating it, we tend to mostly hear about Dean's great Web site.

In other words, news about Dean and his opponents has been long on process and short on substance. Last time I checked, raising money isn't the president's job. It'd be nice to hear more about what he actually has planned for this country.

The result of this is troublesome: a partially informed public. At the moment, there are only two things Dean is known for, and only one of them is an actual political position (his anti-war stance).

Based largely on the one issue of Iraq, Dean has developed a reputation as left-wing standard-bearer for the liberals in the Democratic Party. But look at his record.

That record includes 10 years as Vermont governor, in which he refused to extend temporary income tax hikes twice. The president of the Vermont Chamber of Commerce called him a "fiscally responsible" governor who worked in the best interests of businesses. The National Rifle Association gave him high ratings while governor.

People aren't completely wrong to call him a liberal, though. He signed the bill legalizing homosexual civil unions in Vermont. He also favors rolling back the latest tax cuts to finance universal health care.

The lesson is that Dean's positions are more complicated than my fellow journalists give him credit for. And voters are already making up their minds based on this inaccurate depiction of him as a wing nut.

It's still more than six months until the first primary, and the candidates haven't had a chance to fully explain their positions in detail. So it's understandable that news reports may be sketchy about their policies.

But through opinion polls and fund-raising, news media are already anointing Democratic "front runners," granting credence to candidates we know very little about. And as the old saying goes, a little information can be dangerous.

Ben Fischer