January 2004 Jimmy Breslin's column No Safer with Saddam in Slammer. Scathing.

I have been unable to find the link to the original Newsday article, but I had saved the complete column.

It speaks to what happens when a nation like ours invades another country of no threat based on lies. It eats away at the soul of our morality.

I don't post a lot about Howard Dean anymore though I did at one time. We were quite active in his campaign, met with Jim Dean a number of times. I just felt he could have truly been a leader of the lefter progressives in the party in spite of his many centrist views. He chose to not do so, but some of it still shows now and then.

I think of this war propaganda often when I see the same type of lies and half truths being used in the dismantling of public education.....again in a bipartisan way. It is as dangerous in its own way as the lies about war.

No safer with Saddam in Slammer

To many of us then a very shameful time in America history occurred. A time when someone told the truth in a foreign policy speech, and his own party jumped him and ridiculed and publicly humiliated him.

Breslin's words in part.

January 2, 2004

First, the other day, Howard Dean, candidate for president, said he didn't think that the capture of Saddam Hussein made us any safer in America. The other politicians screamed that he was un-American

..."On the day he (Saddam) was found, an American soldier was killed. After that, 10 more were killed in a week. The Homeland Security raised the alert to orange. Planes coming to New York from Paris, London and Mexico were canceled. New Year's Eve in Times Square was a neon arsenal."

.."Howard Dean then said that maybe he was old-fashioned but he didn't think you could judge or punish Osama bin Laden until you had a trial and found him guilty. That was as controversial as saying that when it rains in Queens, the Van Wyck Expressway gets wet. But suddenly, the Democratic candidates said the statement was atrociously unpatriotic. How can this man Dean say that bin Laden deserves a trial? They said that this was a perfect illustration of Dean talking without thought. And completely un-American, too.

In 1945, they had the Nuremberg trial, for Nazis who had killed tens and tens of millions, and had a judge, witnesses, evidence and defense counsel. Because he wants the same thing for bin Laden they say that Dean wants to sell out America. Joseph Leiberman, who is a peripheral candidate now and thus a nasty little man, said that because Dean wants a fair trial Dean is despicable and so weak that he would melt in the face of George W. Bush.

.."Yet all Dean has to do in this big Des Moines debate Sunday is ask each candidate, "Are you in favor of sentencing bin Laden before you have a trial?"

Let them answer in front of a country that is better than they are.