"We should let it happen," Dean said of $1 trillion in domestic, defense and Medicare spending cuts set to be triggered on March 1. "I’m in favor of the sequester. It is tough on things that I care about a lot, but the fact of the matter is, you are not going to get another chance to cut the defense budget in the way that it needs to be cut."
"It’s an odd view from the left," he conceded.
It certainly is. Then again, Dean's views are often a bit idiosyncratic.

The former Vermont governor was warning against the perils of the Iraq War when it was still considered politically risky to do so. As chairman of the Democratic National Committee, he called for a 50 state strategy when few saw the utility in Democrats making a play for votes in states like Mississippi. When he ran for president in 2004, Dean had the innovative idea of pinning his hopes on grassroots momentum built on top of an online foundation. It was a digitally savvy, progressive template used by a senator named Barack Obama four years later.

But whereas Obama, as president, was forced to shed his renegade persona, Dean kept it going. As the president's health care law was getting watered down in Congress, Dean was one of the first to call for it to be scrapped. After the White House cut a deal this past January to end the Bush-era tax cuts for income above $400,000, he complained loudly that Democrats had gotten worked.

"The Republicans kicked their ass in that deal," he said. "Inside the Beltway people spun it in a different way. But, in effect, the Republicans won that battle."