Howard Dean: 'Culture of corruption'

O'DONNELL:  Let me ask you about big controversy brewing today over whether or not the national anthem should be sung in Spanish.  President Bush today commented on this, and he said no, that the national anthem should be sung in English.  Do you agree? 

DEAN:  This is the kind of thing that's a bit of distraction.  In Canada, they sing the anthem in—the Canadian anthem in French and English.  You know, I'm a patriot.  I'm proud to have our anthem sung in any language possible.  I don't care if you translate it into German.  As long as people are singing the national anthem in the United States of America and being patriotic, I think, we ought to be pleased with that. 

O'DONNELL:  Well, you know, critics of this are calling it the illegal alien anthem and asking the question, why can't those who come to this country learn English and sing it in English? 

DEAN:  I think they will both learn it in English and do it in Spanish.  I'm kind of tired of the right wing picking out different groups every two years to win elections on.  We have an immigration problem in this country. 

The president has been president for five years.  The Republicans have been in charge for five years.  They did nothing about it.  I tell you, that's another thing the Democrats are going to do differently.  We'll pass a real immigration controlled bill.  We'll secure our borders.  We'll put the money in. 

Just the other day, a group of Democrats asked the Republican Congress for money, for border security, they wouldn't pass it.  Finally they passed it a couple of days ago.  It is ridiculous, and immigration should not be used as a scapegoating issue.  I don't think we need a guest worker program like the president does.  I do think we need to take into account the 12 million people who are here working hard.

O'DONNELL:  But Ted Kennedy supports a guest worker program.

DEAN:  The president's guest worker program is indentured servitude for immigrants, but we ought not to have it.  It does not help the immigrants.  It doesn't help our workers.  What we should do, however, is not this ridiculous right-wing bill in the Congress, where they are going to take, you know, 1,200 million people and kick them all out of the country.  Americans know that is not realistic.  Let's have a real immigration law, and let's start with securing our borders. 

Now, the Congress did do something and the Senate did something the other day which I think is sensible.  They're going to hire up to 15,000 new workers, and I think that makes a lot of sense.  But we have been fighting for that for five years, and the Republicans have been stonewalling it.  Now, they want to do something about immigration in an election year.  That's not going to pass muster.

O'DONNELL:  All right, Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party.  Thank you.

DEAN:  Thank you.

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