Dean's Speech

[Bruzilla]

I've never watched Howard Dean give an address before, but I watched his yesterday and all I can say is that he better never, ever, criticize Bush for his speaking skills. Dean was stumbling over words throughout the speech, and made some pretty glaring gaffs, like talking about the need to increase funding for terror. Could he have meant counter-terror? What was even worse than the oratory was the positions that dean was taking.

1. He criticized Bush (hereafter known as HCB for brevity's sake) for being the reason "North Korea is now a nuclear power." Asked later if he would consider a pre-emptive attack on North Korea, he said that it would depend on if they ever got nuclear weapons. Uhhh... I thought he said earlier that thanks to Bush the NKs already had nuclear weapons?
2. HCB for having too many reserves on deployment, which takes away from their civilian jobs back home. He forgot to mention that it was Clinton who disestablished the active duty divisions of MPs, personnel people, etc., and squadrons of A-10 and inflight refueling aircraft in order to reduce military spending without technically reducing the military, that caused this problem. He also said he was going to fix this problem... but I guess he'll have to find a whole lot of $$$$ to make that happen.
3. HCB for not establishing an international coalition, news to the sixty countires in Bush's coalition I'm sure, and also criticized the same sixty countries by calling the coalition "a joke", "a fraud", worthless, etc. Then he went on to say how as president he would ensure that we respected other countries and worked with them... not something the leaders of the insulted 60 are very interested in I'm sure.
4. He said that he would "send the man who's done more to bring stability and peace to the Middle East, Bill Clinton, to solve the Palestinian problem." Bill Clinton? He didn't do anything but stand between two guys and get his picture taken. That whole peace accord was started, negotiated, and put into place by Norwegian diplomats. Norway got a reward of lots of military hardware for letting Clinton take credit, but Dean should send the Norwegians back if he wants to see progress. The kicker was that the event was hosted by William Christopher, Clinton's POS SecState who returned from the Middle East with his hands up in surrender saying that nothing could be done... which was what spurred the Norwegians to go in.
5. Dean spent lots of time talking about how he's going to get more cops and firemen, and pay those already working more... he just can't pay for it.

What a winner.

 

[SamSpade]

I listened to a lot of it on C-SPAN radio. I found it surprising that a Democrat would be arguing for increasing defense, intelligence, counter-terrorism, pre-emptive attacks. He almost sounded Republican. But he was also against the war. I admit to being very perplexed.

But I also believe that when I hear a Democrat claiming to want to boost our military, defense, intelligence agencies and so on, they are just telling tales. All of that will come after everything else they promise gets funded. It's never a high priority with them.

 

[Larry Gude]

Bruz...

...at the end of the day doesn't it strike you that the ONLY reasonable explanation for any of this is that the VRWC is vaster than ever thought?

or

Second choice is that the Clintons still run things. There won't even be a primary for 2008 when then get done carrying the bodies out from this one. It's Hill and that's it.

Leiberman and I guess Gephardt are the only ones who can stand in front of a national audience and say "I want to lead this nation" with any credibility at all.

Joe is BARELY hated less than W. Dick, well it's all his fault (because he didn't hate enough) that the House is run by the GOP.

John eFfing Kerry just doesn't have the charisma to pull off the bait and switch he keeps running through.

Dean, my God...he really seemed to take off when that guy went over the falls in Niagra and walked away from it.

It's as though the party motto is "...if that guy can do it..."

 

[vraiblonde]

Dean could get out of this if he had me as his campaign manager. As it stands, his "advisors" are a bunch of raving liberal nutballs who think a handful of DUers will be enough to get him elected.

 

[Bruzilla]

I heard an interesting theory the other day, and it was offered up by a Democrat. He said that the reason that Dean is surging wildly in the primary polls, and moderates like Lieberman are showing almost no numbers, is that most moderates and whatever "Right" Democrats there are, have already decided who they are voting for in the General election - and that man would be George W. Bush. The reason that Dean is pulling high numbers is that his votes are coming from the most liberal segment of the party, so of course he'll appeal more to them than to say Lieberman. The suggestion was to start running polls of likely Democratic voters asking who would they vote for: Dean, Kerry, blah, blah, blah, and Bush. He felt that Bush's numbers might be second only to Dean.

 

[vraiblonde]

Polls are funny things. There is a section of our population that thinks Bush is being a pansy in Iraq - that he should have leveled it by now. Those people won't give Bush a high approval rating, but they sure as hell won't vote for Dean.

But I think you're right - if they put Bush in the pot as far as who Democrats will vote for, I think they'd see a different set of numbers.

 

[Pete]

I think Dean will be good for the country. So he is a goober, and inflation will return, and we will return to the Carter years where we were revered as a world leader, I will have a good enough job to afford the $13.50 loaf of bread.

 

[Bruzilla]

Just what we need... another Jimmy Carter in office with Iran acting up.