Give ’em hell, Howard! Did you get DNC chair Howard Dean’s Shame On Them! message so you can send a letter of support to Jack Murtha?
Early today, Howard Dean spoke out for Jack Murtha and his Iraq war plan on Air America’s Morning Sedition, far and away the best show on Air America:
MARK MARON: Well, look, Dr. Dean, I just gotta ask you right out, is there any way that we can get all the Democrats to agree that this war is the wrong thing right now and we’ve got to bring these troops home?
HOWARD DEAN: I think there is, and I think we’re pretty close. I think Jack Murtha’s leadership is just incredible. Oddly enough, the plan to get out, that I think we can get Democrats to coalesce around is a plan written by a Republican. By Lawrence Korb, who’s a former Undersecretary of Defense.
MARON: We know him–he was on our show.
DEAN: He’s a very bright guy, and he’s written a very interesting piece which I think is the key to how you get out of Iraq without endangering our troops or maximizing the terrorists’ ability to cause mayhem over there. And I know Jack [MURTHA] talked to him before he came out with his redeployment strategy. … (from the transcript being typed in full, as I write, by Renee in Ohio on Howard-Empowered People, via the always-on-the-ball Howie in Seattle (whose mailing list and blog are a must-read).
“And I know Jack [MURTHA] talked to him before he came out with his redeployment strategy,” Dean says… and I wonder, where have I been? I haven’t seen Korb’s piece.
So, I go looking for this important article by the former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Here it is:
A strategic reduction and redeployment of forces would make us safer and help stabilize the Middle East
BY LAWRENCE KORB AND BRIAN KATULIS
November 17, 2005
The Senate’s strong bipartisan support on Tuesday for a resolution calling for concrete steps toward a drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq shows that Republicans and Democrats alike are unhappy with President George W. Bush’s direction and leadership of the war.
The Bush administration’s numerous mistakes – sending in too few troops and not providing proper guidance or equipment – as well as its frequent changes in the strategy for Iraq’s political transition and reconstruction, have left us with no good options. …
BELOW the fold, more of Howard Dean’s conversation with Marc Maron this morning — and more about Dean’s views on Korb’s plan to get out of Iraq the right way:
[continuing Dean’s comment from above the fold] Dean: He’s a very bright guy, and he’s written a very interesting piece which I think is the key to how you get out of Iraq without endangering our troops or maximizing the terrorists’ ability to cause mayhem over there. And I know Jack [MURTHA] talked to him before he came out with his redeployment strategy.
We need to redeploy our troops, the Guardsmen need to come home, there need to be a group sent to Kuwait to be on hand for the terrorist attacks, and there needs to be a group sent to Afghanistan so we can do the job there which the government wants us to do, and then we’ll leave a few troops in Iraq over 2006 in order to stabilize the situation there which the President’s made a huge mess of.
So, I think that’s a reasonable plan–I think Democrats ought to coalesce around. I think we can do that.
It’s gradual.
The Republicans have practically signed onto it in the Senate. They know their Commander in Chief has got us into a big problem here. And you start to see them peeling away. You saw the Senate pass a resolution that 2006 should be the year of transition . Well, that was a step in the right direction for the Republicans to take, and I …
Maron: So you think that what happened last week with the Republicans hijacking Jack Murtha’s proposal and making their own to sort of call them on what they’re seeing as some sort of bluff was the right move?
Dean: Oh, I think that the Democrats voting no on the Republican thing–that Republican proposal was just ridiculous. They did what they always do: they rewrote something, pretended it was honest, I mean, this is probably the most dishonest group of people we’ve had running America since Richard Nixon’s administration. They actually reminde me a lot of Nixon’s administration as well. You got Cheney in there talking about “pusillanimous pussyfooters” and you got the President out there saying “Victory is at hand”. (Laughter) These guys, they wouldn’t know the truth if it hit them in the face.
[MARK] Riley [Morning Sedition co-host]: Dr. Dean, can red state Democrats, who seem to be the ones that at times will peel away from the Democratic consensus on many of these issues, particularly the ones who are up for re-election next year whether in Congress or the Senate, can they be depended on to stay the course on this? To hold with the rest of the Democrats?
Dean: I think they can, but I think we’ve got to sit down and draw this consensus and get people to sign on to this Lawrence Korb position. I think it makes sense, it’s gradual. The Republicans have practically signed onto it in the Senate. They know their Commander in Chief has got us into a big problem here. And you start to see them peeling away. You saw the Senate pass a resolution that 2006 should be the year of transition . Well, that was a step in the right direction for the Republicans to take, and I was just delighted.
Maron: In terms of the Democrats who are seeking re-election, in terms of the Democrats coming together as we were talking about, do you think it’s right to do what former Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards did and admit that he was wrong in voting for the war in Iraq?
Dean: I think that was pretty courageous and it got a lot of attention. He didn’t come out and dance around, he said, “Look, I was wrong. ” Period. That was the first sentence of his piece, and I thought that was pretty courageous.
Maron: And what about some of the other parts of the platform you’re looking towards in terms of the Democratic momentum.
Dean: Our agenda is very clear. What we want is, one, honesty back in government, and I want to have tough legislation passed that both Democrats and Republicans will have to abide by. Two, I really do want health insurance for all Americans. ?6 other countries have it, I think we should have it. Three, we want a balanced budget, only Democrats balance the budget. You can’t trust Republicans–they haven’t done it in 40 years in America. Four, we want jobs in America that will stay in America, and I think renewable energy is the key to that. And I think that’s a pretty succinct agenda for the American people.
Maron: Hey, it sounds good.”
-via the post by Renee in Ohio on Howard-Empowered People. She will be updating this post to include more of Dean’s comments “shortly.”
Special thanks to Howie in Seattle.
P.S. Here’s another important new piece by Korb: “A Marshall Plan for the third world,” from the Center for Defense Information on Nov 17, 2005.