Hussein remark Dean's idea

[Justice]

After national security specialists drafted the outlines of his first major foreign policy speech and former vice president Al Gore weighed in with his thoughts, Howard Dean decided to personally add one more line to the text in light of Sunday's big news.

"The capture of Saddam has not made America safer," the Democratic presidential contender said the following day in Los Angeles to the Pacific Council on International Policy....

....Stuart Rothenberg, author of "The Rothenberg Political Report" in Washington, said that while Dean's freshness, most recently displayed through his Hussein comment, is endearing to a primary audience of committed Democrats, it might rankle the broader population in a general election.

"This is classic Dean. He shoots from the hip and whatever he hits, he says that's what he was aiming at," Rothenberg said. "This is one of the reasons why Rove wants Dean. He's easy to demonize. He caricatures himself. They will use this to define his antiwar positions."....

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/dean/articles/2003/12/18/hussein_remark_deans_idea/

Edited to Add Link.

[maddezmom]

1. link?

[robbedvoter]

2. Link? And did *D also jot this on a napkin?

I am so impressed...

[Spentastic]

3. Oh I see

What Dean must under no circumstances do is tell the truth because it may lose him the election.

Just for my information if you can't win an election with the truth, is it worth winning?

[Democrats unite]

8. Ask GeaogeW

eom

[Spentastic]

13. Becoming what you despise

Would be a hollow victory indeed

[HFishbine]

16. Not for some people

They'd simply rather have "our" devil than "their" devil.

[robbedvoter]

19. "They are cowards - they hide in caves" _ W's contribution to post 9.11

speech - reported with motherly pride by karen...He wrote it all by himself on a napkin - didn't misspell or nuthin'...:shrug:

[stickdog]

4. "Bring 'em on." (nm)

[White Mountain]

36. Yeah

Dean will cream Bush. The panic is setting in. The media is so pro-shrub!

[maddezmom]

5. Thanks for the link n/t

[Justice]

6. No Problem

Sorry I forgot it in the first place.

[Cheswick2.0]

7. well good for him, he is right

I think people are relieved to have someone tell the truth at last.


PS... on Rove wanting Dean.
1)Karl Rove is not the god of politics. If he was so wonderful Bush would have actually won the election in 2000. Honestly, why some democrats allow that pasty faced weirdo to control their brains is beyond me.

2) In 2002 in Pa, the republicans thought they wanted to run against Rendell. Political operatives all over the state reregistered to vote for him in the primaries and even worked on his primary campaign. Now some of those people were sincerely republicans for Rendell. But some of them (I know, I worked with them until the primary was over and they suddenly started working for Fisher)made a big mistake thinking Rendell would be easier to beat. The same propaganda was thrown around then. "Don't vote for Rendell, he's the one Fisher wants to run against. He shoots from the hip, has a temper, blah blah blah."

[opihimoimoi]

10. Shoot from the HIP?? Dean?? Bush?? more like Bush is the Hipster

shooter. BTW someone oughta fix the Shrubs gun, its always jammin, uuh, uh, uh u

[KaraokeKarlton]

9. I get so sick of the press assuming that someone else wrote his speech

Dean writes his speeches himself. He has never had a speech writer throughout his entire career in politics.

[blm]

18. Ready to bet the deed to your house on that claim?

You said once before that Dean wrote that speech.

Everyone knows he hasn't written one of his foreign policy speeches himself. And certainly not his environmental speech.

Let's ask Gary Hart about Howard "Gary, what do I do?" Dean and foreign policy.

[KaraokeKarlton]

20. Prove he didn't write it

n/t

[blm]

25. The article above probably had good info, even naming Gore

as one of those who helped write it.

It's also been said by various pundits who said that after Saddam was caught that Dean's writers were busy doing rewrites on his speech.

Now why would anyone think that Dean wrote a foreign policy speech by himself?

