Dean Accuses Bush of Not Protecting Pensions

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/02/AR2005060201847.html

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean delivered a broadside at President Bush and the Republican Party yesterday, accusing the president of failing to protect private pensions in the United States and the GOP of embracing a "dark, difficult and dishonest vision" for the country.

The former Vermont governor and 2004 presidential candidate whipped up a liberal audience at the annual Take Back America conference hosted by the Campaign for America's Future with calls for election reform and attacks on what he called "the culture of corruption and abuse of power in Washington."

Former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards, who spoke later in the day, took aim at critics who say Democrats should modify their positions to make themselves more appealing to the public. "How about if we actually stand up and fight with passion for what we believe in?" he said to cheers from the audience.

<snip>

Dean also took a jab at the Republicans with the kind of throwaway line that delights audiences of rank-and-file Democrats but that sometimes has caused party leaders to cringe. Speaking about election reform, he said it is unconscionable for voters to have to stand in lengthy lines at polling places given the demands of work and family. "Republicans," he said, "I guess can do that because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives."

[Rose Siding]

1. There you go!

"Dean sought to broaden the debate over Bush's proposal to restructure Social Security to include the issue of private pensions..."- an alternate dem plan that *doesn't* futz with SocSec (about which THIS Congress should NOT be compromising)

Brilliant way to reframe the issue. It answers the critics who whine for a dem plan, gives something to the people that they need, and it is a DEM idea.

[Erika]

5. This country is in for a tidal wave

in the next few years and for the next generations as there is no way of funding for retirement purposes or health care. Many people planned on a combination of SS & pension plans to see them through to the end of life. The low-paying jobs being created by this administration don't pay enough for savings accounts. Pension plans are being cut left and right. Health care benefits are being cut or demolished.

Dean is right on.

[Cha]

2. This is the quote I like from Edwards..

"He also took issue with those who give Bush principal credit for promoting freedom and democracy abroad. "I want to be really clear about something," said the former senator from North Carolina. "America standing for freedom is not new, and freedom does not belong to one political party. And it does not just belong to our country."

[applegrove]

3. Not only that but some corporations are cooking the books using

pension funds and over-estimating the returns on their pension funds as a way to increase assets.

Bush is the leader while this goes on too.

He is responsible for trashing the economy.

He is responsible for it all.

[librechik]

4. GOOD one!

key word is "honest"--They all make a living, but with Republicans, they gotta be bad boys. Lawless and greedy they are.

[Spiffarino]

6. Sock it to 'em, Howie.

I love that guy.

YEAAAARRRRHHH!!!! :D

[WyLoochka]

7. Did anyone else have the reaction I had?

I could not stop laughing . . . for the longest time

"Republicans, I guess can do that because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives."

Bwhah hooo who who whahahaha - Whoo - Haaa

I'm gonna start all over again- rolling all over the floor

Go Doc Dean

[SoCalDem]

8. Didn't protect the COUNTRY

:(

[LuPeRcALiO]

9. "The president wants to take away our Social Security"

'He suggested that Bush is responsible for the failure of private industry to protect those pensions. "The president wants to take away our Social Security," he said, "and then he's going to take away the private pension plans, too? What does he think ordinary Americans live on after they get to be 65 years old?"'

Exactly.

[cthrumatrix]

30. it seems the media has a hard time asking that question...Dean is right

[Iowa]

10. Excellent!

Dean nailed it!

[lovuian]

11. Go Dean!!! Not Protecting is right Making them Open Season!!!

Yikes!!!

[oxbow]

12. THIS IS THE GOP MYTH THE'RE GOING TO DRIVE HOME THE NEXT 2 YEARS:

In a statement, Republican National Committee press secretary Tracey Schmitt charged Dean with engaging in an angry diatribe, saying the comment "makes it clear that Dean's priority is to generate mudslinging headlines rather than engage in substantive debate."


I was present for that speech, and if their journalist was too, he would have known that Dean made it very clear there that what Democrats really need to do is to offer real solutions, and not just tell the American people what the radical right is doing wrong. I am very disappointed by this weak attempt at balance, where both sides are given equal space to express themselves, but one side is lying. A journalist's job should be to critically examine the claims of both sides, not just be a transcriber.

report bias: [e-mail]

[stickdog]

13. kick

[Zorra]

14. Dean: GOP has 'dark, difficult and dishonest' vision

By Jill Lawrence USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean advised party activists Thursday to reach out to evangelicals and voters in all 50 states, but then risked alienating potential GOP converts by suggesting many Republicans don't work for "an honest living."

