{"id":6022,"date":"2005-12-07T14:59:32","date_gmt":"2005-12-07T19:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6022"},"modified":"2005-12-07T14:59:32","modified_gmt":"2005-12-07T19:59:32","slug":"howard-deans-familiar-choice-of-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/howard-deans-familiar-choice-of-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Howard Dean’s familiar choice of words"},"content":{"rendered":"

DNC Chairman Howard Dean, who, as some may have noticed, has a tendency to make headlines with controversial remarks, raised a few eyebrows yesterday for suggesting that the United States may not win<\/a> the war in Iraq.<\/p>\n

“The idea that we’re going to win this war is an idea that unfortunately is just plain wrong,” Dean told San Antonio radio station WOAI-AM on Monday. He drew a parallel to Vietnam, saying officials had said victory in that war would come in “just another year, just stay the course … and it cost us 25,000 brave American soldiers in Vietnam, and I don’t want to go down that road again.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The White House and the entire Republican Machine immediately pounced with the kind of response you’d expect<\/a>, while several Dems distanced themselves<\/a> from the comments. I’ll concede that Dean could have been far more artful in how he chose his words, but before the political world throws too big a fit, there are a few things to keep in mind.<\/p>\n

First, there may be a problem with context. I haven’t seen a full transcript of the interview, but Karen Finney, the DNC’s communications director, said that Dean was referring to Bush’s “permanent commitment to a failed strategy” that was doomed to fail. Second, Dean’s sentiments aren’t terribly different from Sen. Chuck Hagel’s (R-Neb.) comments a few months ago when he said the White House’s policies in Iraq are “completely disconnected from reality,” adding, “The reality is that we’re losing in Iraq<\/a>.” I don’t recall GOP attack dogs lashing out at Hagel and accusing him of undermining the war and troop morale.<\/p>\n

And, finally, let’s not forget that George W. Bush, in August 2004, in the midst of the war, told a national television audience that he doesn’t believe<\/a> it’s even possible to win a war on terror.<\/p>\n

When asked “Can we win?” the war on terror, Bush said: “I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If I can borrow the Republican talking points for a moment, what do you suppose it says to our enemies around the globe when the commander-in-chief says he doesn’t think we can win a war on terror? How do you suppose the men and women in uniform feel when they hear the president say we can’t win the war they’re fighting?<\/p>\n

Now, some of this is tongue-in-cheek; I know what Bush meant and his point was, of course, legitimate. My point is that the rhetoric about treason<\/a> from conservatives need not be such a knee-jerk reaction every time a Dem criticizes the war effort. Bush didn’t mean we should surrender to terrorists in August 2004, and Dean didn’t either yesterday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DNC Chairman Howard Dean, who, as some may have noticed, has a tendency to make headlines with controversial remarks, raised a few eyebrows yesterday for suggesting that the United States may not win the war in Iraq. “The idea that we’re going to win this war is an idea that unfortunately is just plain wrong,” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}