Dean calls for end to ‘culture of corruption’
There is a reason that former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, now the Chairman of the Democratic Party, has become such a lighting rod. His willingness to speak truth to power has earned him the opprobrium of Republican kingmakers, who have been able to use the mainstream media to smear Dean as a hyperkinetic nutjob.
The reality is quite simple. Howard Dean calls it as he sees it, and what he sees is a Republican cabal (et tu, Scooter Libby??) using the power of being the majority party in order to line their pockets and ignore the American people. We have oil companies enjoying record profits while Americans pay record prices for gas. We have Americans dying in Iraq for a cause no one in the Administration can convincingly define or justify. We have CEOs using stockholder and employee money as if it was their own. Why is this all possible? Because Our Glorious Leader and his cabal are more concerned with their own self-enrichment, and with that of their friends, to the exclusion of the jobs they were hired by the American people to do.
Of course, 51% of y’all really ought to shoulder the blame for this one. YOU voted to re-elect the C Student in Chief and his corrupt cabal. This one’s on you, folks….
LEWISTON ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ The Bush White House is the most corrupt administration in U.S. history since President Warren G. Harding’s, said Howard Dean during his first visit to Maine as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Dean’s comments Saturday came as top White House advisers are being investigated for their roles in the outing of a CIA operative and Tom DeLay, the former second-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, faces conspiracy and money-laundering charges.
Well, while I don’t necessarily disagree with Gov. Dean’s righteous anger, calling the Bush Administration THE most corrupt Administration since the Harding Administration might be overstating things just a WEE bit. The Reagan Administration wasn’t exactly a model of probity and virtue, either. Even so, that debating point aside, Gov. Dean has a valid argument.
Here’s some food for though: no matter how much you might have hated Bill Clinton, and many of you still foam at the mouth at the mere mention of the word “Clinton”, the Clinton Administration would have collectively qualified for sainthood when compared to the Republican criminals currently inhabiting and befouling the White House. I seem to remember Our Glorious Leader promising to restore honor and dignity to the White House. How’s that working out for y’all??
“The first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to have ethics come back to Washington again,” said Dean, the keynote speaker at Saturday night’s annual fundraising dinner for the Maine Democratic Party at the Lewiston Armory.
To deal with the “culture of corruption,” Dean said, there needs to be an ethics code in Congress and stronger campaign finance laws.
Dean, a former Vermont governor who was once a front-runner in the 2004 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, alluded to criticism that Democrats have been too timid and vague in their message and have not capitalized on Republicans’ weaknesses.
Dean said that if Democrats don’t stand up for themselves, voters won’t have any reason to believe they would be well-represented.
“We have to stand up and say who we are and why we believe what we believe,” he said.
Dean said if the Democrats were to regain power, the party would be strong on national defense. He said the party never would send troops abroad without telling them the truth about why they were going, and without adequately arming them.
Dean said that Democrats also would make sure every American has access to health insurance.
“If 40 industrial nations can do it and balance the budget at the same time, it’s time to have somebody in the White House who can chew gum and think at the same time,” he said.
I couldn’t agree more, except that 51% of the electorate was either too stupid or too undemanding (or both) to use their vote to provide this country with honest, ethical leadership. Of course, it’s not as if the Democratic alternative was worth more than a bucket of warm spit, but at least John Kerry isn’t a corrupt, unethical, monomaniacal religious despot beloved by both Evangelicals AND Big Oil..
Sadly, the American people seem willing to accept far less than they deserve from their leader. Until and unless Democrats can come up with a program and a leader to provide a viable alternative to voters, we will continue to be saddled with whatever inept, demagogic mediocrities that Republicans kingmakers decide to forcefeed the American electorate. And increasing numbers of young Americans will continue to die in a senseless, immoral war of occupation in Iraq. Hey, that’s why we have black and brown people, right?
WE DESERVE BETTER.
