General Shoot-From-The-Lip Strikes Again
I’m refering to that great political tactician Howard Dean’s latest appearance on CNN’s The Situation Room. Let’s cut to the ‘general’s’ oddball comments.
BLITZER: Where do you stand when it comes to a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq? How quickly would you like to see them out? And be specific.
DEAN: Well, I think the Democrats have been pretty clear about what they want. They want a transition, and now there’s going to be a vote on asking the president for a timetable. We need to be out of Iraq. We know we can’t leave immediately, but we need to be out, and we need to hear from the president something other than, “I started this, but we’re going to leave this to the next president.”
They’ve gotta test him for what he’s smoking because it’s gotta be great stuff. I wouldn’t want to play poker against this guy because I was watching this yesterday. He said that “Democrats have been pretty clear about what they want” with as straight a face as I’ve seen on the WPT circuit. It’s almost like he believed it.
Remember, folks, this is the Democratic Party talking war strategy here. They haven’t been united about fighting a war since FDR’s days. This is the Democratic Party that saw 6 Fever Swampers voting for the the withdrawal of military troops from Iraq by year’s end. It’s also the same Democratic Party whose House members voted overwhelmingly against:
In a 256-153 vote that mirrored the position taken by the Senate earlier, the GOP-led House approved a nonbinding resolution that praises U.S. troops, labels the Iraq war part of the larger global fight against terrorism and says an “arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment” of troops is not in the national interest.
This is what passes for unity in the Democratic Party folks. It isn’t a pretty sight but it gets worse:
BLITZER: Do you think they should be out by the end of the year, like Congressman John Murtha, Senator Kerry, Senator Feingold? They say get them all out by the end of this year.
DEAN: Well, I haven’t heard anybody say that, Wolf. What I have heard is that people want a plan to transition out of Iraq. And what’s going to be voted on tomorrow in the Senate is a plan to re-deploy some of the troops in Iraq, some to Afghanistan, others to the region, bring some of the National Guard home, keep some in Iraq in order to train folks. But I haven’t heard anybody say they want everybody out by the end of the year.
That’s a bald-faced lie & ‘Gen. Dean’ knows it. For him to pretend to not have heard Jean Francois’ latest defeatist resolution is insulting. PERIOD.
Now in full retreat, Dean says this:
BLITZER: Well, Congressman Murtha has been pretty specific, Senator Kerry, they say that that should be the target, by the end of the year, to get them out. Re-deploy them. Those are the words, that’s the phrase that Congressman Murtha uses.
DEAN: Well, what I have heard from these folks, and I haven’t heard it described the way you just described it, what I’ve heard is that they want the National Guard and Reserve to be home, some 20,000 troops to be moved to other countries in the surrounding region so they can come back into Iraq as needed, and then leaving a force still that’s much smaller in Iraq training the police.
Look, the bottom line here is not what the specifics of the plan are.The bottom line is the president doesn’t have a plan and the Democrats believe that we should be heading in another direction, which is what the American people believe.
Check out that line “Look, the bottom line here is not what the specifics of the plan are.” You damned right it’s about the specifics of the plan. What good is a plan if it doesn’t have specifics to it? Do you expect people to listen to that stuff like it’s got a shred of credibility? He thinks he’s got credibility but he doesn’t.
And it’ll show this November.
BLITZER: Frank Rich, the columnist for “The New York Times,” a strong critic of the Bush administration, wrote a very stinging column yesterday in “The New York Times,” in which he was very critical of the Democrats, because he fears that they are once again being outmaneuvered politically by Republicans, as they were, he says, on the eve of the 2004 elections.
And then he goes on to say this: “Those who are most enraged about the administration’s reckless misadventure, misadventures are incredulous that it repeatedly gets away with the same stunts. But, as long as the Democrats keep repeating their own mistakes, they will lose to the party whose mistakes are, if nothing else, packaged as one heck of a show. It’s better to have the courage of bad convictions than no courage or convictions at all.” Did you read that Frank Rich column yesterday?
DEAN: I don’t read columnists. They are willing to, they also sit in air-conditioned offices. The fact of the matter is that we are pushing a, for a plan to get out of Iraq. The president has no plan. He says he’s going to leave that to the next election. The president can’t balance the budget. We will. The president has cost millions of Americans their health care. We are going to move towards a health care system that works for everybody. The president has sent millions of jobs to other countries. We are going to create a new energy independence industry, and do more than talk about it. The Democrats are on the move with a positive agenda. And I think we are going to win.
Check out the laundry list of nonsense that Dean rattled off in that last paragraph.
- The president can’t balance the budget. We will.
- The president has sent millions of jobs to other countries. We are going to create a new energy independence industry, and do more than talk about it.
- The Democrats are on the move with a positive agenda.
Yeah right!!! The budget deficit forecast is shrinking almost quarterly, down from $521 billion for 04 to where it’s expected to come in under $300 billion this October.
As for a new “energy independence industry”, all that is is talk. They’ve been obstructionists on every major piece of energy legislation that’s come down the pike.
