http://slate.msn.com/id/2079324/Tom DeLay and the party of appeasement.
By William Saletan
Posted
Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2003, at 2:22 PM PT On Wednesday, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, called Democratic opponents of war in Iraq "reckless." DeLay assailed last weekend's "outrageous" speech by former Gov. Howard Dean, D-Vt., to the Democratic National Committee. The applause that greeted Dean's speech "proves who the Democrat Party is," DeLay told reporters. "They are fast becoming the appeasement party."
It's easy to see why DeLay is angry. In his speech,
Dean called the war a "quagmire" and compared it to Vietnam. He said it would "drag on," costing billions of dollars. He accused the president of failing to specify how long our troops would have to stay, and he urged the administration to withdraw them "before the body bags start coming home."Maybe if Dean had stopped there, his remarks could have been shrugged off.
But he went further. He accused the president of double standards and twisted priorities, implying ulterior motives. "North Korea continues to flaunt international law by speeding ahead with their nuclear program with no consequences whatsoever," Dean charged. And despite the bombing of Afghanistan, he observed, "Osama Bin Laden still represents a threat to thousands of American lives."
That was bad enough, but Dean wasn't finished. He suggested that the United States should curb its warlike impulses to avoid offending other countries.
"The White House has bombed its way around the globe," he sneered. "International respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly." As for the current war plan, Dean complained that "no one wants us to be there" and that the president's crusade "has made the Russians jittery and has harmed
standing in the world...." END SNIP(and Dean was just getting started....2 page article.)
I will next post some attacks by DeLay on Clinton....how dare he talk about criticizing the president!