COOPER: Ambassador Braun, you make a comment. And then, Governor Dean, you can respond. And then we'll move on.
Ambassador Braun?
MOSELEY BRAUN: You know, when I was in the Senate I opened myself up to the venom of the right-wing conspiracy by battling Jesse Helms over the Confederate flag. And I'm sitting here in Faneiul Hall and looking at that picture of having to do with the framing of our Constitution. And if you think about it, the women are relegated to the balcony, and the blacks aren't even in the room.
We have to as Democrats begin to engage a civil conversation among ourselves how we can get past that racist strategy that the Republicans have foisted upon this country, how we can bring Southern whites and Southern blacks and northern blacks and northern whites together, how we can come together to reclaim this country–and Latinos, and Asians, and Christians and Muslims and Jews and Protestants.
MOSELEY BRAUN: I mean, we have to be able to bring people together to find a solution. Because guess what, we are in a global economy. We are in a global competition. We have to deal with and address the rest of the world. And we can't do it as long as Americans are still fighting each other. And we need to find ways as Democrats to come together.
Yes, this is an important conversation. But it has to be done in a way that does not play into the hands of the real racists and the real right wing.
QUESTION: I'm a freshman at Brown University. And going to college this year, I was confused with an important decision. My mom advised me one way; my dad the other. And so my question for you all is–and it's not quite boxers or briefs, but Macs or PCs?
COOPER: Congressman Kucinich, Mac or PCs?
MOSELEY BRAUN: Macs or PCs? I'll answer.
I like them–my son has a Mac, he loves it. I use a PC.
COOPER: Ambassador Braun? Ambassador Braun, you have talked about…
MOSELEY BRAUN: I can't even hear you.
COOPER: Ambassador Braun, you have talked about bringing home troops with honor. What exactly does that mean?
MOSELEY BRAUN: That means we blew Iraq up. We have a responsibility to at least stay and leave it in better shape than we found it.
(APPLAUSE)
I did not…
(CROSSTALK)
I've called this a misadventure and called on the president not to put boots on the ground in Iraq from the very beginning. I asked the question, how much it was going to cost the American people from the beginning. We still don't have the truth on any of these things. They've lied to the American people consistently.
Ten thousand Iraqi civilians it's estimated have died as a result of this. And we're heading into 300 American combat troops have died in Iraq. This has been a tragic misadventure.
But those people having given their lives at a minimum we have I think our honor at stake, and to preserve that honor, we have to leave the Iraqi people no less–no worse off than we found them. And that means repairing and rebuilding the infrastructure, not new phone deals and sweetheart deals for Halliburton, certainly.
We don't need to give them a new phone system when we hardly have our phones working here at home.
But at the same time, I think we have to leave that place restored on some level and come out as we internationalize the effort as we bring in NATO and the United Nations troops.
QUESTION: Hi, good evening. Ambassador Braun, my question is, in the State of the Union address, President Bush encouraged more young Americans to give back to their country and join AmeriCorps, our national service program.
Yet this year, thousands of people were turned away from AmeriCorps and national service because of mismanagement and lack of funding. I was wondering what you plan to do to grow AmeriCorps? And also what your feeling is on the national service movement and how you can assure that young people who want to serve for barely minimum wage are going to be able to do so and give back to their community?
(APPLAUSE)
MOSELEY BRAUN: Thank you.
I think AmeriCorps is important. I think public service is important. And the thing that inspires me the most are the young people who, in spite of school and in spite of the barriers that they might face, continue to give and to reach outside of themselves to make the community better.
MOSELEY BRAUN: That kind of service goes to the heart of who we are as a people. We are really a generous people.
You mentioned the president's State of the Union Address. The sad thing about it is that this administration has become famous for bait and switch. They say one thing and they do another. Where they're saying–supporting AmeriCorps with words and then cutting the funding; clean, healthy forests and then cutting down old growth trees; clean skies and allowing for more pollution. They have done this consistently to the American people.
And I'm running for president because I sincerely believe that young people ought to be optimistic about the future, ought to be optimistic that their leadership will be honest with them, will tell them what the real deal is and that will allow for young people to contribute to making this society better, to breaking down the barriers and making us as Americans who we can be.
COOPER: Actually, I have a question in the audience for you. Would you rather have the question in the audience or this (referring to a question about GLBT rights)?
MOSELEY BRAUN: Well, I'd just as soon do this. I got off the chair. I am ignoring the chair. I'm going to ignore the ding-dong, too.
COOPER: Oh-oh.
MOSELEY BRAUN: I just wanted–you know, when you start off life both black and female, it is not hard to understand the aspirations of the GLBT community. Because at the end of the day, it really is about discrimination and allowing people to contribute to the whole of the society based on what they have inside, what the content of their character, the capacity of their intellect, the energy that they have to bring to bear.
And when we as a society allow everybody to contribute to the maximum extent of his or her ability, what we do is lift up the whole community. We help the whole society take the benefit of tapping 100 percent of the talent that's available to it, as opposed to just 50 percent or 25 percent.
My record in regards to this issue goes back almost 20 years when I started in the state legislature fighting to end discrimination against people who–not just race discrimination, not just gender discrimination, but discrimination against gay and lesbian people. And I believe that that's the only way to go.
If we're going to achieve the promise of America, we have to begin to move in the direction–continue the movement in the direction of liberating the human spirit, of allowing people to contribute to the maximum extent of what they can give to the whole community.
COOPER: All right, we are getting a lot of e-mail pouring in. Probably a predictable question just got asked. It is an e-mail from a viewer: “Which of you are ready to admit to having used marijuana in the past?”
And they want us to go around and ask each of you.
MOSELEY BRAUN: I'm not going to answer.