[KittyWampus]

30. Even During The Last Debate-Dean Sounded Like He Was Regurgitating

what his advisors had crammed into him... the people I watched with commented on it without prompting from me.

Dean simply waited to long on getting together a Foreign Policy Team.

He skimped and is now paying for it.

And Dean/Trippi made a REALLY bad move announcing Dean's New Buffo Foreign Policy Advisors right on the cusp of his "Big Speech". It made him look like the dependent newcomer he is.

[XanaDUer]

32. Here are some links...

Speech Impediment
Dec. 16, 2003


This commentary from The New Republic was written by Clay Risen.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"There's no one more deserving of public pity right now than Howard Dean's speechwriters. After all, they probably spent weeks crafting his foreign policy coming-out speech, which was carefully designed to initiate a steady tack toward the center, only to have it overshadowed by the capture of Saddam Hussein one day before. Worse still, they must have realized immediately that Dean's image as the "antiwar" candidate and his reaction to Hussein's capture would overshadow anything substantive he might have to say. Thus, despite a speech that called for increased military spending and a get-tough attitude toward Saudi Arabia, the Associated Press deemed it more important to note that "Dean did not back away from his opposition to the war" than to note the "many ways" he sought "to ease concerns about his thin foreign policy credentials."

More below:


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/16/opinion/printable588844.shtml


********************************************************************


"WELL-AIMED BLOW. Well, you can bet that Dean's speechwriters, a crew accustomed to penning fiery oratorical flourishes, worked overtime this weekend on their hero's tonality. Indeed, in the hours after news bulletins flashed word of Saddam's capture, Dean issued a -- for him -- surprisingly sotto voce press release that praised the American military while demanding immediate internationalization of the Iraq mission. Retired NATO General Wesley K. Clark (NYSE: CLK - news) , for one, got it right. Informed of the dramatic turn of events in Iraq, Clark unequivocally hailed the capture as a triumph..."

More here:

http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/031215/244/eh39a.html


**********************************************************************


"

September 16, 2003
Dean Pulls a Sneaky on Fox News
So there's been a bit of ado about Howard Dean's appearance on "K Street." People who can afford HBO tell me that on the show, we learn that Dean didn't write his crowd-pleasing line about how if minority population of your state was any reflection of your record on race, Trent Lott would be Martin Luther King. Apparently it was written by James Carville, and "K Street" shows him suggesting it to Dean..."

More here:

http://www.likeablindman.com/secondpages/archives-yearthree/000090.html


So, please prove , with authoratative links, NOT from deanforamerica.com, that he writes all his own speeches.

[KaraokeKarlton]

35. That's just some reporter assuming that Dean uses speechwriters

Dean has always written his own speeches.

[Scott Lee]

22. Mrs Kerry warbucks can always pay it back.

Johnny needn't worry.

[mbali]

31. You've never been involved in campaign, have you?

A candidate - particularly a major presidential candidate - hardly has time to collect his thoughts and eat one decent meal a day.

Trust me, Howard Dean is NOT writing his own speeches. He'd be a fool to even try.

[curse10]

38. there's nothing wrong with having speech writers

eom

[bitchkitty]

11. What would we do,

if we didn't have the media to warn us about Karl Rove? I mean, it's the media, so it has to be true right?

[slinkerwink]

12. nahhhhhh, the media is totally a propaganda wing

stupid fucknuts.

[Military Brat]

14. It hasn't made our troops any safer either ...

And it hasn't made the Iraqis safer. Good ol' bush and rove, fooling some of the people all of the time.

The experts back Dean up. The talking heads back bush up. You would think by now people would realize how much danger we're headed toward with bush, but noooo.

Those cowboy boots can't kick sh**, much less terrorism.

[TLM]

29. They do not care about the danger or the truth...

they care about their candidate winning.

Since they don't have the guts to challenge Bush's bullshit spin on Iraq, some of the candidates would rather go along with Bush's propaganda and attack Dean for telling the truth about Iraq.