Dean's comment came as he recalled conditions at crowded Ohio polling stations last fall. He wondered who could expect voters to work all day and then stand in line for eight hours to vote. "Well, Republicans, I guess, can do that because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives," he said, drawing some surprised "oohs" from his audience.

Most of Dean's speech at the "Take Back America" conference here was met with whoops, cheers and standing ovations as he attacked Republicans for "the culture of corruption and the abuse of power" in Washington, and accused the Bush administration of ignoring corporate "stealing" of pensions canceled during bankruptcy proceedings.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-06-02-dean-republicans_x.htm

I like it. A lot.:)

[Melodybe]

15. Love the Dean quote, hate the POS article.

[truthisfreedom]

16. the thugs hate how much Dean distracts everybody. he's great! with him

at the helm, i'm donating more money to the party this year.

[w13rd0]

17. The god of these "evangelicals"...

...needs to visit upon them a vision. It's a vision that condemns strongly wars launched on lies, admonishes societies to care for the living and the least. These people should take a hard look at the false prophets they are following, because the future they lead us into is one very dark indeed.

[Born Free]

18. that's our man

I supported Dean and still do, some times it takes tough language to wake up people, too bad if it hurt their feelings a little - but then they used to say the truth always hurts a little. Call it "tough love" just as the GOP likes to treat the less fortunate in our society.

[fujiyama]

19. USA today

is a worthless 'news' paper. The wording is made to make Dems and/or Dean look intolerant or inconsistance.

Personally I like Dean's comments. Most people aren't swayed one way or the other by the party chairperson.

It's not really Dean's job to make converts out of people. It's to raise money, and inspite of the BusinessWeek article (which didn'tr reveal the whole truth), Dean has been doing a fine job in that area.

At the least he's got us excited, and by 'us' I mean Deaniacs and non Deaniacs alike.

[JNelson6563]

20. It was a great speech

He hit on so many things, one being election reform. He said we need voting machines that allow us to recount the votes. The crowd applauded very loudly at this.

Julie

[cornermouse]

21. Dishonesty is at the core of everything Bush does.

[Voltaire99]

22. Reach out to evangelicals? Sheesh.

Yes, that's going to do a lot of good. Be ready to turn the other cheek repeatedly if you follow that silly advice.

Better Dean had said, "Fuck evangelicals," because that's exactly what they intend for us in their very public, very blatant theocratic lusting.

Reaching out isn't going to help at all; once again, party HQ is quick with looney recommendations of appeasement based on a superficial representation of right wing values. Daily we see the proof that the right doesn't care what language you speak to it, or how you appear to try to comfort or understand or appease it. It wants what it wants. And is unafraid to get it. You won't hear its leaders telling activists to swallow their bile and "reach out" to Democrats.

Yes, the doc still lets fire with an occasional ill-tempered quotable remark ("never made an honest living in their lives"), proving there's still something left of a spirit inside the suit. It's amusing to see how his doing so promptly sets all kind of timid Democratic hearts aflutter--just look at the mewling in USA Today by the Third Way surrender monkey and the Kerry flak. Would that Dean showed such fire more often.

In fact, those centrist crybabies should stop fretting. On policy, Dean's no danger. He's as exciting as wearing three condoms: his abortion surrender earlier this year and now his evangelical pandering will get the country and our cause nowhere, even if it does help him fill the party's coffers with more corporate money. Unfortunately, those aren't necessarily mutual interests.

[wellst0nev0ter]

23. David Axelrod And Matt Bennet

Two of the goto "media Dems" which is exactly what's hurting the party.

[UpInArms]

24. related: Hannity Distorts Dean's Words Again

http://www.newshounds.us/2005/06/02/hannity_distorts_deans_words_again.php

Hannity, so confident that his distortions will go unchallenged, tries to discredit Howard Dean every time the man utters a word. Today Dean spoke at the Take Back America Conference in Washington,DC and Hannity took a few of his comments and sculpted them until they could be used as weapons against Dean and all Democrats. Michael Reagan was on hand to help Hannity mislead the viewers on H&C tonight and Roy Neel, Dean Campaign,became the victim of their irrational, predictable and tiresome gang up routine.

