Posted on 12/27/2003 6:04:10 PM PST by LurkedLongEnough
WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean says the Bush administration missed an opportunity to soften the impact of the country's first mad cow scare and that the American beef industry should receive federal aid to weather the crisis.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, Dean also said Friday he wants Osama bin Laden to get the death penalty, seeking to minimize fallout from a New Hampshire newspaper story in which he was quoted as saying the terror leader's guilt should not be prejudged.
"As a president, I would have to defend the process of the rule of law. But as an American, I want to make sure he gets the death penalty he deserves," Dean told the AP in a phone interview.
The former Vermont governor, who solidly leads the field of Democratic presidential candidates in both polls and money, said he was simply trying to state in The Concord Monitor interview that the process of trying bin Laden needs to be fair and credible.
In that interview published Friday, Dean was quoted as saying, "I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials."
Dean told the AP that sentiment doesn't mean he sympathizes in any way with the al-Qaida leader. "I'm just like every other American, I think the guy is outrageous," he said.
Dean also weighed in for the first time on the news earlier this week that a cow in Washington state has tested positive for mad cow disease, the first such case in the United States.
The former governor, whose state has a large dairy cow population, said the Bush administration failed to aggressively set up a tracking system that would allow the government to quickly track the origins of the sick cow, quarantine other animals it came in contact with and assure the marketplace the rest of the meat supply is safe.
"What we need in this country is instant traceability," he said.
Dean said such a system should have been set up quickly after the mad cow scare that devastated the British beef industry in the mid- to late-1990s. The Bush administration was still devising its plan when the sick cow was slaughtered Dec. 9, and on Friday the government still hadn't determine the infected animal's origins.
"This just shows the complete lack of foresight by the Bush administration once again," Dean said. "This is something that easily could be predicted and was predicted."
Dean said as a result the beef industry will suffer enormously. Officials said Friday 90 percent of the foreign markets for American beef have been closed off because of the announcement.
Asked if he supported a federal economic aid package for the industry, Dean said: "The answer is, yes, of course I do. The question is how much? And we don't know how much yet."
Dean said the government's first job, before the economic damage is calculated, must be to "close down that impact as soon as possible" by tracing the cow's origins and credibly reassuring the American public and the world that the rest of the U.S. beef supply is safe.
As a doctor, Dean said he was more concerned about the impact of the announcement on the U.S. economy than on public health. "The truth is this is going to have a minimal health impact," he said.
Dean also reacted to comments attributed to Democratic rival Joe Lieberman in a story published Friday in The Union-Leader of Manchester, N.H., suggesting the Roe vs. Wade decision needs to be revisited because scientific advances allow a fetus to survive outside the womb much earlier than in the 1970s.
Lieberman issued a statement Friday saying he was misquoted and doesn't want the historic Supreme Court decision to be reopened.
Dean said he wasn't personally familiar with the Union-Leader interview, but he said Lieberman is "very much off base and doesn't understand the science," comparing him to anti-abortion Republicans.
"I think Joe makes the mistake that Republicans do, insinuating himself in the doctor-patient relationship," Dean said.
The company went into recievership and a few months later was quietly picked up by Tyson Foods for about 30% of it's pre-scare market value.
I believe Jack-In-The-Box was the retailer involved. Let me crawl down the memory hole and get back to you.
Two things come to my mind: people, and Osama bin Laden.
Whoa, let me finish.
The next election is going to be decided by those in the middle. Whe know the Democrats are looking for an issue, any issue, but by magnifying every bad thing that happens in this country out of porportion, and then blaming President Bush, instead of weaking him, they are making him stronger. They are in fact innoculating him against the time there may really be a issue they could win on.
If such an issue should exist, the voters would have heard of so many false claims they will just tune it out.
So let the Democrats hurl all sorts of charges at the President, in the end, it will help the President, not hurt him.
Hurl away, Dean! Spread the word, AP!
No offense meant, but were you alive when Carter was President? Carter had so mis-managed this country that anyone the Republicans ran against him would have won. We are just lucky it was President Reagan.
The economy was in the toilet, he let the Iranians walk all over us. The one military action against Iran failed. He was a weak and ineffective President.
Reagan was already well known to most voters. He served as a governor of one of the largest state in the Union. He had support of the party and of the people. He was only "too far right" for those on the left, where everyone to the right of them is too far right.
Few outside of Vermont ever heard of Dean. He was the governor of a small state. And he is "too far left" for those on the left.
I no not thing your comparison holds water.
The question is - can you get Mad Cow from Canadian Pharmaceuticals?
Two of the panelists on Fox News Sunday listed the Dim ticket as Dean-Clark. A really scary thought.
oh, finding your "core values" in the latest poll, are you, Mr. Dean? We suffered through eight years of that kind of "leadership", son, and don't need to do it again.
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