[CMT]

15. you know what? Dean is right

Saddam was some old man on the lam hiding in a hole. He wasn't running anything.

[robbedvoter]

17. Clark (by his own little self - without Gore's approval (same day speech)

"The entire resistance in Iraq was not run by a pathetic ex-dictator hiding in a hole," the retired general told a foreign-policy crowd in The Hague this week. His solution in Iraq is no different from his rivals: getting help from American allies. But his pitch is all the more compelling because of his experience in Kosovo.

"We won the war, in no small measure because Belgrade could not break the will of 19 democracies united in common cause," Clark said. "I believe alliances are indispensable, not inconvenient," he continued. "I would rather have capable European forces with a say in making decisions, than to have Tonga and the Marshall Islands with no strings attached."
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3762367/

[Scott Lee]

21. Does Howard Dean get sick of being right?

He must. I mean...

He was right about the Iraq War.

He was right about Saddam Hussein (his greatest threat lately was to the spiders sharing his hole).

He was right about Bush's agenda to gut domestic security and prosperity for the sake of never ending war.

He was right about the South (he's gaining more and more there).



Howard PLEASE so something wrong, so your detractors can get at least a symbolic victory in? Please? Be nice.

[killbotfactory]

27. Funny how so much of the anti-Dean logic seems to be...

"He tells the truth, but people will be too stupid to realize it's the truth... so we have to elect somebody else!"

[lurk_no_more]

28. No, I'm sure Howard will never get tired of being "RIGHT"

Then again wouldn't you want him to be even a little bit to the left?

On a seriouse note: Dean was right to say what he did, Saddam was in no way the threat he was made out to be, Bush has tried to associate Saddam with 9/11 and terrorism since 9/11 and someone needed to put it into perspective, the great boogyman was a defeated old man that was a danger to no one here in the US except in Bush's mind.



Just food for thought from….”JAFO”

[Scott Lee]

33. Like I said, I'm more of a pragmatist on this matter

I fully realize that most of America does not share my degree of leftism, so I have to support the candidate that most closely not only allies to my pick of pressing issues of the day, but has the support and dough to take on the White House Fascists.

Right now, that would be Howard Dean. Now that could change, if all other candidates suddenly and mysteriously allied closer to my issues and just as suddenly and mysteriously racked up huge fund raising monies and support - but let's be pragmatic; that aint likely to happen at this point, is it?

[Upfront]

23. Dean Is Right

What crap. Panic, panic city, Dean thinks. Please stop being right Dean. Oh my, he will peak to soon again. I just can't handle a candidate who has guts to speak the truth and the brains to understand what it is. Please save us again DLC, or B***! Oh, sorry, same thing.

[mzmolly]

24. So was the war right? Was Saddam linked to Osama? Did he have WMD?

If the answer is no, Dean is right.

[TLM]

26. But we're not safer because of the capture...

What was Saddam doing? He was in a hole... the fighters in Iraq are still fighting, because they were never fighting FOR Saddam. They are fighting against america and will keep fighting as long as america is there. In fact, Bush has made us less safe by pissing off our allies and acting towards the mid-east in exactly the way that will serve to create more terrorists. All while neglecting things like first responders and cargo inspection.


Dean is 100% right.

It is great that we got him, but it doesn't change the tactical situation much. We're still in pretty much the same position we were when Saddam was in the hole.

[Scott Lee]

34. Stop confusing us with facts - we're busy hating Dean!

[HFishbine]

37. What do you know? American's Agree With Dean

I guess that "shooting from the hip" hit another bullseye.

New Newsweek Poll (12/20):

51 percent of Americans say they don’t feel much safer or more secure now that Saddam is in custody (41 percent do).

http://msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3768353&p1=0

[dd123]

39. Dean hits the bullseye yet again.

Orange alert... more chatter... highest threat since 9/11...

Yup, that's my guy!