Hannity loves to paint Dean as a wild man just running around the country saying mean things about the poor Republicans. Of course, the viewers never get to hear more than one or two sentences from Dean. Here is an excerpt from Dean's speech today from Alternet.This speech can hardly be characterized as hate filled or irresponsible.

There was a film clip shown of Dean talking about hard working people having difficulty getting to the polls on election day after working and taking care of their kids at the end of the day. He made a comment about some Republicans not understanding what it's like to put in an honest days work. Roy Neel gave the comment more clarity claiming that Dean was talking about the problems in Ohio with inadequate voting booths leaving people waiting for hours at night in the rain.Most of these problems were in working class neighborhoods.

...more...

link to Dean's speech: http://www.alternet.org/story/22145/

and here was an editorial regarding Dean that was pretty interesting:

What If Howard Dean Was Right?

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/6/22005mf.asp

AgapePress) - What if -- work with me on this, now -- what if, in his desperate plea to harvest more votes among people of faith in the next election cycle, Howard Dean said something profound?

Far-fetched, I know, but listen to this: "I didn't see it in the Republican platform anywhere, but I saw in the Bible that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven" -- a bold proclamation, that, coming from a rich man, physician and politician named Dean.

He continues: "It is a moral value to walk with the least among us. Those moral values are consistent with Democratic values, with American values, and they are sorely lacking with the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who preach one thing and are hypocritical. We need to kick the money changers out of the temple and restore values to America again."

...more...

then Arriana goes for it also:

Make Iraq Topic #1

http://www.alternet.org/sms/22152/

Editor's Note: The following is the speech Arianna Huffington gave at the Take Back America conference on June 2, 2005. A video of the speech can also be viewed here.

At the opening dinner last night, Richard Parker, in presenting an award to John Kenneth Galbraith, read from a letter Galbraith had written to JFK in 1961: "The right," he wrote, "will always criticize reasonableness as softness... When they speak of total victory they invite total annihilation. They aren't brave but suicidal. There is a curious superficial pugnacity about the American people, which, I am persuaded, does not go very deep. They applaud the noisy man but they reconsider if they think him dangerous. We must make it clear that these men are dangerous."

It's time the Democratic Party stopped being afraid of upsetting Wall Street and Big Pharma. Drug companies will pocket $139 billion in profits as a result of the new Medicare prescription drug law alone. Can you believe passing a prescription benefit that doesn't allow the government to negotiate bulk-purchasing discounts? If you were the CEO of a private company signing off on a deal like that, you'd be fired.

There has been a lot said after the election about moral values. If Democrats want a moral values issue they can call their own, why not start with the immoral behavior of giant drug companies such as Merck that not only pocket massive profits at the expense of the taxpayer, but continue to sacrifice the health of the public on the alter of higher and higher profits. Indeed, as many as 55,000 patients may have died as a result of taking Vioxx, which Merck continued to advertise even while in possession of studies that showed that it greatly increased the risk of heart attacks.

...more...

[rugger]

25. Dean does more harm than good

For Dems to win, we can' do it by appealing to the extreme left. We need to appeal to those who waffle in the center.

There's one thing to palying hardball, but saying that the right never earned anything? That's useless, rhetorical name calling.

I like Howard Dean, but this strategy will fail. It will alienate those we need to recruit to the Dems.

[BulletproofLandshark]

26. If calling out the GOP

seeing through their bullshit, and working to make the country better for EVERYONE is "appealing to the extreme left", then I want nothing to do with the middle anyway. We didn't start this war of ideology, but with more patriots like Howard Dean, I'm optimistic that we can damn sure win it.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

27. Exactly. Because it's been working so well.

:eyes:

[bleedingheart]

28. oh and the GOP name calling hasn't worked.....like "waffle" or "flip flop"

[zippy890]

29. ?"..those who waffle in the center"?

is that who 'we' need to appeal to?
:wtf:

[Spiffarino]

31. Respectfully must disagree, Ruggs.

We need a fighter. Dean's "shoot from the lip" style is just what it will take to stir up passionate Dems and get them out working hard for change.

It may do a little damage in the short term, but I think it's just the kind of adrenaline the DNC has needed for many years. Dean's job is to bring money and volunteers to the Democratic Party. He's doing a pretty good job on both counts right now, but wait 'til the midterm election cycle gears up...it's gonna be amazing.