Dean's Howlers
Tue, Dec 2, 2003 at 3:50:54 pm PST
Here’s the transcript of Howard Dean’s appearance on the “Hardball” show last night, bursting at the seams with so much idiocy that it must be read to be believed: Hardball with Chris Matthews for Dec. 1. I’ll just pick out two real howlers to illustrate this man’s incredible superficiality and schtoopidity.
Howler #1, on what should happen with Osama bin Laden if he’s ever caught (which won’t happen, by the way, because he’s deader ’n a doornail):
MATTHEWS: Who should try Osama bin Laden if we catch him? We or the World Court?DEAN: I don’t think it makes a lot of difference. I’m happy...
MATTHEWS: But who would you like to, if you were president of the United States, would you insist on us trying him, since he was involved in blowing up the World Trade Center, or would you let The Hague do it?
DEAN: You know, the truth is it doesn’t make a lot of difference to me as long as he is brought to justice. I think that’s the critical part of that.
MATTHEWS: How about Saddam Hussein? Should we try him in criminal and execute him...
DEAN: Again, we are allowing the Bosnian war criminals to be tried at The International Court in The Hague. That suits me fine. As long as they’re brought to justice and tried, and so far we haven’t had to have that discussion because the president has not been able to find either one of them.
It makes no difference to Howard Dean who tries Bin Laden? The International Court is specifically enjoined against sentencing criminals to the death penalty. Does Howard Dean honestly believe that the relatives of the 9/11 victims would be fine with letting a European court deal with Osama bin Laden? Does he honestly believe the American people would be fine with it? Was he dropped on his head as a child?
Howler #2, on what should be done about Iran’s Manhattan Project:
DEAN: Iran is a more complex problem because the problem support as clearly verifiable as it is in North Korea. Also, we have less-fewer levers much the key, I believe, to Iran is pressure through the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union is supplying much of the equipment that Iran, I believe, most likely is using to set itself along the path of developing nuclear weapons. We need to use that leverage with the Soviet Union and it may require us to buying the equipment the Soviet Union was ultimately going to sell to Iran to prevent Iran from them developing nuclear weapons.
Excuse me while I yell.
THE SOVIET UNION??!
This is a man who wants to be the President of the United States, and his idea of how to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions is to apply pressure to a country that does not even exist.
And notice that Chris Matthews lets him completely get away with this gaffe.
There’s much more jaw-dropping stuff in this transcript; his account of how he got out of the draft during the Vietnam War is also real howler material. Read it, and pray that Dean does get the Democratic nomination—because he does not stand a chance of being elected, spewing nonsense and equivocation like this.
