By Dean’s words here in this interview, it certainly doesn’t look like he knows exactly what’s been going on.
From Morning Joe today:
Dean: It is true, you have to admit, Martin, it is true that every candidate complains about the DNC favoring the other candidate, right?
O’Malley: Yeah, but it’s also true that we’ve never had so few debates. Can you ever remember a time when the people of Iowa and New Hampshire were each told they only get one debate? That’s never happened before.
Dean: So that’s a question I have for you: Why not — I mean this happened — I was actually the architect of the six debates, it was actually to protect our candidates from all the organizations that demanded it. But my prediction was, which so far hasn’t come true, is there were, in fact, going to be lots of debates. I mean if I were you, I’d get together with Bernie and say, “We’re going to have a debate, ‘Hillary, you’re invited to come,’ if the DNC doesn’t like it, too bad.”
O’Malley: You think I haven’t done that? I’ve done that. I asked Senator Sanders. Senator Sanders didn't want to do more debates, either. He kind of liked where it is. All of that is what it is.
Why did Howard Dean “predict” there would be lots of debates? Did he not know about Debbie Wasserman Schultz’ Exclusivity Clause wherein if any of the Democratic candidates participated in any debate other than the six personally and exclusively decided by Debbie on her own that that candidate or candidates would be forbidden to participate in any other scheduled debates by Debbie?
Of course Bernie Sanders will not debate only O’Malley now. If he does, he loses the opportunity to ever debate Hillary again. Duh.
Here is the link to the video. I can’t link to exactly that portion of the show, but you can find it yourself if you click on O’Malley’s picture somewhere on the site.
http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe
(hat tip to Thom Hartmann for pointing out this interview and what Howard Dean said.)