I Heart Dean

Howard Dean and Richard Perle had a debate in Portland yesterday and I have to say I am very very happy that the Democratic Party selected Dean as their chairman. Ever since he has been in the chair I keep seeing story after story in the news quoting him on one thing or the other and these quotes warm me heart.

For instance, in the debate today Dean gave voice to things I have thought about and said for years but haven't heard anyone from the left speaking publicly echoing my thoughts except in the most rarest of occassions. Things like:

"Defense is a lot broader than swaggering around saying you're going to kick Saddam's butt,"

and

"We picked the low hanging fruit in Iraq and did nothing" about the other, more dangerous regimes

Music to my ears :)
For his part Richard Perle did his best to keep up, with such memorable lines as:

"Democrats]..."looked at the Democratic Party and chose a physician to lead them."

or ...

"I will be surprised, yet again, if we do not see a square in Baghdad named after this president."

that last one sounds familiar *snicker* oh yeah, he said it once before at the beginning of the Iraq war only he claimed then that it would happen within a year.

Wrong then .... wrong now. And by the way, what's wrong with picking a doctor to lead the party anyway ... last time I looked Bill Frist was a doctor as well and the Repugs seem to like him just fine as Leader of the House ...... Oh I get it.

Dean is a democrat.

LINK

[UPDATE] Somone wrote a great Diary over at The Daily Kos after attending the debate in person. In the diary they mentioned another terrific quote by the good doctor. The diarist paraphrases the quote as:

"Before I respond I want to say that Richard has attempted to do something that I'm not going to let him get away with, and that is frame the debate. As chairman I don't intend to let them continue to frame the debate."

PS: BTW someone threw a shoe at Perle during the debate. I found that most interesting. Yes I most certainly did.

IA