Dean On Defense
It ocurs to me that a blogger could make a lot of hay off of waiting for Howard Dean to say something really strange.
So, I’m starting “The Quotable Howard Dean” and for my first installment, I bring you this piece of wonderment from a debate he had with Richard Perle (DNC Codename: “The Prince of Darkness”) at Pacific University.
In his new role as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Dean has stressed that Democrats are stronger than Republicans on defense.
“Defense is a lot broader than swaggering around saying you’re going to kick Saddam’s butt,” Dean said Thursday, drawing cheers from the crowd in this city that overwhelmingly voted Democratic last November.
Well, I can’t say that he’s wrong. Defense certainly broader than “swaggering around” and talking smack. Defense involves actual but-kicking and occasionally some simultaneous name-taking.
The thing is, I can’t figure out what point he’s trying to make. I can noodle a couple things out of that section of the story: 1) swaggering is bad and Dean thinks that swaggering is a weak defense policy, and 2) the crowd thought that this was a heck of a statement.
My guess is that Dean is saying that we have a cowboy President who thinks that the whole of our defense policy has ben to smack-talk Saddam Hussein.
If my guess is right, then Dean’s pretty much missed the whole part of our policy where we stuffed the Taliban in history’s dumpster, pulled Saddam Hussein from a rathole, marginalized Yasser Arafat out of any meaningful international importance, and helped bring about two free democratic elections where none has previously existed.
I can forgive his missing those. He was busy campaigning to the DNC Chair, and the ability to make thunderous and vague statement to a syncophantic crowd. That takes time away from reading the newspaper.
But it sure seems to me that Dean’s begun formalizing the Democrats as “The Party That Is Against Lots of Stuff” and as long as he keeps on that course, he’s going to get really comfortable with losing elections.
No related posts.
Category: The Quotable Howard Dean
Swagger can be good or bad: depends on what's backing it up and what it's being used for. Teddy Roosevelt and Kaiser Wilhelm II both had heaping mountains of swagger but the former was of the "don't fuck with or else" variety, and the latter was best summed by Churchill as "wanting to be Napoleon without having to actually fight his battles."