A Rolling Dean Gathers No Moss

The Rolling Stone interview with Howard Dean makes pretty interesting reading. Four brief excerpts:

"I think the Republicans are much meaner than the Democrats are. I don't want to absolve the Democrats, but Republicans are just brutal. They do not care what happens to the country as long as they stay in power, and they're willing to do anything they can to stay in power. It's the most unforgivable thing about this administration and the congressional leadership."

"George Bush's philosophy is, 'If you're rich, you deserve it, and if you're poor, you deserve it.' That's not my philosophy."

"These guys are not driven by real-world considerations. They're driven by an ideological view of the country, which they believe, literally, it's their God-given right to inflict on everybody else. And this election's going to show, I hope, that it's not their God-given right, and that we don't want it."

"Our business culture is a disaster in this country. And this president's largely responsible for it, because he hasn't set the kind of example that needs to be set. When the energy industry writes your energy bill, and the pharmaceutical companies write your Medicare prescription benefit, you've got a big corporate-culture problem in this country. And it doesn't surprise me that the president thinks there's no problem with business, because the president is part of the problem. Let's be very blunt about this."

Yes, we like blunt!