Howard Dean On Hannity and Colmes

Okay, we had our television set turned to Fox News, the *cough* fair and balanced station, for almost an hour, just because of the promise that Howard Dean would be on Hannity and Colmes. Our television is *never* tuned in to Fox--when we program in the cable channels we even leave that one out. Of course, we kept getting the "coming up" and "after the break" promises, but Howard Dean wasn't on until almost the very end of the show. I think our television may now need to be ritually purified in some way.

One of the times when they said "Coming up", there was a banner that said "Colmes vs. Dean"? Versus? Heh. For some reason my mind goes back to the old Life Cereal commercials with "Mikey" and tries to get this to fit...

"You debate him"
"I'm not gonna debate him--you debate him!"
"Let's get Alan!"
"He won't debate him--he's wimpier than everyone!"
"He's debating him! Hey, Alan!"

Here's the interview. I missed Alan's first question, so the transcript begins with Howard's first response.

Howard: Well, the situation obviously has been awful for the people of Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama. You know, one thing Bill Clinton did really well was to have a strong Federal Emergency Management Agency. And the Bush administration just went back to turning it into a dumping ground for people who evidently didn't have anything else to do. And it's really too bad, because now people have paid for that with their lives.

Alan: The president did say "I take personal responsibility".

Howard: Well, I think that's one thing. But there's a lot of people dead and a lot of people without their homes. Those people needed help, on time. They didn't need help and somebody to take responsibility two weeks after the fact.

Alan: Is it the governor's responsibility--as you divide the responsibility--

Howard: Here's how it works. I had seven or nine of these--I can't remember--when I was governor. Of course nothing to this extent. The way it works is the governor takes over the National Guard responsibilities first and then asks for help from FEMA--especially when it's something of this sort. There was a big squabble over who was going to have control. The thing that's so disturbing is that the Congressional Research Service, which is totally nonpartisan, came out today and said that Governor Blanco did everything she could. Which means, obviously, that they thought the real screw-ups were at the federal level. And they were. I mean, FEMA used to be incompetent when George Bush's father was in there. Clinton really cleaned them up and put James Lee Witt in charge--who was by far the best FEMA director of any administration and now the president's messed it up again. It's unfair to American citizens, because people need their help when they need their help.

Alan: We had Bill Frist on our show last night and we played for him what you had said about him prioritizing getting rid of the death tax (sic)--750 billion dollars--and you said it's a moral choice how do we spend that money, if we have that amount of money to spend. And he said it's really not a choice. That we're putting all of this money into reconstruction and so he kind of pooh-poohed the idea that there *is* a moral choice to be made.

Howard: Well, there are three things you can do. You can run the biggest deficits in the history of the country which we're doing right now, you can rebuild New Orleans, you can get rid of the estate tax. Now, the Republicans, including Senator Frist, chose to get rid of the estate tax, and evidently they say they're going to rebuild New Orleans. Which means we're going to have twice as high a deficit. When is this going to stop? These people are completely irreponsible financially. We need to balance the budget *some day* in this country. And to spend 750 billion dollars giving a tax break to 20,000 American families, as opposed to the rest of the 280 million of them, I think is morally *wrong*. We *did* have moral choices to make--we've made the wrong choices again and again and again, and we're paying for this very dearly. Moral choices *not* just in terms of favoring getting rid of the estate tax over dealing with the deficit, but moral choices in terms of downgrading FEMA, not putting the money into levee reconstruction--this is the wrong moral choice.

Alan: You've said that President Bush doesn't care about all of the American people, and you've said something similar about Judge Roberts--that he may love the law but doesn't necessarily love the American people. Do you ever have a concern about rhetoric that you may put out like that, that may be more divisive than uniting?

Howard: I think it's true. I think it's time somebody told the truth. The president said he was a uniter, and turned out to be the most divisive president probably in our history, except perhaps before the Civil War. This is a divisive president, and he got there by not telling the truth. The truth is that there are a lot of people who it turns out, through no fault of their own, really got hammered in this, and they didn't get any help from the federal government. There are a lot of women, for example, who couldn't participate in sports. My wife didn't have equal access to sports; my daughter did. Judge Roberts wants to undo that according to his writings. I think that those things that I say are true, and therefore they need to be said. You can't fix something if you're not willing to point your finger at it.

Alan: Barack Obama the other day talked about active racism versus a kind of passive, more innocent kind of negligence. Are they both equally racism and equally reprehensible?

Howard: I think, Alan, you have a mixture of both. I do *not* think President Bush is a racist. I know him personally, and I've never heard him say anything like that. And I don't think he's a homophobe either. But the effect of what he does, does hurt poor people disproporionately, and poor people are members of minority communities. The effect of what he does, does harm gay people disproportionately. So, the argument I would make with both the president and John Roberts is, they may not be overtly racist, but their actions contribute to harm for vulnerable people. And that includes women, it includes members of minority groups including Hispanics and African Americans. It includes anybody that doesn't look like them, and I think that's a problem.

Alan: Today, though, he did talk about the Civil Rights Act and of course how he believes in the 1965 act, and he talked about the right to privacy, and he did amend some of the things he had written back in 1981, and seemed to say the kind of things you would think Democrats would want to hear, stare decisis, the idea of established law as applied to Roe vs. Wade. Is that enough to say, "Look, maybe we should really look at this person--that he *might* be the appropriate judge?"

Howard: Alan, I didn't hear any *answers* today. I heard a lot of legal mumbo jumbo and a lot of dancing around... He is an *accomplished* attorney, there's no question about that. The question is, does he have the interests of the American people in his heart. Let me tell you what I mean by that. This is a guy who is very bright, and nobody can argue with that. This is a guy who's accomplished. But if you don't have compassion, then how can you really be a leader of the American people.

Alan: Do you believe that he's a racist?

Howard: No. I don't think there's any evidence of him being an overt racist but I think that his decisions have had the effect of harming, disproportionately, women, African Americans, and Hispanics.
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While I was still working on this transcript, listener wrote in the comments:

(I think your television WAS ritually purified by having the abominable hour end with Howard.)

True that. Howard's truth-telling can have an amazing detoxifying effect.
UPDATE: Thank you, jc, for providing the link to the Congressional Research Service Report (PDF)