It was an overall enjoyable interview.
It was short, but it was pretty decent on both Dean and Leno's part. I thought he did a good job on the Lieberman question, made his point while dancing around it a little...changing the subject.
I don't know about the plans for leaving Iraq. I know that Murtha met with Korb, the plan mentioned here. I think one is more complete than the other, and I think right now we don't have a hell of a lot of options. What a mess we have made.
I think Howard Dean spoke well for our party. The meeting in Phoenix starts today, and I hope all goes well. The primary issue is heating up big time, and many issues are on the table. Should be interesting.
http://howardempowered.blogspot.com/2005/12/howard-dean-on-jay-leno-transcript.htmlAbout Bush's speech on Iraq:
Leno: Let's talk about some of the issues. Bush's speech today, what did you think?
Dean: Part of my job is I'm supposed to be tactful now, and it doesn't come easy.
Leno: Oh no-forget that!
Dean: I thought it was his usual nonsense and repetetive…drivel that we've heard for the last 4 ½ years.
Leno: Well, that's tactful. (Yep, cause we know there's a less tactful word than drivel that would have fit perfectly at the end of that sentence!)
Dean: He didn't say anything new. He's defending a strategy that was built on things that weren't true, and of course we're in trouble. And I think "staying the course" is not a strategy, especially when you didn't
tell the truth to get us there in the first place.
About Joe Lieberman:
Leno: Well, how about Joe Lieberman, a fellow Democrat--
Dean: Now I REALLY have to be tactful!
Leno: He's been there a few times to Iraq, and he more or less agrees with the President.
Dean: Everybody gets to march to their own drummer in this party. What we need to do is have a real plan for strategic redeployment. We need not to have 150,000 troops that are being attacked every single day in Iraq. We shouldn't have been there in the first place, and the fact is we've made a big mess over there. We've created more of a danger than there was in the first place, and probably one of the results is that we did something that Iran couldn't do, we helped them win their objectives in the Iran-Iraq war. So, we're in a lot of trouble in Iraq, and John Murtha's right, we ought not to be hurting more Americans, and having more American wounded kids come home.
And when Leno asked Dean the usual why aren't Democrats making more headway, etc. I think he answered it pretty clearly.
Leno: Let me ask you something. Now, normally-the President's approval rating is 35%, it's the lowest it's ever been. It seems in years past that when one party was down, the other party would be up. For all the things the Republican are doing wrong, the Democrats don't seem to be gaining. Why aren't they gaining?
Dean: Well in some ways we are. The polls show that if the election were held tomorrow that we would take back Congress and all that. But, the Democrats have a lot to learn about standing up for what we believe in. You cannot win elections simply by criticizing the other guy, you gotta stand up for what you believe in. We're beginning to do that. I thought Harry Reid was really courageous when he shut down the Senate and demanded some honesty out of Republicans about why we got in Iraq in the first place. And I thought John Murtha, a decorated 37 year Marine Corps veteran was incredibly courageous when he got up and said, "Look, this isn't working. We need a strategic redeployment in Iraq. We're going to have to do a lot more of that. We're going to have to do it on jobs, we're going to have to insist that we have health insurance for everybody in this country like 36 other countries in the world do. We've got to stand for something different from the Republicans and then we can win.
Well, it was great fun to hear Jay Leno use the words "culture of corruption". And Dean led from there right into fixing campaign financing.
Leno: This culture of corruption we see now…we were just joke about this congressman, 2 point (couldn't hear) MILLION dollars. Okay, he's a Republican, but this is the perception about politicians. Because this happens on both sides-how do we change that? Do we need campaign finance laws?
Dean: What we need is real ethics legislation in Congress, because the Ethics Committee has been a farce. There was a truce at one point where nobody would indict anybody, or complain about anybody else. That was ridiculous.We really do need real campaign finance reform. We need to get the big money out of politics.