I still hope to get a chance to watch the debate that took place between Howard Dean and Richard Perle yesterday in Portland, Oregon, but I wanted to make some comments based on the CNN article I read this morning. Gotta say, I really loved this line by Dean:
Defense is a lot broader than swaggering around saying you're going to kick Saddam's butt," Dean said Thursday, drawing cheers from the crowd in this city that overwhelmingly voted Democratic last November.
And this one, which reminds me of some song lyrics I heard recently, making various analogies for the wrong-headed way we are fighting the "war on terror":
Dean also said the Bush administration has ignored the mounting threat in Iran and North Korea. "We picked the low hanging fruit in Iraq and did nothing" about the other, more dangerous regimes, he said.
Here's the "zinger" Perle got in, according to the CNN article about the debate:
Perle had his own barbs, too. He began his opening comments in the 11/2-hour debate by saying Democrats "looked at the Democratic Party and chose a physician to lead them."
Er, your point being...? With Commander Bunnypants seemingly prepared to lead our nation into war after war without offering us real, verifiable evidence of why we need to go to war, or the ability to ever admit he has been wrong, aren't a lot of us thinking "I don't feel so good..." We're, to say the least, a bit queasy about the whole situation. I mean, if Howard Dean was, say, a mortician, I could see a decent joke in there somewhere. But at this point in our nation's history, I think it is a good sign to be turning to a doctor...someone who is trained to diagnose what is wrong and then work to repair, heal, to make whole. It really is too bad that many Republican officials don't recognize the same need.
I've been trying to figure out an analogy for what the current administration has to offer (in contrast to the medical/healing/scientific approach). My husband suggested yesterday that a lot of politicians on both sides are comparable to a mechanic who is willing to disable that pesky "check engine light" on your car without finding out and addressing the reason the light is coming on. But at least you don't have to be bothered by that light any more, and don't have to worry about fixing anything major. For now...
http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/02/18/dean.perle.ap/