Dean Swings at Bush, DeLay
By Charles Mahaleris
Talon News
September 4, 2003

(Talon News) -- Democrat presidential candidate and front-runner Howard Dean spent time Wednesday swinging at President George W. Bush and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Describing the administration as having a "foreign policy based on petulance," the former Vermont governor condemned a Bush administration official within the State Department who in a recent speech down-played the significance of several European nations, calling them "chocolate makers."

That comment had come on Monday from State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher during the department's daily press briefing.

QUESTION: Mr. Boucher, do you have anything on the proposal for the creation of a European Union military headquarters in Brussels independent of NATO -- something that have angered the United States, according to reports?

MR. BOUCHER: I'm not quite sure what proposal that is. You mean the one from the four countries that got together and had a little, bitty summit?

QUESTION: That's exactly it -- and Belgium insisting to this --

MR. BOUCHER: Yeah, the chocolate makers.

Boucher apologized right away and said, "I think they have been referred to that way in the press. I shouldn't repeat things I see in the press."

His apology did not satisfy Dean. Dean said on Wednesday, "Rather than reaching out to our long-standing allies in NATO -- the force best situated to help us stabilize Iraq -- this administration continues to practice a foreign policy based on petulance, this time referring derisively to Belgium, France, Germany, and Luxembourg as 'chocolate makers.'"

Dean's campaign also took issue with comments from House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. On Tuesday, Dean Communication Director Tricia Enright said, "The narrow ideological agenda of the DeLay-Ashcroft wing of the Republican Party threatens basic American freedoms that have been enshrined in the Constitution for over 200 years. Those policies are not only extreme, they are cruel."

This strong rebuke followed comments from DeLay in which he attacked Dean for calling Attorney General John Ashcroft "unpatriotic" during a campaign stop in New Hampshire.

"If this cruel, loudmouth extremist is the cream of the Democratic crop, next November's going to make the 1984 election look like a squeaker," DeLay said according to MSNBC. DeLay was referencing the overwhelming victory of President Ronald Reagan over Walter Mondale.