MR. RUSSERT: Let's go right to it. The Republicans say on Tuesday that if the Democrats do not stop filibustering their judicial appointments made by President Clinton--President Bush, they will change the rules for the filibuster. What will that change mean?
DR. DEAN: I think the change will be dreadful for American democracy, and I think it's going to be, frankly, very bad for the Republican Party. One of the great geniuses of American democracy, unlike most of the democracies in the world that minority rights are protected, 48 percent of us didn't vote for President Bush, but we still have some say in shaping the agenda of the country. If the filibuster is gotten rid of, the extended debate is gotten rid of in the Senate, first of all, and it means the president can put 10 judges on the bench that we believe are not qualified to serve. [No, it means they’ll have a vote on whether or not those judges will serve the federal judiciary.] We've confirmed 205 of his judges. He wants those last 10, so they're willing to change the rules to do it. [Just like you’re willing to abuse the rules to block them.]
But it has much worse implications. The president has a Social Security plan, which is kind of out there. He basically wants to turn over Social Security to the same kind of people who gave us Enron. [American taxpayers?] Privatization is something the American people don't support by a very large margin. [We’ve never yet voted on or tried it.] Without extended debate, he can march marshal his party and just ram it right through. [Debate requires two parties sharing ideas, right?] They already ram things through the House. We need more than one party in charge. [Then stop losing elections. That’s another “genius of democracy.”] And the vote on Tuesday is going to be critical to decide whether American democracy still allows those of us who didn't vote for the president to have any say in running the country whatsoever. [Those who didn’t vote for the President still could have voted for more Democrats in Congress. That was the actual critical vote here.]
MR. RUSSERT: The Republicans say the filibuster rules being changed would apply to judicial nominations not to legislation like Social Security.
DR. DEAN: That's what they say now. What possible indication is there they won't change their mind later? [Answer: That you’re the only person who’s raised the idea.] We could not have predicted when the Republicans were killing 25 of President Clinton's judges when President Clinton was in office [“killing,” AKA, voting NO during an actual up-or-down vote in Congress], we couldn't have predicted that they were going to resort to this [AKA, responding to the congressional quagmire Democrats have suffered upon these judicial vote proceedings] when they got into office. The problem with this, frankly, for the Republicans, is, first of all, Congress is at its lowest popularity rating since – actually since 1993 when we were in power. [Not according to every national election since 1998, which is the only legitimate test (not some random poll of the week).] And secondly, this is an advertisement to the American people, who suspect it--suspect something may go wrong when only one party is in charge. And one party is pretty well in charge in Washington. [Thank God for Democracy.] This is the last opportunity the Democrats have to say anything about public policy. It is a very big mistake, I think, for America. But it's a huge mistake for the Republican Party to do this. [Mr. Dean, when do you plan to explain your response to the actual point that was raised?]
MR. RUSSERT: Do the Republicans have the votes to do it?
DR. DEAN: I don't know. They say they do. I have no way of knowing what the vote counts are in the Senate. [Howard Dean (H.D.), 5/22/05: “If the filibuster is gotten rid of… it means the president can put 10 judges on the bench that we believe are not qualified to serve.”] But, again, I hope they won't. [Yet you know they’re going to try the nuclear option with Social Security?] Someday, the Democrats will be back in charge again. [Despite losing four consecutive national elections by increasingly larger numbers.] Do we want a Democratic Party that's in charge of everything? Well, you know, I suppose it's my job to say yes. But the truth is, as an American, it's better when parties share power. [So we can have even bigger stalemates?] It's better when even those people who didn't win the election have something to say. [No, Mr. Dean, you win elections to have more authority. That’s the entire point.]
MR. RUSSERT: Republicans will say that the Democrats are speaking a different tune now than they did when they were in control. Robert Byrd, when he was a majority leader in '79, said, "Now, we are at the beginning of Congress. This Congress is not obliged to be bound by the dead hand of the past."
And the filibuster used to need 67 votes. They [Democrats] changed it to 60.
DR. DEAN: Mm-hmm. [Powerful response.]
