FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 26, 2003
Governor Dean Calls For Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz To Resign
'Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz Must Go' To Restore Credibility
WASHINGTON--This afternoon, Democratic presidential candidate Governor Howard Dean, M.D., called for the resignations of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
Following his comments, Dean for America announced that it was launching a petition drive to demonstrate the national support for the resignations of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. The petition is available at www.deanforamerica.com/mustgo.
In making his statement, Governor Dean cited the "long line of problematic statements from the highest levels of the Administration, from the discredited line in the President's State of the Union address regarding Iraq's supposed attempts to acquire uranium from Niger to the Vice President's claim that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear program to Secretary Rumsfeld's claim that he had 'bulletproof' evidence of ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. This pattern of deception is but one major reason that this Administration deserves to be fired by the American people."
"For officials at the highest levels of this Administration to exploit the emotions of the American people regarding the attacks of September 11 to achieve their political objectives is unacceptable," Governor Dean said.
He also cited the "abject failure of planning for the post-war period in Iraq. There is no need to wait until the next election to hold the major architects of this disaster responsible for their gross incompetence. The time has come for the President to fire them. To get Iraq on track, it is vitally important that the Pentagon begins the task of restoring credibility not only in the world community, but here at home as well. That is not possible under the continued leadership of Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. They must go."
"A decision to send our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters to war is the most solemn decision any president can make. As president, I will not hesitate to send our military anywhere in the world to defend the United States and its key interests, but I will never do so without telling the American people the truth. The American people expect and deserve the truth from their leaders--especially an Administration that purportedly took office to 'restore honor and dignity' to the White House. But we have seen something very different from this Administration," Governor Dean said.
His complete statement is available at www.deanforamerica.com and on the campaign's official weblog, www.blogforamerica.com.
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Conservatism's shari'a, liberalism's ijtihad
An interesting meta-debate by intellectual conservatives over conservatism's future is playing out. It started with David Frum's Waterloo essay, which led to his political excommunication. Julian Sanchez observed that this represented an epistemic closing of the conservative mind , a thesis that was validated by the retribution visited upon Jim Manzi for daring to suggest that conservatives will achieve more persuasion by using honest, strong arguments instead of weak, emotional ones. All of this has led John Quiggin at Crooked Timber to argue most wisely that as conservatism implodes, liberalism needs to find its own rationale that is more than just "not conservatism". Quiggin has a list of priorities for the liberal movement to address, and closes with the general plea, ...the left has to stand for something more than keeping the existing order afloat with incremental improvements. We need to offer the hope of a better world as an alternative to the angry tribali...
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