Why Is This Man Smiling?

Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Howard Dean was on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer today, and scored some great points, first on forming a sensible plan for redeploment/removal of troops from Iraq (using the framework of this plan formulated by Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis over at the Center for American Progress, which is also home to the stellar ThinkProgress blog; I'll look at this a bit more and blog about in the coming week) and then offering a very clear debunking of the Republican Noise Machine echo that Democrats took Jack Abramoff cash along with Republicans. It left Blitzer looking dazed and Dean looking like the Cheshire Cat. Hat tip to Bink's diary over at Daily Kos; you can see the video over at Crooks & Liars. Here's my transcript:

Blitzer: Should Democrats who took money from Jack Abramoff, who's now pleaded guilty to bribery charges among other charges, 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 single person named in this scandal is a Republican and every person under investigation is a Republican, every person indicted is a Republican. This is a Republican-financed scandal. [ed note - that's a great tagline] There's no evidence that Jack Abramoff ever gave any Democrat any money. We've looked through all those FEC reports to make sure that's true.

Blitzer: But, but, through various Abramoff organization and outfits, a bunch of Democrats did take money that presumable originated with Jack Abramoff.

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

Blitzer: What about Senator Byron Dorgan? [ed note - of North Dakota]

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 ever 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. They have misled the American people. And now it appears they're stealing from Indian tribes. The Democrats are not involved in this.