Dean: GOP "Full of liars"

The New York Times Magazine ran an article by Tucker Carlson (the guy with the bowtie on "Crossfire") about how the Democratic party can rejuvinate itself. Carlson called Dean, who came out swinging:

Will the Democrats get one in 2004? To find out, I called Howard Dean, the former longtime governor of Vermont and newly announced candidate for the White House. Parties are often revived by insurgents from within them -- Reagan, Gingrich -- and Dean is nothing if not an insurgent. Plus, I'd heard that he's a straight-shooter.

He is. While other candidates divulge their positions on uncomfortable social issues almost parenthetically, Dean leads with his. He is for needle exchanges, unrestricted abortion and civil unions between homosexuals, and he's happy to tell you about it. Most politicians squirm at the mention of partial-birth abortion. Not Dean. ''Partial-birth abortion is a manufactured issue,'' he says. ''It's [expletive]. Partial-birth abortion essentially doesn't exist.'' And even if it does, ''it isn't any of Congress's business.''

Dean isn't surprised by the Trent Lott scandal. The Republican Party is fundamentally hostile to blacks and Hispanics, he says, riddled as it is with ''institutional racism.'' It's also full of liars. ''I find the Republican Party pretty bankrupt intellectually,'' Dean says, adding that he doesn't read anything written by conservatives. Nothing? ''No.'' Are there any conservatives who are intellectually honest? ''I don't think so. I can't think of any.'' He sounds cheery as he says this.

Does this come off as a little too harsh? Just because you're a straight-shooter doesn't mean that you can't hold your fire now and then.