2004 Elections: Democratic Party Contenders

"IF WE WALK out, we are going to have a terrorist training camp that will make Afghanistan look like a Sunday school picnic," Gephardt heatedly told a crowd in Sioux City Sunday. "And if we want to have unending terrorism, here and across the world, then we just walk out and leave it in a total chaotic mess. … If we leave, the terrorists win and we are in big trouble. We have got to see this through." [..]

"Most people believe we’ve got to see this through, but most people believe he (President Bush) is failing us because he is not getting help," the Missouri congressman said. [..] Assessing the Iraq operation, he said, "It’s costing a billion dollars a week. We lost 16 people yesterday. We’re losing two or three people a day and he still hasn’t gotten the help that we need. This is a failure."

Gephardt contended that the United States could and should persuade the United Nations to take over the job of reconstructing Iraq while getting France, Germany and Russia to contribute troops to maintain order.

Gephardt assertively takes the middle road on Iraq - and asserts that America can't back out now -- though it should get the UN in. Good stuff.

Every day on the campaign trail, Howard Dean wears an unfashionable black belt that belonged to his younger brother Charlie, a silent memorial to the man who vanished while traveling the Mekong River 29 years ago.

On Tuesday, Dr. Dean, who rarely mentions his family on the stump, interrupted his schedule to announce that a search team had found his brother's remains buried in a rice paddy in central Laos.

Dr. Dean has worn the black leather belt with the large, silver-rimmed holes for at least 20 years, and counts his brother's death as a watershed that made him more serious about his own future....

Charlie, 16 months his junior, slept above Dr. Dean in bunk beds, and often led the four Dean brothers in building forts outside their East Hampton country house. Dr. Dean has said that if he were alive, Charlie would be running for president, with him as campaign manager....

On the plane on Tuesday afternoon, Dr. Dean recounted how he learned that his brother had been captured by Communist rebels, the Pathet Lao. The call came in October 1974, as he was heading for a test at Columbia University, where he was taking classes to prepare for medical school.

Dr. Dean said the family later learned that Charlie had spent time in a prison camp, even growing some food in a garden, before being taken off in a truck on Dec. 14 (of 1974). Both of Dr. Dean's parents went to Laos to search, but found nothing. An unsigned letter informed the family of Charlie's death in 1975, Dr. Dean said. ...

(T)he discovery of the remains overshadowed what the campaign had pumped up as a major speech on Tuesday in Houston.

"We know what happened to Enron," Dr. Dean said, speaking to a crowd of 1,200 about a mile from the headquarters of the scandal-plagued corporation. "Moral bankruptcy led to fiscal bankruptcy. And the ethos of Enron is where this president's politics and policies have led us in America."

"When the people take back their government from the powerful few who control it," Dr. Dean said, "we will be able to make real change for the future of our country."

Don't muddy the water, can't you understand it is only invalid or shameful when used by the democrats.

Regarding the tyranny of the majority. Because they the, republicans, hold a majority in congress and as well control the White House they can shove anything they want other than that which is unconstitutional down the publics throat.

It is obvious that even though they did not recieve a mandate from the electorate {lost the popular vote} they want to govern as if they do.

The Bush administration is a really bad thing in many dimensions. But the way it came into existence isn't one of those dimensions.