Finally, if a one page flyer that doesn’t mention how they’d fight the GWOT is his idea of a positive agenda, then we’ll see the American people rejecting that ‘positive agenda’ this November.
There’s more stupidity advocated in that transcript but I can only take so much. Read the entire transcript at your own risk.
UPDATE:
HotAir: “Murtha’s Cartoon War”
Technorati Tags: Howard Dean, Iraq, Kerry, Murtha
Cross-post at LetFreedomRingBlog
June 20th, 2006 at 8:21 am
Let me give you some Faraday talk:
Ever notice that “Dean” and “liar” both have four letters? And so does “whore”, except that “whore” has an “e”, which is the second letter of “Dean”…
June 20th, 2006 at 8:22 am
I’m sorry, I meant “Farakahn”(sp?).
June 20th, 2006 at 8:30 am
It’s Farrakhan but who cares?
June 20th, 2006 at 10:10 am
I wonder about the combat experience of someone who suggests leaving a secure base, but promising to come back against hostile forces.
June 20th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
You must be getting scared, because you just keep beating the same old drum… Democrats bad! But I can understand why. I’ve taken the time to read Bush’s “plan” for Iraq, and it can be summed up, once again, as more of the same, with one proviso: if we haven’t been doing some of the things Bush now suggests, specifically Administration officials consulting with their Iraqi counterparts, Bush and his whole cabinet should be impeached.
So, taking the points in your order, part of the plan is to send Kimmett and Zelikow to the UN? For what? So Bolton can insult them? And since when do conservatives think the UN can do anything? I guess its situational… as in, when the UN can serve a purpose (like providing “evidence” that there is a plan), we’re all for it. But should the UN suggest a plan contrary to the Administration’s theme, we’ll be back to saying its worthless and should be disbanded faster than you can say “Fair and Balanced!”
And of course the dynamic-duo are going on to Baghdad… well, at least the green zone where they’ll be safe from the continuing civil war.
Point 2: Maliki has a plan to build confidence! Woo-hoo! Now, if he just had Iraqi security forces that didn’t turn tail and run — or switch sides– at the first sign of trouble! And, embedding US troops in the Iraqi units gives the bad guys a target. Are you — and Bush — saying that this embedding hasn’t been taking place already? What, exactly, have our troops been doing with these Iraqi forces? Or, is this another checkpoint in the list of “do more of same?”
The third point — establishing an internal affairs bureau — sounds like a good idea (in fact, I wish we had such a bureau working for us, because it would certainly quickly identify the corruption in the current administration and know how to advise Iraqis on what to look for) but this is both wishful thinking and a double-edged sword. Sure, it would be great to root out corruption… until the bureau issues a report saying that the problem is… us! Which is, what the PM and his cabinet was trying to tell Bush, as in, “We want a timetable for your withdrawal so that we can get on with doing our jobs.”
As to point four, telling Gonzales, Rice and Rumsfeld to work on a “rule of law” initiative is like telling Larry, Curly and Moe to work on Iron Chef. Sure, it’d be hilarious, but I doubt anything edible would come out of it. Same goes for sending these three stooges to Iraq to work on a “rule of law” initiative. These three wouldn’t know the rule of law if they were smacked across the knuckles with it. Remember, Gonzales thinks torture is okay, Rummy thought we’d be greeted with parades and flowers, and Condi swore we’d see a mushroom cloud over Vegas if we didn’t invade. All three were, and are, wrong.
Finally, saying Maliki has a plan to revitalize the Iraq economy is the height of wishful thinking. They can’t provide electricity to the majority of citizens for more than a couple of hours per day, and Bush thinks it’s time to plan for “economic revitalization.” What, exactly, is that? How ’bout we get the juice turned on so the average Iraqi can run his air conditioner.
What, then, is Bush’s “plan” for Iraq? Vague directives, pledges of cooperation, and offers of support from war-weary troops. Meanwhile, it comes out today in a memo from the US Embassy in Baghdad to the State Department in Washington:
So where, I ask, is the difference between where we were 6 months ago and today? Is the death of Zarqawi meaningful, or is that the great indicator of progress? Not that it isn’t progress, it is; it’s just pitiful, at this point, that getting one of the bad guys is the high point of our progress, after spending $370 billion and the loss of 2,500 American and countless Iraqi lives. And the ultimate irony is that we only got Zarqawi because some of his closest aids gave him up to the Iraqis.
Do I wish that the Democratic leadership would clearly articulate a plan? Sure, but then it would be criticized and then co-opted by the republiCONs who would claim it as their own. Sometimes the best response is to follow the old addage Give him enough rope and he’ll hang himself.
As to Dean’s “laundry list of nonsense” as you call it, let’s examine:
As evidenced by the surplus that Clinton left, along with the fact that no republiCON president has balanced the budget in 40 years, I think the American people see right through all of the hullabaloo over a “shrinking” deficit. The problem is that the shrinkage depends on enormous military spending, so all we’re doing is trading dollars, and not even on an effective or efficient scale (as in, I doubt anyone would say 3 dollars spent in Iraq is worth a dollar less in deficit). The bottom line, and I note with great irony, is that if you want a balanced budget, vote for a Democrat.
