Posted on 09/08/2003 11:33:10 AM PDT by Writer1
Late last month, former Gov. Howard Dean was in Chicago, running for the Democratic nomination for president, and he harshly critiqued President George W. Bush's defense policy, and his handling of the Iraqi campaign, saying, “as they say in Texas, it is all hat, and no cattle."
But documents obtained by Navy News & Undersea Technology from the archives of the office of former Gov. Dean, through Vermont’s Public Records Act (I V.S.A., 315-320), detail an interesting story of Dean's own dealings with the military, and his policy toward the use of Pentagon funds.
Dean is now 20 points ahead of the primary field in the New Hampshire polls.
Thousands of pages of memoranda and correspondence from the Dean Administration are available through the public records act, but an additional 150 boxes of documents are being withheld, for the next 10 years, as the governor has invoked executive privilege to seal them.
In one letter, Bill Cohen, who was President Clinton's Secretary of Defense, pleads with the governor to allow Navy recruiters on school campuses in the state.
The letter, which was received by the governor’s office on July 17, 2000, states that it was written to “follow-up on Secretary of Education Riley’s April 20 letter to you [Dean], encouraging that educators allow military recruiters access to secondary school campuses” in Vermont, a matter of some controversy in the state.
In other correspondence, Dean is linked to a California-based movement to ban Gulf War veterans from giving blood.
The reason purportedly was the Gulf War Syndrome - but no solid science ever has been found to say veteran's blood is a carrier of the syndrome.
Other letters show that Dean was keenly interested in using Pentagon funds to have National Guard soldiers teach science and astronomy to inner city kids in Vermont, and to give Ben and Jerry's Defense Advanced Research Projects (DARPA) money to build an "electric car."
That company is a maker of ice cream – not an established defense contractor.
Another letter, dated May 4, 1992 to an anti-nuclear activist in New Jersey, from the Office of the Governor, and signed, “Howard Dean, M.D., Governor,” shows that he was interested in taking funds from the Pentagon and distributing them to other government programs in the wake of the Cold War.
“I’d be pleased to help further the discussion of how the Peace Dividend should be spent and how big it should be,” wrote Gov. Dean.
The issue of a governor's foreign policy and national security experience is always of concern in a presidential primary.
To be sure, a governor's defense policy portfolio is always slim.
That's the nature of the federalist system in the U.S. But, then Gov. Bill Clinton's handling of the Mariel refugee crisis, and the CIA‘s use of the Mena airport, in Arkansas, were reported on extensively during his first presidential candidacy in 1992, as were George Bush’s dealings with Mexico during his campaign in 2000.
The most recent letter to Gov. Dean from the Pentagon, obtained by Navy News & Undersea Technology, is from December 27, 2002.
The letter from P.K. Brunelli, director of the federal voting assistance program, at the Department of Defense, asks that the governor modify state election procedures to enable Vermont citizens, stationed overseas in the Navy or other armed services, to vote by absentee ballot. The letter tells the governor that there is a “need to facilitate the enfranchisement of our uniformed services and overseas citizen voters.”
Fortunately, Dean is utterly thin-skinned and totally humorless, and in a debate situation that will most likely come shining through more than anything else and will be his ultimate undoing.
(1) Is Dr Dean an abortionist?
(2) An underage pregnant girl visited Dr Dean for medical attention. As a licensed practitioner, Dr Dean knew a crime -- a sexual assault -- had been committed on an underage girl. Did Dr Dean report he knew a crime had been committed as required by law? If Dr Dean did not report it, Dr Dean not only obstructed justice, in most states it is a separate crime not to report your knowledge that a crime has been committed. Was the Vermont Physicians' Licensing Board notified about Dr Dean’s conduct in this matter?
(3) There is a national movement to hold certain abortion clinic employees criminally liable if they fail to report incidences of sex crimes against children. Does Dr Dean support this legislation?
LOL! He's a defense expert!
During the almost five years that I've been a Freeper, I have said many times to my wife, "there needs to be a Freeper at the highest levels of the RNC and state Repub committees."
Unfortunately, Rove and the RNC have not had the presence of mind to tap into the fountain of wisdom known as FreeRepublic. The absolute brilliance that I've encountered here is staggering, and it's coming from people at the grassroots level, not from some secluded think tank.
However, there's little doubt that numerous Democrat operatives and trolls lurk here.
Well, now let me help you with that.
Abortion is a reliable issue. It neatly separates the men from the boys.
It's useful to put the issue out there to see what it drags up from the mud.
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