Howard Dean

OpinionJournal.com carries part of the transcript of Howard Dean and Tim Russert. Pretty good stuff, and kudos to Russert:


Russert: Republicans will say that the Democrats are speaking a different tune now than they did when they were in control. Robert Byrd, when he was a majority leader in '79, said, "Now, we are at the beginning of Congress. This Congress is not obliged to be bound by the dead hand of the past." And the filibuster used to need 67 votes. They changed it to 60.

Dean: Mm-hmm. . . .

Dean: When the Republicans were in power, they kept a much larger percentage of President Clinton's nominees to the bench. They didn't do it with the filibuster, they did it by bottling them up in committee and not allowing them to move forward.

Russert: The numbers are pretty similar actually.

Dean: OK. They're similar. . . .

Russert: Well, you said there were weapons of mass destruction.

Dean: Some of the things that the president said on our way into Iraq, they just weren't true, and I don't think that's right. So--

Russert: Such as?

Dean: Such as the weapons of mass destruction, which we have all known about, but the--

Russert: Well, you said there were weapons of mass destruction.

Dean: I said I wasn't sure, but I said I thought there probably were. . . .

Russert: When did the president ever suggest that Saddam Hussein was responsible for September 11?

Dean: He didn't. . . .

Russert: Let me stay on your rhetoric. January, I mentioned that [you said] "I hate the Republicans, what they stand for, good and evil, we are the good." In March, you said, "Republicans are brain dead." You mentioned you're a physician--and this is April. "[Dean] did draw howls of laughter by mimicking a drug-snorting Rush Limbaugh. 'I'm not very dignified,'
Dean said."

Dean: Well, that's true. A lot of people have accused me of not being dignified.

Howard Dean