Hugh Hewitt: Criminal Enterprise (Interview with Howard Dean about Bin Laden & Saddam)

HOWARD DEAN wants Osama bin Laden to get 30 years to life. No hanging by the neck until dead. No firing squad. Not even a lethal injection for being the mastermind behind the deaths of more than 3,000 Americans.

That's the upshot of Dean's exchange with Chris Matthews last night, an exchange ignored--and in one case glossed over--by a Dean-friendly press.

MATTHEWS: Who should try Osama bin Laden if we catch him? We or the World Court?

MATTHEWS: But who would you like to, if you were president of the United States, would you insist on trying him, since he was involved in blowing up the World Trade Center, or would you let the Hague do it?

DEAN: You know, the truth is it doesn't make a lot of difference to me as long as he is brought to justice. I think that's the critical part of that.

MATTHEWS: How about Saddam Hussein? Should we try him in criminal and execute him?

DEAN: Again, we are allowing the Bosnian war criminals to be tried at the International Court in the Hague. That suits me fine. As long as they're brought to justice and tried, and so far we haven't had to have that discussion because the president has not been able to find either one of them.

Incredibly, most Tuesday morning papers ignored this exchange, and the Boston Globe's Susan Schweitzer reported it this way: "Asked whether Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein should be tried in the United States or the Hague should they be captured, Dean responded that the issue was premature for discussion because the "the president can't find either one of them."

The issue matters, of course, because the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, like the Tribunal impaneled for Rwanda, cannot impose the death penalty. Though both Matthews and Dean seem ill-informed on the nature of such proceedings, the key fact is that no death penalty will ever be imposed on a terrorist who gets himself before an international tribunal sponsored by the United Nations. (The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court also rejects the death penalty.)

Dean's ignorance on the matter isn't the major point of the exchange. His indifference to the idea of bin Laden being brought to America is a stunning display of his detachment from the war on terror.

Republicans hope that Dean doesn't self-destruct before he gets the nomination, but the country ought to be getting all of Dean's quotes, not just those the reporters think make good copy.

The goal was to topple Saddam (he was even offered the ability to step down prior to Gulf War II)

Yep! Remember that? And what happened the next day? The biggest mass protest in England happened and Saddam told the UN to shove it. That`s what I love above these libs...They`re all quick to blame Bush for this war, but as I remember it was them who were emboldening Saddam each and every day with their "anti-liberation" marches. Let`s not forget that people with connections to Al Qaida and Saddam where trying to organize those protests. Why? Because they wanted the US to look like the bad guy, not the psycho tyrant in Iraq who crucifies 15 year olds for fun. That`s why I blame every drop of blood spilt over there now directly on the hands of every liberal mutt out there who was screaming appeasement before the invasion. The gun was pointed at Saddam, and these mutts told him to remain defiant. "We stand behind you Saddam!" That`s the first and only message that came out of each and every one of those protests. Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, in my mind are nothing more than a bunch of mutt scumbags who have killed our guys every bit as much as those terrorists , and though Hollywood and all the rest of them continue to live it up, one day they are going to find that big Karmic retribution in the sky is going to come crashing down upon them and when that happens that`s when I pop the champagne.

Thank you for posting thos article!

See also, THIS image from that same interview:

Caption Muh Photo - Howard Dean Stalked by a Bush-Cheney Fan.
Posted on 12/03/2003 11:55 AM PST by Happy2BMe

Mon Dec 1, 8:41 PM ET

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean (news - web sites) laughs after seeing a student wearing a Bush-Cheney campaign T-shirt behind him during a taping of 'Hardball,' with host Chris Matthews, Monday, Dec. 1, 2003, at Harvard University's Institute of Politics in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

-- snip --
To: Happy2BMe

George McGovern - 1972, Howard Dean - 2004. Same guy. Same results.

37 posted on 12/03/2003 12:34 PM PST by (Guns!)
CLICK HERE for the rest of that thread

"Separated at Birth?"

See also, from Hugh's blogger friend:

James Lileks:
Does Dean Really Want to Be President? One Wonders, When He Opens His Mouth
The Newhouse News Service ^ | December 3, 2003 | James Lileks
Posted on 12/03/2003 9:45 AM PST by quidnunc

The simplest questions often yield the most revealing answers. Let's pretend we've just asked the Democratic presidential contenders how they feel about apple pie:
John Kerry: Serving in Vietnam, I came to regard apple pie as a symbol of the America for which so many fine men died in a misguided war, and I am determined not to repeat that mistake. And I like it with ice cream.
Dick Gephardt: I will never forget seeing my dad at the kitchen table, shaking his head over the high price of apples, and that's why I'm running today: to give all Americans free and fair access not just to apples, but the whole pie. Government is the crust; people are the filling.
Dennis Kucinich: My dreams are filled with the screams of innocent apples, fed by the millions into industrial mincing machines.
Howard Dean: Well, you have to understand that George Bush not only doesn't get the complex history of splicing and cross-breeding that led to the modern apple, he's alienated the countries in the world whose apple stocks might replenish our own after the worst environmental policies since Catherine the Great threatened the domestic Macintosh-producing regions. You can't solve that by flying to Baghdad and serving pie — which I understand was pecan, an ironic choice, since they've stopped serving pecans at VA hospitals because of Bush cutbacks.
Notice that the perfect hypothetical Dean comment demonstrates his broad, furious intellect and his contempt for Bush without really answering the question.
Why? Because it's beneath him! Ask him the boxers or briefs question, and you might just get a history of textile tariffs, delivered with testy impatience.
So it was an interesting moment on MSNBC's "Hardball" when Chris Matthews asked Gov. Dean whether Osama bin Laden should be tried in the United States or by the World Court.

For a presidential candidate, this is not a difficult question. It requires no long cogitation, no disquisitions about the role of international law from the Wilsonian perspective. It doesn't require any second-guessing.
You say that bin Laden attacked America, and he deserves to be tried there by Americans.
That's what you say if you want to be president of the United States, anyway.
Said Howard Dean, in his standard tone of dismissive impatience: "I don't think it makes a lot of difference." Matthews repeated the question. And Dean said it again: "The truth is, it doesn't make a lot of difference."
Try bin Laden in an American court, before an American jury, or try him in The Hague: no difference, monsieur...
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