A new Dean scream (video)

Posted by Evan Derkacz at 8:36 AM on January 9, 2006.

In the wake of the Republican/Abramoff scandal the GOP strategy has been to attempt to bipartisan-ize it; to imply that some Democrats were involved, counting on the media's acrobatic attempts to make everything fair through false equivalency or by simply echoing lies.

Bingo. The meme that there were Dems on the take from Abramoff made it into some of the scandal coverage. Howard Dean, having none of it, went on Wolf Blitzer's show to answer those questions. The Wolf was silenced while Dean articulately and forcefully, but with great restraint, revealed Republican talking points as fakes [VIDEO -- right click and save linked file to disk if it doesn't play].

Jonathan has the transcript:

BLITZER: Should Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, who's now pleaded guilty to bribery charges among other charges, a Republican lobbyist in Washington — should the Democrats who took money from him give that money to charity or give it back?

DEAN: There are no Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff. Not one. Not one single Democrat. Every person named in this scandal is a Republican, every person under investigation is a Republican, every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican finance scandal. There is no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money, and we've looked through all those FEC reports to make sure that's true.

BLITZER: [Stammering] But through various Abramoff-related organizations, and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumably originated with Jack Abramoff.

DEAN: That's not true either. There's no evidence for that either, there's no evidence...

BLITZER: What about Senator, what about, what about, what about Senator Byron Dorgan?

DEAN: Senator Byron Dorgan and some others took money from Indian tribes. They're not agents of Jack Abramoff. There's no evidence that I've seen that Jack Abramoff directed any contributions to Democrats. I know the Republican National Committee would like to get the Democrats involved in this. They're scared. They should be scared. They haven't told the truth, and they have misled the American people, and now it appears they're stealing from Indian tribes. The Democrats are not involved in this.

BLITZER: [Long pause, apparently getting direction in his earpiece] [Sigh] Unfortunately, we, uh, Mr. Chairman, we've got to leave it right there.

Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.