Howard Dean: Herman Cain 'Got The Issue' On Libya Question (VIDEO)

Cain Gets Support On Libya Question From Unlikely Source

Former DNC Chairman Howard Dean gave some uncharacteristic support for GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain on Tuesday, downplaying the former pizza mogul's serious slip-up on a question about U.S. foreign policy toward Libya.

"I don't think that was that awful," Dean said, to the surprise of hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough. "He hemmed and hawed a lot, but ... at the end of the day he got the issue, which was who was in the opposition in Libya."

"What Rick Perry did was a lot scarier than what Herman Cain just did," Dean continued, referring to his now famous stumble at last week's GOP debate.

Scarborough proceeded to accuse Dean of simply taking Cain's side in order to help him win the GOP primary, presumably to ease Obama's road to reelection. Brzezinski threatened to throw something at Dean.

But Dean maintained that he was serious. "I think you can nail Herman Cain on a lot of stuff, I don't think that was a good one."

Dean's defense appears somewhat similar to that of the Cain campaign, which claimed Monday that the clip from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel -- in which Cain appeared to struggle with the details of the situation in Libya -- had been "taken out of context," and that he hadn't said "anything wrong or inaccurate."

On Tuesday, Marty Kaiser, editor of the Journal Sentinel, countered these claims.

"Trying to spin it and say it was edited or handled some other way is just not accurate," Kaiser told CNN's "American Morning."

Kaiser added, "I have to admit, quite a few of us have been in the business a long time, been through a number of these kinds of interviews, and afterwards we were really sort of stunned."

Below, video of Cain's blunder:

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot