Common denominator in attacks on Mayor Dean's council critics

Aunt B relates her thoughts on a recent on-air attack by a local restaurant owner on CM Emily Evans for daring to question the dogged clip of the convention center project:

Rayburn accuses Evans of opposing the convention center because she wants to use her opposition of the convention center as a springboard for a run for mayor.

At the same time that proponents of the convention center are acting like the convention center is so popular and it’s just a couple of worry-warts who are standing in the way, Rayburn seems to be saying that opposing the convention center is popular enough among Nashvillians that holding that stance could launch a mayoral run.

I want to set aside the peculiar hypocrisies of attempting to tamp down opposition by impugning their motives. That is clear enough from B's post.

Instead, let me draw your attention to the possibility that accusing the Mayor's council critics of being power bounders who are inordinately ambitious, to the point of being acquisitive, perhaps even greedy, is a recurrent tactic by Dean supporters and the courthouse gang. With the megaphone of the mainstream media, they did this after Evans' fellow CM Mike Jameson challenged the courthouse magisterium on power moves against a neighborhood advocate in Planning, on changes into the publicly conceived Riverfront development plan, and on the embarrassing PR-gate episode and convention center plan. The Deaniacs' reaction was reported in the City Paper in August:

Dean supporters have speculated on Jameson’s desire for a higher office, perhaps a run for a circuit court judgeship, and dislike his flair for the dramatic.

That "flair for the dramatic stuff" is the comical kicker, given that after so many years of observing Jameson (and Evans) the last adjective I would use to describe would be "dramatic." Something more than simple dislike seems afoot.

It bears watching whether these recurring charges of ambition against Dean's council critics are the modus operandi for taking their heads off and discouraging any uppity dissent on these or other Dean administration plans.