Yesterday's Washington Post reports that President George W. Bush considers himself a “dissident”:

“You're not the only dissident,” Bush told Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a leader in the resistance to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. “I too am a dissident in Washington. Bureaucracy in the United States does not help change. It seems that Mubarak succeeded in brainwashing them.”

Quite frankly, this is one of the most astonishing things I've ever heard Bush say, and he's said some truly confounding things during his tenure in the White House.

The last century has seen a great many dissidents fighting for democracy and freedom. Nelson Mandela in South Africa. Mahatma Ghandi in India. The students of Tiananmen Square. Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia. Otpor in Serbia.

Each one of these people and groups put their lives on the line for political change when facing oppressive, unjust governments. They were beat, shot at, killed, and imprisoned by their own countrymen and governments. Yet they still fought for change; some won, some continue to fight.

Nothing, I repeat, nothing, in the opposition President Bush has had to face to accomplish his agenda stands in the same category as what these heroic dissidents faced. The only thing President Bush has in common with a political dissident is that both words end with “dent.”

Bush has faced opposition because he's presented policies that are out of touch with the desires of the American people and the legislators that represent them. He's divided the country through the war in Iraq and the dangerous roll-back of constitutional rights.

Chris Dodd would never be confused for a dissident as President. He has the experience of bringing people of both parties together to get legislation passed. He did it with the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Genocide Conventions, helped bring peace to Latin America, the first child care legislation and countless other pieces of critically important legislation. A Dodd administration will bring the leaders of both parties together in January 2009, make its priorities clear, and work with people to get the job done. If obstacles ever come up, you can count on Chris Dodd to not become a martyr who casts himself in the vein as people he has no business comparing himself to. That's because Dodd is an honest, experienced leader who has a global understanding of politics and the meaning of words. Two things that I believe our country sorely needs.