She just kept interrupting every time he started a sentence. It is so tiring to watch. He did a good job of not letting her steer the conversation and kept turning it to where he wanted to go.
First she was asking about what happens when Bush vetos.
DEAN: Well, I think that the American people have made it very clear in the last election that they believe we should not be in Iraq. Seventy-one percent of Americans think we ought to leave Iraq. The president has been incredibly uncooperative in doing what the American people asked us to do.
What we have proposed is a bill that will gradually remove our troops, most of our troops, from Iraq, leave some Special Operations forces in the area to combat terrorism, but get us out of the middle of the civil war.
The president said he's going to veto that bill, along with $4 billion extra to help our troops recover from the terrible wounds they have recovered over there, $2 billion for port security and some body armor.
At least she was admitting the GOP was using this issue to frame it all as the Democrats' fault. So more on the topic:
DEAN: We will stand up for the troops. We will stand up for our armed forces. The best way to stand up for the armed forces is to get them out of the middle of a civil war in Iraq. Our position is very, very clear. We've laid it out. It's in the bill. We want them home by 2008. We're willing to fund them until then. We need some cooperation from the Republicans. We need some respect shown by the president of the United States to the American people, who voted overwhelmingly to leave Iraq.
MALVEAUX: So that it doesn't look like there is any wiggle room here?
DEAN: We are going to -- we got elected because we said that we thought Iraq was the wrong thing to do. We have offered the president every possible compromise. We did not cut off funding from Iraq -- for the war in Iraq, contrary to what the president has said. We do not propose cutting off funding.
What we do propose is exactly what the American people want -- we want the troops home by the middle of 2008 and when the wounded troops get home, we want them taken care of and we -- they deserve much better than what the Republicans and President Bush have given them, and we intend to see that our troops get what they deserve.
CNN transcriptIt would have easier if we had Tim Johnson healthy, and Joe lieberman acting like a Democrat....but they are trying.
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