"It is possible to be tough without filling Walter Reed with 12,000 wounded kids and then not taking care of them." Howard Dean
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I often have nice things to say about Al Gore... I confess to a weakness for Dennis Kucinich... But I am crazy about Howard Dean.
He is really the guy the right wingers fear. How can one tell? Fascists, and the American ultra-right and neocons aren't "conservatives" or anything like that, (if you take Robert Taft or Herbert Hoover as a conservative model), they are fascists... And as Sinclair Lewis predicted they come "wrapped in the flag and bearing the cross"... When fascists are frightened of anything they ridicule it cruelly, brutally, bullying... not humorously... bestially. Howard Dean is given that treatment, but Dean not only can take it, he can dish it out.... But as the quote above shows, his is the cruelty of truth. He is as tough as a boot and as game as a Jack Russell terrier. Just what is needed at the moment most needed. Maybe America's luck hasn't run out after all.
He has all the right enemies, even in his own party. Dean is working to make the Democratic party a true expression of its voter's values and not just a way of harnessing their votes in order to carry out the agenda of the big check writers. Howard Dean is one of the greatest democratic (with a small "d" or a capital "D") assets in American politics. DS
I often have nice things to say about Al Gore... I confess to a weakness for Dennis Kucinich... But I am crazy about Howard Dean.
He is really the guy the right wingers fear. How can one tell? Fascists, and the American ultra-right and neocons aren't "conservatives" or anything like that, (if you take Robert Taft or Herbert Hoover as a conservative model), they are fascists... And as Sinclair Lewis predicted they come "wrapped in the flag and bearing the cross"... When fascists are frightened of anything they ridicule it cruelly, brutally, bullying... not humorously... bestially. Howard Dean is given that treatment, but Dean not only can take it, he can dish it out.... But as the quote above shows, his is the cruelty of truth. He is as tough as a boot and as game as a Jack Russell terrier. Just what is needed at the moment most needed. Maybe America's luck hasn't run out after all.
He has all the right enemies, even in his own party. Dean is working to make the Democratic party a true expression of its voter's values and not just a way of harnessing their votes in order to carry out the agenda of the big check writers. Howard Dean is one of the greatest democratic (with a small "d" or a capital "D") assets in American politics. DS
The New Dean Political Plan - The Politico
Abstract: When I asked him if Republicans would always be seen as tougher than Democrats when it came to national defense, he said: "It is possible to be tough without filling Walter Reed with 12,000 wounded kids and then not taking care of them." Dean went on: "Now that we have a real problem with Iran, there's not much we can do about it because of the president's incredible foolishness in running our armed forces through the gauntlet in Iraq, which wasn't necessary." He also said that having "the moral high ground" is part of defending the country. "A strong national defense depends on having well-trained troops and good weapons systems, but it also depends on having the moral high ground, and this president has given up the moral high ground around the world, and that's a disaster for the country's defense," Dean said. On the pending battle between the two parties on immigration reform, Dean said: "I think the Republicans have decided they don't want to do anything about immigration because they are scared. The best kind of immigration reform is a much better working relationship with Mexico. We will never solve immigration problems in this country without improving the Mexican economy dramatically." Dean is very concerned about world affairs and believes that after the November election in 2008, the president-elect should take a month off and travel the world to bolster America's image. "During the Cold War, we certainly had people who didn't like us, but they respected us," Dean said. "Now, unfortunately, they don't like us and they don't respect us. And that needs to be fixed. And I consider one of my informal jobs to help fix it with like-minded world leaders so we do have some relationships." Dean also said that the Bush administration's failure to cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was a turning point for the country. "It destroyed George Bush's presidency," Dean said. "Permanently. The one thing that Americans and everybody else in the world have always believed, whether you like America or not, whether you like the government or not, is that the most organized, best managers in the world are the Americans. And if anything really, really awful happens, send in the Americans. And we all saw on television around the whole world, that this just wasn't true of this president and this government. It was just ludicrous. It's still ludicrous to this day." In his famous speech to the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee in 2003, Dean, then a presidential candidate, upbraided the party for too much timidity and too much coziness with Republicans. "That's why Democrats didn't win for a long time," Dean said Tuesday. "Harry Truman said if you run a Republican against a Democrat who behaves like a Republican, the real Republican wins every time."(...) I asked Dean if he agreed with some in his party who say that things look so good for the Democrats in 2008, they virtually can't lose. "That is what I call magical thinking, and Democrats have been very guilty of it for a long time," Dean said. "I don't admire much about Republicans, but one thing I do admire is that they don't engage in magical thinking." Dean said that the Democratic Party is busy raising money and organizing in every state and that "we have a turnout operation that we think is better than the Republicans' now." "But winning is going to be hard work," Dean said. "This race is going to be won in 2007, not 2008. It is all going to be about how well you prepare." READ IT ALL
Abstract: When I asked him if Republicans would always be seen as tougher than Democrats when it came to national defense, he said: "It is possible to be tough without filling Walter Reed with 12,000 wounded kids and then not taking care of them." Dean went on: "Now that we have a real problem with Iran, there's not much we can do about it because of the president's incredible foolishness in running our armed forces through the gauntlet in Iraq, which wasn't necessary." He also said that having "the moral high ground" is part of defending the country. "A strong national defense depends on having well-trained troops and good weapons systems, but it also depends on having the moral high ground, and this president has given up the moral high ground around the world, and that's a disaster for the country's defense," Dean said. On the pending battle between the two parties on immigration reform, Dean said: "I think the Republicans have decided they don't want to do anything about immigration because they are scared. The best kind of immigration reform is a much better working relationship with Mexico. We will never solve immigration problems in this country without improving the Mexican economy dramatically." Dean is very concerned about world affairs and believes that after the November election in 2008, the president-elect should take a month off and travel the world to bolster America's image. "During the Cold War, we certainly had people who didn't like us, but they respected us," Dean said. "Now, unfortunately, they don't like us and they don't respect us. And that needs to be fixed. And I consider one of my informal jobs to help fix it with like-minded world leaders so we do have some relationships." Dean also said that the Bush administration's failure to cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was a turning point for the country. "It destroyed George Bush's presidency," Dean said. "Permanently. The one thing that Americans and everybody else in the world have always believed, whether you like America or not, whether you like the government or not, is that the most organized, best managers in the world are the Americans. And if anything really, really awful happens, send in the Americans. And we all saw on television around the whole world, that this just wasn't true of this president and this government. It was just ludicrous. It's still ludicrous to this day." In his famous speech to the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee in 2003, Dean, then a presidential candidate, upbraided the party for too much timidity and too much coziness with Republicans. "That's why Democrats didn't win for a long time," Dean said Tuesday. "Harry Truman said if you run a Republican against a Democrat who behaves like a Republican, the real Republican wins every time."(...) I asked Dean if he agreed with some in his party who say that things look so good for the Democrats in 2008, they virtually can't lose. "That is what I call magical thinking, and Democrats have been very guilty of it for a long time," Dean said. "I don't admire much about Republicans, but one thing I do admire is that they don't engage in magical thinking." Dean said that the Democratic Party is busy raising money and organizing in every state and that "we have a turnout operation that we think is better than the Republicans' now." "But winning is going to be hard work," Dean said. "This race is going to be won in 2007, not 2008. It is all going to be about how well you prepare." READ IT ALL
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