The trouble with Vermont Yankee

Dean's reaction to today's AP story on Vermont Yankee having the worst security rating of the nation's 103 nuclear reactors included the following quote:

"As many have said before, the hindsight from the terrorist attacks of September 11 is 20/20 and no one was prepared for the events of that terrible day..."

Here's the problem, if this is our nominee:

*There is a strong case to be made against the Bush Administration's negligence in the run-up to 9/11. The lack of intra-agency coordination, the existence of detailed memos highlighting the exact method of attack that was eventually used, and the complete politicization of national security in the first nine months of 2001 are all well-chronicled.

*The above quote effectively disarms Dean from making that case. Protestations that the NRC, not the state of Vermont, was responsible for security notwithstanding, Dean's statement can easily be used by the Bush campaign to innoculate itself.

*Wes Clark has made it clear that 9/11 is an important campaign issue. Clinton NSA head Sandy Berger told Condoleeza Rice in Week 1 of the Bush Administration that Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda were the top threat facing this country. Clark has repeatedly criticzed the Bush Administration for ignoring this warning and not having an anti-terrorism plan in place until the day before the 9/11 attacks. While this is not a home run campaign issue, in my view, it can at least force Bush to play defense on a preferred campaign theme.

We lose that option with Dean.

You certainly don't get excited over publishing pro-Edwards stuff.

Oh, that's right, you NEVER post pro-Edwards stuff.

actually, fascinated by what passes for discussion, or even comment by many of the dean supporters.

i may write a paper on it. gallantry precludes me from announcing the working title....

I am amazed that edwards is even getting single digits.

hot fast......

This thread is about one particular Dean statement and it's effect on the Primary and Democrat's ability to hold Junior accountable.

This goes well beyond what Dean did or did not do as Governor regarding Vermont Yankee.

I beg to differ. What color car Al Sharpton drives to the debate does not justify another thread about Al Sharpton and the debate.

This is about a statement Dean just made and it's implications for both his campaign and the Democrats ablity to to confront Junior on 9/11.

I believe that Vermont also had the smallest budget for this purpose, so relatively speaking, Vermont may actually have done a good job with the resources. Much more important is the threat risk, and presumably the allocation of federal security dollars is made based on such factors as population proximity, etc. Common sense, no? Presumably the Pentagon would have some goodly amount of money for that purpose, but it did not stop terrorists, did it? Who are terrorists going to terrorize next to VT Yankee, cows?

Also, what does the "worst security rating of the nation's 103 nuclear reactors" mean. Is there a rating system or statistics that we can look at to verify this? Maybe all small rural states have ratings down at the bottom, and Vermont is small.

I think there is no problem at all here, and it appears that Dean fixed the problems, after the NRC did not do it's jobs. Bush has a lot of explaining to do for 911, and Dean is going to wail on him.

Rediculous.

hicks? I'm not following at all.

who payed his salary before 9/11. So to say what he would have done or could have done about making sure Nuclear plants were safe was really off his radar at that point. A comparison of Clark with Dean on this point really isn't worthy of a post.

"corporate whores" - I assume you are talking about Clark's career as a lobbyist there. However, before that Clark had a long and honorable military career where his responsibility was to the people of the United States. So if you are going to try and smear Clark, at least be specific.

Secondly, no one's comparing Clark's record (or lack thereof) to Dean's record in the original post. The problem with Dean's record is that he has one, and it's like a GOP bait shop.

how can you not realise that?

Damn!

but then he has to justify how there weren't funds to secure the plant but yet he found $7 million for a low-interest loan program for businesses, and $30 million for a new prison in Springfield, VT.

Just where are your priorities mr. dean?


” JAFO”

Is it a great sound bite? No. It IS the truth, though. There are a LOT of security procedures that were not stringent enough or, at times, completely ignored before 9/11. It's most people's philosophy to "get the job done" with the minimum of restrictions. Pre-9/11, a lot of the existing security procedures were viewed as unnecessary.

The real response should be threefold: lamenting our "loss of innocence", explaining how freedoms and security exist at opposite ends of the same scale...more security equals fewer freedoms, and showing how we've changed procedures since 9/11.

Okay, let's take a very close look at this. Not too long ago, Dean was being criticized on this site for supporting the sale of Vermont Yankee. In the minds of some he was the devil incarnate for having any kind of contact with the company that bought Vermont Yankee.

Part of the reason Dean supported the sale is because the state couldn't manage Vermont Yankee. There were security issues that the state just didn't have the resources to deal with, no matter how badly the state wanted to be able to deal with them. That was the reality, period.

So, like a good, responsible, concerned and common-sense kinda guy, Dean wanted to sell Vermont Yankee to people who DID have the ability and resources to run it properly, address the safety concerns and protect Vermonters from potential disaster should a problem arise.

Now it seems Dean is being attacked for being "lax on security" of Vermont Yankee. This, to me, is downright ridiculous. The whole reason he wanted to sell Vermont Yankee is because he wanted to deal with the very security issue he's now being attacked about.

I'm sorry folks, but you can't criticize Dean for supporting the sale of Vermont Yankee to make it safer and then turn around and claim he wasn't doing enough to make it safer. Kindly make up your minds exactly which thing you want to criticize and then direct your criticism in the proper direction.

If you oppose the sale of Vermont Yankee, then you have no business complaining about the facility haveing safety issues and need to blame Bush for not providing adequate funding to protect the reactors from potential terror attacks.

If you want to complain about the safety issues, you need to take it up with those in Vermont who fought and held up the sale of Vermont Yankee that resulted in the safety lapses being prolonged.

Please continue this in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=57029

6. You may not start a new discussion thread in order to continue a current or recent flame war from another thread. The moderators have the authority to lock threads in order to contain flaming on a particular topic to only one thread at a time.

Thanks for understanding,
DU Moderator