And Howard Dean [left], chairman of the Democratic National Committee, admitted it, too!

The setting was Waterbury radio station WDEV's "Mark Johnson Show" on Tuesday. Former State Rep. Peter Mallary was the fill-in host.

His old pal Howard Brush Dean III was his "special guest" via telephone. Yours truly wrote it up in today's "Inside Track" print column.

Here's a taste:

“I think we were doing great until the Iraq vote,” said the DNCchairman, “and that really upset an awful lot of people who wanted tobe out of Iraq.”

Certainly Ho-Ho knows that opposition to President George “WMD” Bush’s Iraq war is very, very strong in WDEV Land.

Dean said the Democrats in Washington didn’t come off looking toogood, in part because of what he termed “this complex press coverage,headlines like ‘Democrats Cave in to Bush,’ which really wasn’t true.”

But the problem the Dems have with the Iraq war, said Dean, is one of mathematics.

“We really had trouble with Iraq because, frankly, [Senate Democratic Leader] Harry Reid only has 49 votes,” noted Chairman Ho-Ho. [Connecticut Independent Sen.] Joe Lieberman votes with the Republicans on this issue. [South Dakota Democratic Sen.] Tim Johnson is out sick. He’ll be back in September, and we were outmaneuvered a little bit.”

How unusual to witness a political party leader admit to being “outmaneuvered” by the other side, eh?

“I think the next time that we try to shut down the war — perhapsin September,” said Dean, “we’ll be a little bit better prepared forthe machinations of the Republican minority in the Senate.”

One would hope.