The Dems 'Love Fest' is over! Thanks to Dean.

MANCHESTER, N.H., Sept. 12 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Democratic presidential candidate Gov. Howard Dean, M.D., issued the following statement this afternoon:

"I consider Dick Gephardt -- a man I campaigned for 16 years ago -- a friend of mine. But I am deeply saddened that he has chosen to resort to the politics of the past by engaging in name-calling, guilt by association and scare tactics.

"It is a sad day for Dick Gephardt when he compares ANY democratic candidate running for President to Newt Gingrich and his divisive policies. No Democrat in the presidential race bears any resemblance to Newt Gingrich on any major issue. And for Dick Gephardt to suggest otherwise is simply beyond the pale.

"It is the politics of the past, and attacks like these, that have caused so many people to opt out of the political process. My campaign is about bringing those people back in, by offering a positive vision of the future, real solutions to America's problems, and by restoring a politics of meaning and a sense of community in political discourse."

Honeymoon? What honeymoon?

People can be united in wanting Bush gone gone gone without being united in deciding who will replace him. I'm undecided myself, but there is plenty of time left.

I will vote for anyone on the Democratic ticket. I fully expect that this person will have flaws, but it is highly unlikely that those flaws will even approach the magnitude and severity of the current administration's flaws.

Would I prefer to have someone unambiguously wonderful to vote for? Of course. Do I think that will happen? Probably not. Will I bite the bullet and vote Bush OUT of office? Most definitely.

so i don't get it. what is his view of the israeli-palestinian issue? i'm reading all sorts of different stuff. i just signed a petition for dean to clarify his stance.

during the cbc debate, when lieberman accused dean of supporting the total withdrawal of isreali forces from palestinian territory, i said to myself "well that seals it. i'm voting for dean." in my mind that accusation by lieberman was the best thing he could have said about dean.

Isreal makes it plain they consider Hamas attackers to be terrorist, Dean say's they're just soldiers. Even if they were, he just insulted Isreal, and that's always a good strategy for foreign relations, great skills there Howard.

"We do have a special relationship with Israel. We would defend Israel if necessary. I think that is well-known," he told CNN. "However, we are also the only country capable of bringing peace to the Middle East, and when we sit at the negotiating table, we do have to have the trust of both sides or we will never succeed."

Dean also called on President Bush to "swallow his pride" and send former President Bill Clinton to the Middle East to salvage the peace process.

"I think Bill Clinton is the president who has come the closest to bringing Israelis and Palestinians together," he said. "Bill Clinton may just be the person we need to put those negotiations back on track."

The controversy began last week when Dean, speaking about the Middle East, said he didn't "believe stopping the terror has to be a prerequisite for talking. You always talk."

He went on to say that "it's not our place to take sides" and said "enormous" numbers of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories would have to be dismantled.

Tuesday night during a debate in Baltimore, Lieberman pounced on Dean, saying he was abandoning more than 50 years of bipartisan U.S. policy offering unconditional support to Israel. (More on debate)

'Palestinians are more surprised than anyone'
Lieberman kept up the pressure Wednesday in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

"When you start to say, in very loaded terms -- particularly when Israelis are under assault by terrorists, not unlike the situation we find ourselves in -- that America shouldn't take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, that's a break in more than half a century of the American foreign policies carried out by presidents of both parties, and it's very harmful," he said.

"I bet the Palestinians are more surprised than anyone else when they heard Howard Dean say this."

Several Democratic leaders of Congress, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, also circulated a letter Wednesday taking issue with Dean's comments.

But Dean insists that what he was saying was that the United States should serve as a impartial broker between the two sides in order to reach a peace deal -- the same policy pursued by Clinton.

"When you're at the negotiating table, you don't sit down and blame people when you're negotiating," he said. "There's a difference between our policy in Israel -- which has always been supportive, including the willingness to defend Israel -- and what you do at the negotiating table, which clearly has to have the trust of both sides."

'Perhaps I could have used a different euphemism'
Dean also said he would "strongly speak out against violence of any kind in the Middle East. That's what I mean by being even-handed." (More on violence)

"You must condemn all civilian killings, including any terrorist attacks," he said.

However, in retrospect, Dean said he should not have used the term "even-handed."

"I've since learned that that is a very sensitive word to use in certain communities, so perhaps I could have used a different euphemism," he said. "But the fact of the matter is, at the negotiating table, we have to have the trust of both sides."

Asked about the dismantling of Jewish settlements, Dean said that was an issue to be decided during negotiations between the two sides, although he said even the Israelis have conceded that some settlements will have to go.

Asked if he would oppose the Israeli policy of selectively killing leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups, Dean said, "I think no one likes to see violence of any kind."

But he also said that "there is a war going on in the Middle East, and members of Hamas are soldiers in that war, and, therefore, it seems to me that they are going to be casualties if they are going to make war."

You know Dean has almost put his foot in his mouth so far in this campaign as many times as Bush does in one speech.....that's a lot...

True dat!