Well, this is just the truth. Think about the auto industry. Think about the technology sector. In fact, is there a sector, outside of low-paying service jobs, that has gained under this administration (and the military industrial doesn’t count since we’re borrowing against our great-grandchildren to pay for it at this point)? Tell that to the unemployed programmer, auto line worker… solid, middle class jobs are scarce and getting more so.
Now, about energy, which was and is a seperate point:
Energy independence does not involve drilling in ANWR. Nor does it mean we have to open up the few remaining pristine areas of conservation land. What it does mean is paying attention to what’s going on with alternative energy. It means stop giving incentives and huge tax breaks (aka corporate welfare) to big oil. How about we start with something simple, like raising CAFE standards… and stop letting the veep’s crooked buddies from Enron form the national energy policy.
But you don’t want to hear about that. That is scary.
June 20th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
As usual, Stop is stupid as ever. The Clinton budget surplus came as a result of the Republican congress forcing him to cut spending at the rate he was doing in the first part of his first term.
Also, Clinton inherited a growing economy, something that Bush didn’t get. In fact, considering the fact that the dot com bubble had burst & the stock market was dropping AND 9/11 taking 2 TRILLION DOLLARS OUT OF OUR ECONOMY, and a hurricane that essentially wiped out an entire section of our country’s economy, I’d say it’s downright fricking amazing that we’ve got a growing economy at all.
And it’ll kill you when the budget is back in balance when Bush leaves office. At that point, I’ll find you & tell you to shut the fuck up, you whiny dipshit.
As for “stop letting the veep’s crooked buddies from Enron form the national energy policy”, who’s DOJ didn’t prosecute the thieves at Enron? Oh, that’s right. The vaunted Clinton injustice Dept. Who prosecuted them to the fullest extent of the law? That’s right. Evil George Bush’s Justice Dept.
Howard Dean & John Murtha deserve each other & they’ll be laughed at by conservatives when Murtha gets fired & Dean presides over losing seats in the House & Senate all over again. Take that, you dipshit!!!
June 20th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
You know what I like about CONservatives… it’s their ability to hold civil, tasteful conversations.
Guess I really touched a nerve.
June 20th, 2006 at 6:18 pm
I only hold civil, tasteful conversations with people that deserve that treatment. Your reprehensible spinning of the facts (omitting the Republican role in balancing the budget was reprehensible, BTW, not to mention how the budget will almost be balanced by January ‘09 despite the tax cuts & paying for a war) is how most liberals play dodgeball with the WHOLE TRUTH.
I know it kills you to admit that Bush is right with his policies but you should try thinking that not everything he’s done is evil. If that day ever happens, then maybe I’ll treat you with a shred of dignity. Until then, take a long walk off a short plank.
June 21st, 2006 at 7:32 am
This will come as a shock to S(o)B!, but what the heck is he talking about when he praises the Dean/donkey “plan”? (Notice I don’t respond to any of his talking points. That’s because he hasn’t introduced anything in his novelette that he hasn’t pounded into the ground a dozen times before.)
Attacking the Prez is not a plan. Flights of fancy even Isaac Asimov wouldn’t take (re: energy) are specious at best. I also haven’t seen a single instance of the Prez forcing a company to fire employees in order to ship the jobs overseas - that comes from the companies themselves, last I checked.
And speaking of NAFTA, where were the (useless) unions? Oh, I remember, the “leaders” were too busy counting the money ripped off from the workers to get off their fat behinds and do something for the “membership” (a polite term for those too dumb to call crooks on their thievery).
June 21st, 2006 at 5:39 pm
I think Stop Bush has a point. Let’s face it, at the rate of $7 billion per month for the war, there’s no way Bush can come anywhere close to balancing the budget. Also, Bush has already said he’ll leave it “future Presidents” to figure a way out of this mess.
The war has been so badly managed that I think the democrats could hardly do any worse. At least if we get out of Iraq, the taxpayers won’t have to continue to pay for this huge mistake.
June 21st, 2006 at 10:28 pm
Let’s face it, at the rate of $7 billion per month for the war, there’s no way Bush can come anywhere close to balancing the budget.
Let’s use budget projections from the CBO instead of imaginations. They’ve been downsizing the budget deficit on a quarterly basis for the past two and a half years. Revenues are increasing by double digit percentages over the previous year, too. Those are the documented FACTS.
The war has been so badly managed that I think the democrats could hardly do any worse.
John Murtha told Bill Clinton that Somalia couldn’t be won militarily. Clinton was a military idiot and took his advice and pulled out. UBL said that that episode convinced him that the US was a “paper tiger”, unwilling to fight for victory.
Pulling out now will tell the jihadists that all they have to do is keep the pressure on and we’ll eventually fold and they’ll get a new jihadist training center. Pulling out without total victory is what the Democrats are advocating.
I rest my case.
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