Howard News Update

Well since it's Wednesday, it's probably time to put up a new thread with some news about Howard.

Dean Calls For Declassification

Georgia10 posted a front-page diary on this story over at Daily Kos.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean this morning called on the Bush administration to declassify a 2003 Defense Intelligence Agency-sponsored report that undercuts a key administration claim about Saddam Hussein-era Iraqi weapons....

Dean, at this morning's [American] Prospect breakfast meeting with roughly two dozen journalists, said, "We are going to call, probably today, for the declassification of the report." He wouldn't say whether he had already spoken to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi about this strategy, but one source said that such conversations would commence today, and that Dean would likely appear on television this afternoon to press the claim. "If the [Post] story is accurate," Dean said, "...then the onus is on the president to prove that he did not mislead the country." He sharpened this point later, saying that if the Post was correct, then Bush did mislead the country, and it was either a case of "incompetence, or it was deliberate. And those are both very, very serious." (Tapped)

CT-SEN: DNC will support eventual nominee

At the same breakfast meeting this morning, Howard was asked about Joe Lieberman and the Connecticut senate race. Howard replied that the DNC would not get involved with the primary (in keeping with yesterday's NYTimes story about Jim Dean & Ned Lamont), but that the DNC would support the eventual Democratic nominee. Howard also singled out Lieberman as an 'outlier' on national security. (MyDD.com)

And speaking of the NYTimes story, did anyone else find it odd that BFA did not at least mention it in the daily news roundup, even though Jim was a major figure?


Democrats Forget Their Differences, for One Night

On a rare night for New York Democrats, former President Bill Clinton and his vice president, Al Gore, took the stage at a party fund-raiser--albeit separately--and painted, in their own distinct ways, political portraits of the country today.

Mr. Clinton delighted the audience of about 500 last night with one of his favorite stories, about a Pentecostal minister who "confessed" to him--"the world's greatest sinner," as Mr. Clinton called himself--that he voted for President Bush partly out of a belief that Democrats were not connecting with him on a gut level.

Democrats make "a terrible mistake," Mr. Clinton said, if they do not think of themselves as "values voters," a term that some political analysts use for voters who support candidates based on a sense of shared moral or religious convictions....

The fund-raiser, at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Manhattan, which took in $1.3 million, honored Maureen White, who is stepping down after five years as finance chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee....

Mr. Clinton praised Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, for pressing ahead to campaign in every state, including those where voters reliably support Republicans. Some Democrats have criticized Mr. Dean's strategy calling it a waste of time and money.

But Mr. Clinton said thanked Mr. Dean and said, "Democrats should campaign everywhere with everybody." And Mr. Gore called him "the ideal Democratic party chair." (NYTimes)

I think he's pretty neat, too!

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