How awesome is Howard Dean? Answer: Very Awesome.

In a lesson for how Democrats should act if they go on FOX, Dean appeared on FOX News Sunday (May 4, 2008) to do the job that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were unwilling to do — call out FOX for being “shockingly biased” towards republicans, refuse to be drawn into FOX’s obsession with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and not allow FOX to lie in their efforts to protect the channel’s official candidate: John McCain.

First, Dean smacked down Chris Wallace’s (and the Right’s) misinformation campaign to rewrite McCain’s comment that he wouldn’t mind if American troops stayed in Iraq for 100 years. Wallace brought up an ad featuring McCain’s quote:

WALLACE: Governor, why are you distorting what McCain actually said?

DEAN: Well, I'm not. –snip- I've said publicly that John McCain said that he wants to keep our troops in Iraq for up to 100 years. He himself said that some of that could be occupation like South Korea or Germany.

But the fact of the matter is, first, that anybody who thinks that we can keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years without them being victimized by roadside bombs, suicide bombers and militias I think is wrong and needs their judgment — to look carefully at their judgment.

And secondly, Americans don't want our troops in Iraq for 100 years, no matter what they're doing over there. We can't afford that. We need the money here at home for our jobs.

Nailed it. Americans do not want US troops in Iraq for 100 years — period. The vast majority of the world (including Iraqis) don’t want the US to stay in Iraq for 100 more minutes, let alone 100 more years. And to compare Korea or Germany, with their largely ethnically/religiously homogenous populations, with Iraq and its history of ethnic/religious divisions is either disingenuous, naïve, or just plain ignorant. Also, McCain has said he doesn’t want to leave Iraq until the US “wins” and there’s no more violence. Judging from the past few years, does that look like that’s going to happen anytime soon?

Next, Dean squashed Wallace’s attempt to rewrite another of McCain’s misguided statements by attacking an ad which uses a clip of McCain saying “Americans overall are better off because we have had a pretty good, prosperous time.”

WALLACE: But, Governor, you edited out what John McCain said in the very next sentence. Let's watch that.

MCCAIN (video clip): But let's have some straight talk. Things are tough right now. Americans are uncertain of this housing crisis. Americans are uncertain about the economy.

WALLACE: When there are such real big differences between the two parties this year, and there certainly are, why misrepresent what McCain is saying?

DEAN: And, Chris, if you had gone on to play that thing that you just played, you would have seen him say again at the end, "but Americans are better off than they were," and they are not.

Gas prices have gone from $1.10 a gallon in December of 2001 to about $3.50 now. The average American income was $49,000 in 2001. In 2006 it was $48,000. That is unprecedented. Never have we had a president where the average American income dropped $1,000 in the first six years of their term.

And what McCain is offering is four more years of George Bush. He wants to extend the Bush tax cuts. Of course, he was opposed to that two years ago. –snip-

He has no economic plan. He has no plan for getting us out of Iraq. And I don't think our ads misrepresent anything.

Slam! McCain doesn’t deserve a cookie or a free pass because he isn’t so blindingly clueless as to not realize that “things are tough”. McCain still believes that most Americans have prospered under the Bush administration — that makes him out of touch.

(And while we’re on the subject, it’s hard to believe that Wallace can honestly go after Dean and the democrats for “misrepresenting” quotes when he works at FOX. Just check out THE FOX IS WRONG! Obama to see the lengths Wallace’s employer goes to mangle, distort, and lie about any statement they can as long as it hurts a democrat.)

But Dean really got the gloves off when he was asked about whether Rev. Wright had made Obama “radioactive” to other democrats:

DEAN: First of all, I'm not going to get into the Reverend Wright at all. I think we've spent enough time on Reverend Wright. –snip-

Chris, the Republicans — for the last 30 years, the Republican book is to race bait and to use hate and divisiveness. In 2006, the American people said no to that, and I think they're going to say no to that in 2008.

It is true that the economy, the war and health care are more important to the American people. They are tired of the divisiveness of what the Republicans have done to them, and that's why the Republicans are in trouble, deep trouble. –snip-

WALLACE: Governor, are you suggesting that bringing up Jeremiah Wright is race baiting, and hate and divisive?

DEAN: Yeah, I am suggesting that kind of stuff. I think when you start bringing up candidates that have nothing to do with the issue — when you start bringing up things that have nothing to do with the candidate and nothing to do with the issues, that's race baiting, and that's exactly what it is, just like Willie Horton was race baiting so many years ago.

I think we're going to take a — we're going to turn the page on this stuff. I tell you, you know, there's a lot of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats on issues, but the biggest issue of all is we don't use this kind of stuff. We never have used this kind of stuff, and we're not going to start now.

America is more important than the Republican Party, and that's the lesson that the voters are about to teach the Republicans.

The Republicans are the racist party, and they continually try to win elections by playing to the racist fears of their constituents. The non-stop attacks on Obama through Rev. Wright are further proof. And just because Obama had previously said that Rev. Wright is a “legitimate political issue” doesn’t give the media the right to beat the story into the ground, dig it up, then beat it some more.

Then, in the coup de grace, Dean explained to Wallace why democrats have been avoiding going on FOX for so long (unfortunately, until recently):

DEAN: We stayed off FOX for a long time because your news department is, in fact, biased. –snip- There are some things in the news department that have really been shockingly biased, and I think that's wrong. And I'll just say so right up front.

Thanks, Dean, for showing Democrats how it’s done when you go on FOX. About freakin’ time.

BUT.

Despite Dean’s great performance, he said some things I definitely take issue with. More on that tomorrow…

You can read the transcript of the interview here.