HuffPost: Dean Was Right

[Turn CO Blue]

by Cenk Uygur (This blogger knocks it out of the park every time!)

Dean Was Right

General Eric K. Shinseki was right when he said we needed more troops for the war in Iraq. General Anthony Zinni was right when he said our preparations for the war were so negligent that it was a dereliction of duty. George H. W. Bush was right when he said we would be perceived as “an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land” if we went into Iraq. But most of all, Howard Dean was right because he had the most complete warning – don’t do it!

For this Dean was labeled an extremist. I assume the mainstream media would like to apologize now for being so wrong about Howard Dean. They apologize at the drop of a hat if conservatives complain they got any detail of a story wrong. Where’s the apology to Dean -- you were right about Iraq, we were wrong!

If you don’t believe that Howard Dean was right about the war, then read his February 17, 2003 address at Drake University a month before the invasion:

<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/cenk-uygur/dean-was-right_5772.html>

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You just gotta read the whole post, and then you have to read the whole speech to which Uygur is referring.

Dean was dead-on about how we wouldn't be greeted as liberators, about how the troops would have to fight house to house, about how the sectarian and tribal tensions would escalate into big problems, about the possible extent of civilian casualties.

[mike_c]

1. say it loud-- DEAN WAS RIGHT!

So was Kucinich. And Cobb, for that matter. And Nader, and Camejo. And Feingold, Boxer, Durbin, Levin, Reed, and Wellstone. And all the other democrats who stood up for America and voted NO! to Bush's fascist war of aggression. I am as proud of them as I'm ashamed of the ones who enabled the invasion.

[Turn CO Blue]

2. I wish I had known then what I know now...

I wasn't hooked into the Internet during the run-up to the war and during the primaries.

But now I know. Thank God for the blogosphere and progressive discussion forums ESPECIALLY DU!

[pstans]

3. When are more people going to realize this?

They got all over him when he said that capturing Sadaam didn't make us safer and guess what? We aren't safer.

Dean just tells the truth and the Republicans just think it is hell.

[Turn CO Blue]

4. I love listening to Howie speak...even so, I wonder

when did speaking PLAINLY become so admirable and heroic???!!! It's verging on the ridiculous, if you think about it.

On DU everyone pretty much puts their thoughts and viewpoints in different ways -- but rarely are they subtle.

[eridani]

10. Stan Cox did a parody on this

http://www.counterpunch.org/cox02162004.html

Cattle in a Pen
(Goodbye Howard Dean)
By STAN COX

with apologies to Bernie Taupin and Elton John

Goodbye Howard Dean.
Though I never backed you at all,
You could glimpse reality,
And make those around you bawl.
You said "Don't take sides with Israel,"
And they made you feel the pain.
You questioned 9/11,
And they made you slink in shame.

And it seems to me we live our lives
Like some cattle in a pen,
Never knowing who to vote for
Till the returns are in.
Our eyes are on November
Where the treasure's hid.
The ideas burned out long before
The losers ever did.

As the dentist checked Saddam,
You said "We are no more secure."
And your fellow Democrats?
They buried you in deep manure.
Even as you faded,
Oh the press still hounded you.
All the papers had to say
Was that Howard always flubs his cue.

And it seems to me we live our lives
Like some cattle in a pen,
Never chewing what's not fed us
By the suited men.
From now until November
They're keeping on the lid.
The ideas burned out long before
The losers ever did.

[Carolab]

5. Dean IS right. He's always BEEN right.

It was so frustrating for those of us who supported his campaign when others didn't get it and fell for the media's "madman with a scream" crap.

[silverweb]

6. Dean's been right from the beginning.

He's also smart enough to not hold his breath waiting for apologies that will never come.

[Turn CO Blue]

7. morning kick.

[Larkspur]

8. Dean has political courage which the Dem Establishment doesn't

..The mainstream press and the Democratic establishment have never understood why Howard Dean is so popular among the people when they find him distasteful. It’s so simple – he has the courage to tell the truth in the face of political pressure.

He was vilified and labeled “unelectable” because he stood up for what was right. And they still wonder why people look up to him.

Remember when Howard Dean said capturing Saddam Hussein wasn’t going to make us any safer. Again, the media pounced. How dare he?! Again, they were wrong, and he was right.

After the Iraqi elections, Newsweek ran a cover story called, “What Bush Got Right.” This comical premise was based on the idea that since the Iraqis had elections, which was the bare minimum we were promised, that everything else Bush said about the war might also be right. Isn’t it time for Newsweek and similar magazines to run the far more accurate story about how Dean was right on almost all of his pre-war predictions? I’m still waiting for the real story: “What Dean Got Right.”

I also have to say that Al Gore was right on Sep. 23, 2002 with his speech on opposing IWR and pre-emptive strike doctrine. I saw a lot of Al Gore in Dean's speech.

[Puzzler]

9. Yeah well...

... they need to do a lot of apologizing. Since Dean was right about EVERYTHING!!!


-P