Howard Dean Should We Let Him Continue to Talk?

Howard Dean never ceases to amaze me. The screaming former Governor and now DNC head was a divisive bulldog during the election and now has ratchet up the rhetoric as DNC Chair.

I hate hearing what he says - it is always insensitive and inflammatory - but I am always left with two questions: 1) Why does he get away with what he says. If a Republican said anything close to what Dean alleged the mainstream media would crucify him. 2) Should he be silenced or is he doing more good for the Republicans by being allowed to talk?

Monday's comments at a San Antonio radio station perhaps took the cake. If this were 1945, or even 1952, Dean would be in irons being ready to be prosecuted for treason and giving aid and comfort to the enemy. The United States doesn't work that way anymore. It is a self loathing collective of politically correct weaklings apologizing constantly and changing policies that should be universally accepted because one person objects. I was taught everyone in America has a right to an opinion, but in a Democracy (or representative republic) the majority rules. Not any more.

Dean told radio station WOAI that "the idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong." How is that not demotivating for the military? How quickly do you think those statements hit the Arab media fueled by the Liberal jet engines of AP and Reuters?

To President Bush's credit, he didn't take long to slam back. He called Dean a pessimist trying to score political points and said, "I know we're going to win, and our troops need to hear not only that they are supported but that we have got a strategy that will win." Bush said the scheduled Iraqi elections December 15 and the trial of Saddam Hussein are proof of progress in Iraq.



To Dean, Cindy Sheehan and other way Left Liberal Dem's chagrin, Iraq is not Vietnam. As posted a few months ago, it is more dangerous for an American to be living in DC or Atlanta than in Baghdad. You'd never know it by watching the mainstream media. This will never escalate the way that Kennedy and Johnson allowed Vietnam to. There are currently 1/60th the casualties in Iraq as Vietnam as a whole and 1/10th the number over similar time periods. No, this is not Vietnam, but the 60's started this politically correct, minority rule allowance and it is the only wireframe these folks have to go by.

Dean is a pessimist, but so is the entire Democratic leadership. I was challenged by a colleague to name one piece of legislation or solution a Democrat had introduced since the 2004 election. I came up empty. I found not ONE piece of beneficial legislation was created solely by a Democrat. There has been some bi-partisan legislation but nothing on the left side of the aisle. It is telling. There is a great deal of rhetoric and hate speech from the Left espousing their hatred for Bush and the war, but no solutions. They criticize the military, Bush and Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, the whole administration but offer no solutions or input - just criticism.

The longer Dean and his cronies are allowed to speak in progressively larger and larger platforms the more clear it will become how little they have to offer. They are a vocal minority being served by the politically correct and the politically motivated main stream media. As the mid-term elections heat up the rhetoric will increase, but it will matter little.

The people of Iraq will vote in their election on December 15th. The US will announce it's force reductions as a result of the elections. Saddam Hussein will be tried, will appeal and lose and then will be sentenced. The world will turn the page, and if we are lucky, the scholars of this age will write the history accurately that the US and this administration are liberators and fighters for freedom and not imperialist fascists as many on the left characterize them.

Until then, let Howard and his cronies continue to talk and watch the GOP win.