MR. RUSSERT: Pat Leahy, your colleague from Vermont [whom Dick Cheney once told to go “F” himself], said, "I have stated over and over again on this floor that I would object and fight against any filibuster on a judge, whether it is somebody I opposed or supported; that I felt the Senate should do its duty. If we don't like somebody the president nominates, vote him or her down. But don't hold them in this anonymous unconscionable limbo, because in doing that, the minority of Senators really shame all Senators."
DR. DEAN: Well, here's the problem. Look, I have nothing against up or down votes on people. [H.D., 5/22/05: “If the filibuster is gotten rid of, the extended debate is gotten rid of in the Senate, first of all, and it means the president can put 10 judges on the bench that we believe are not qualified to serve.”] I think that's a good thing. The problem is that--I'll give you an example. When I was governor [good example so far], I felt like everybody was my boss, whether they voted for me or against me, they paid my salary, and they would participate in the hiring process. So when I went out to town meetings and so forth and so on, I heard from everybody, all takers, whatever they wanted to lay on me. President Bush, for example, goes to these town meetings and doesn't allow Democrats or Independents who disagree with him into the town meeting. [Bold-faced lie.] He has a crew of people who keep them out. [I attended a Bush campaign speech in late October that Bush-protesters also attended. They wore non-vulgar, anti-Bush t-shirts. One had a non-vulgar anti-Bush sign.] This is a little bit like that. Don't those of us who didn't vote for the president, the 48 percent of Americans [who lost], don't we have some say? When the Republicans were in power [they’re not anymore?], they kept a much larger percentage of President Clinton's nominees to the bench. [This is another lie. Besides, this was after having a VOTE, Mr. Dean – which is the point of the question.] They didn't do it with the filibuster, they did it by bottling them up in committee and not allowing them to move forward.
MR. RUSSERT: The numbers are pretty similar actually. [HA!]
DR. DEAN: OK. They're similar. [Whoa! So you just admitted you lied. Had Mr. Russert not called you on it, you’d have been perfectly content with your bold-faced lie conjured from thin air.] Now, the Democrats are doing the same thing. [H.D., 5/22/05: “When the Republicans were in power, they kept a much larger percentage of President Clinton's nominees to the bench.”] I think of course the party in power is going to argue against it. But if you look at what's good for America, not what's good for the Republican Party, what the Republicans want to do is not good for America. [Which you just admitted Democrats used to do.] I would argue that it's not very good in the long run for the Republican Party either. You can't cut the minority, especially if the minority is a very large one like 48 percent, totally out of everything. [They’re not trying to. They’d love for the minority to vote yes or no for these judicial nominations.] It's a matter of checks and balances. [*Remember this reference for later.*] Look at the terrible things that are going on in Congress today. You have a Republican leader who has been admonished three times by the Ethics Committee, and his response is to get rid of the Ethics Committee [nice attempt to change the subject because you’re rambling] or render them inoperable. Now, those kinds of things are less likely to go on if you have....
MR. RUSSERT: But that's been changed back.
DR. DEAN: Yeah, but now he's up for a fourth reprimand and he's being investigated by the district attorney. [(1) An investigation or admonishment isn’t an indictment or conviction; and (2) Maybe if the Ethics Committee actually had valid claims, they wouldn’t be regarded as a nuisance or hindrance from actual progress.] The point is not to bring up Tom DeLay [then why did you?], which I'm sure we will, and his ethics problems [AKA, “Mr. Russert, please change the subject to Tom Delay, I studied for that question!”], but the point is, those things are less likely to happen if you have two parties that have something to say about what goes on in Washington. Right now the Republicans control everything except for this group of Democrats in the Senate who do raise issues about these particular 10 judges who we don't think are qualified to sit on the bench. Ten out of 205--it seems to me that a president on either side is not likely to be right 100 percent of the time. You do need an opposition party [AKA, obstructionist party]. That's what we're trying to build. This is going to make it harder.
[Bear in mind the general question was whether Democrats are being hypocritical, based on their past actions and statements about this issue.]
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