Reply #27: Since Dean Was So Obviously Out Done-Here's The Transcript [View All]

From Detroit- First Kerry's brilliant answer and then Dean's stupid comment that not only left Kerry with the perfect opening but also highlighted Dean's Soft White Underbelly:


KERRY: Well, let me just comment, first of all, if I can, on General Boykin.
(LAUGHTER)
General Boykin has confused the heck out of the White House on all this talk about the Almighty, when he talks about the Almighty, the president thinks he's talking about Cheney, Cheney thinks he's talking about Halliburton...
(LAUGHTER)
... Cheney thinks he's talking about Halliburton, and John Ashcroft thinks they're talking about him. So they don't know where to go.
(LAUGHTER)
I also must say, as I listen to Governor Dean, I'm not sure, if I were he, I'd want to use George Bush as a reverence for a governor becoming president without foreign-policy experience...
(LAUGHTER)
... because what we've seen, what we've seen is a president who ran saying, "I'm going to have good advisers around me." Now, we had Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and Powell. And look at the judgments they made.
We're electing a president of the United States, not a staff. And we need to elect a president...
(APPLAUSE)
... who has the judgment to do this.
(APPLAUSE)
.......................................................................................................................................................................................

And here's Dean's statement that was him basically walking right into Kerry's first:


Question: We are attempting to imagine each of you in the White House in the Oval Office, and in that spirit, Governor Dean, I have this question for you.

You have been unstintingly critical of this war, yet, with all due respect, you have commanded nothing more than the Vermont National Guard. You did not serve in the military.

How would you, as president, be able to exert any credibility, any command over a post-war Pentagon?

DEAN: Well, first of all, I have as much foreign-policy experience as George W. Bush did when he got into office.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
And Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

Secondly, the important part of what you do as president of the United States is to have very good people, which I do, talking to me about issues and defense and foreign policy, and to use judgment and patience.