DEAN AT IT AGAIN...

Howard Dean was on “Hardball with Chris Mathews” from Harvard last night and lied and obfuscated through the whole thing. I’m not going to hit all of his, um… “distortions”, but let’s check out some of the better ones:

“Kerry, Gephardt, Lieberman, Edwards and Wes Clark at first, all were in favor of this resolution that was a preemptive unilateral attacks on Iraq. I was not…”

Howard, please define “unilateral”. Does this mean that you consider countries like Great Britain, Poland, Australia, etc. as so unimportant that they are not worth mentioning so our action was unilateral? What does this say about your foreign policy that you would consider these countries not worthy of mention? Or do you not understand what unilateral means? If so, how many patients died under your care because of your lack of understanding of basic English words? Or, do you fully understand what unilateral means and you are just a liar?

“UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Governor Dean, you said you would-you would bypass federal matching funds to compete financially with President Bush. But doing also frees you from spending caps in several key primary states. Will you still respect state spending limits? And, if not, how can you say you are committed to public financing, when you abandon the system because you can afford it, while others still abide by its limits?

DEAN: Well, actually, I abandoned the system not because we could afford it, but because we could beat George Bush that way. We planned the — look, our campaign is campaign finance reform. We raised three times as much money as everybody else in the last quarter, average donation, $77 from 200,000 people. That is campaign finance reform.
Interestingly enough, one-quarter of all our donors are under 30 years old. This campaign is about taking back this country and giving it to the generation who’s going to have to live with all the horrendous policies that George Bush is inflicting on us.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)”

Howard, how come you didn’t answer the question about respecting state spending limits? What happened to that “non-political, straight shooter kind of guy”? The whole, “our campaign is campaign finance reform” thing is rich.

“MATTHEWS: Well, let me ask it-let me ask it totally open. Do you think a person has a right to work somewhere if they don’t want to join a union?
DEAN: I do.
No, wait a minute. I don’t.
(LAUGHTER)”

I’ll let that piece of moral certitude speak for itself. This exchange, too:

“MATTHEWS: So you wouldn’t repeal 14B?
DEAN: No, I would not, but...
MATTHEWS: So you are different than Gephardt. He is with the unions.
You are not.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: I’m serious.
DEAN: All right...
MATTHEWS: I hate it. It’s called HARDBALL. This isn’t “Success” magazine, OK?
(APPLAUSE)
DEAN: Let me tell you what-I actually believe in card check. I believe you shouldn’t have to have an election, that people who want to join a union should just be able to sign a card and join it. Let me tell you where I am on...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: You are against-you do not believe in repealing 14B?
You’re not going to accept the challenge from Gephardt to do that?
DEAN: If I got a bill on my desk that repealed 14B, I’d sign it in an instant. I’m just not going to push it hard...
MATTHEWS: OK.”

Well, in a matter of 30 seconds, Howard managed to come down on both sides of repealing rule 14B (whatever that is), from “No, I would not” to “…in an instant”.

“UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Governor Dean, you often criticize the Bush administration for its secrecy.
How do you reconcile this with the steps you have taken to seal away documents from your time in Vermont?”

After twenty seconds of Mathews trying to find out if the questioner worked for George Bush (he doesn’t) we get this answer from Dean:

“DEAN: Yes. Every governor in Vermont and most governors around the country, maybe every governor for all I know, has a process by which certain records are sealed and certain records are left open. The vast majority of my records are open. You are welcome to go, as ever opposing campaign has done, and rummage through them for the next six months. There are some that are left private, and I don’t exactly know all the things that are in those because those are attorney to secretary of state negotiated. But some of the kinds of things might be a letter from a constituent saying, dear governor, I am an HIV, AIDS victim, can you please help me?
Now, those kinds of letters do not belong in the public, and they’re not. That’s why some records are sealed, and governor’s offices throughout the country.”

Vast majority? According to Judicial Watch, the group suing for their release, 40% of his records are sealed. 60% is hardly a “vast majority”.

Those are just a few of his whoppers. Dean is Clinton’s successor, he can’t stop lying.