This hot rhetoric is especially problematic when the party’s own mind is divided (and obviously less so when the party’s aflame with a single-minded consensus), and therefore Billmon thinks that Dean should go. A counter-argument might hold that the Democrats have to become single-minded if they wish to compete with an absolutist Republican party. But is the Republican Party itself so single-minded? I happen to think that it’s not–that it’s as least as divided as the Democrats’, and that a more diplomatic chairman could lure a lot of disaffected Republicans to the Democratic cause, something Dean may not be equipped or inclined to do (voters for Voinovich, for example, might welcome a fling with the Democrats in 2006). In any event, the Democratic Party is not at this moment single-minded, and that’s a reality that we have to live with.
I’ve reposted this from the “Dizzy Dean thread” (as b has done with citizen’s post) because I think it probably belongs here.

Posted by: alabama | Jun 10 2005 7:12 utc | 3

Well citizen, as one maroon to another, the n word I used was only in response to your twistd claim that by saying something foolish, Dean had provoked others into saying some things that were not foolish, for which he deserved credit, an exchange that can be found on the earlier thread. Credit where credit is due, as you make a second spinolicious, Rove worthy move in follow up, with your slander here. I did not say what you claim, but it suits your purposes, so claim you did.
But, on the substance.
After reading the Dean defenders I realize what disturbs me is that they are drunk on Kool Aid. They WANT this he slurred/she slurred fight. I don’t think there is a defense of Dean here, thee is a defense of the right to squabble and its ultimate importance. It is like Ron Artest, whose right to brawl was more important than the right to win or the game itself. For example, there is citizen, equating what Dean did (equating white christians with bad republicans) with what Dean did not do (Stand up for christian values over republican values, stand up for the belief that all men are created equal, stand up for whatever it is that Dean believes in that Republicans actively oppose in deed thought not word, stand against hypocrity and attack Republicans truth gap between deed and word, reject as wrong the politics of race and so on and on and on). Here Republicans have ramped up their volume production of issues Democrats could use to win, and we are talking instead about the issue Dean manufactured.
Earlier there was a discussion about the new Pope and how it was irrelevant to some people that the Pope just happened to be a member of the Hitler Youth, that,the supporters just didn’t care. Now we have people who just don’t care about the facts of what Dean said, because, He’s our boy and a brawl over bullshit is exactly what suits our purposes. Grrrr.
In short, the distrubing thing is there is a lot of truth to the Republican rants about the “left” who have their own agenda and culture war to fight and many of this left suffer from the delusional belief that their petty culture war can beat the Confederate white republicans culture war that is as anti empirical and reality based as their Republican twins. The sad thing is that Dean best represents this faction the farthest Dean is from well representing my country.

Posted by: razor | Jun 10 2005 8:41 utc | 5

After reading the attacks Biden and Edwards and Pelosi made on Dean after his recent remarks I’d say there is another dimension to be considered here.
Is Howard Dean calling the Demoplicans bluff?
Is he allowing them to show themselves as truly the Republicrat equivalent Demoplicans they are in order to sharpen the contrast between the corrupt party leadership and the rank and file? Will there be challenges to these Dethugs from real Democrats the next time they stand for election?
That is what is required. We need new people to replace the Demoplicans if it is ever again to be the Democratic Party.
There are two ways to read the Demoplican talk of mutinous “big time” contributors.
One is their way : “We’re losing all our ‘campaign contributions’ (bribe income)! He’s ruining the party!”
The other is what’s happening before your very eyes : the special interests aren’t getting their way as they used to and they’re pissed.
If you want to get rid of the special interests and return government to the people you have to stop taking their money.
The Dethug Demoplicans, Biden, Edwards, Pelosi and the rest, want to keep on taking the money. To keep on impersonating an oppositon. To keep on selling us out.
So Dethug enemy number one is Howard Dean. And they’ll hold Howard Dean’s arms behind his back while the Rethugs deliver gut punches.
And, as usual, the MSM will be holding all of their coats.
I’m personally thankful that there is one man in America who is willing to take on the task of dealing with these punks in their cesspoool.
I don’t think Dean walks on the water. He said the worst thing he could have when he signed on to the joint Republicrat-Demoplican occupation of Iraq.
Believe it or not, I’m not perfect either.
Dean comes back the next day and gives it another shot.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Jun 10 2005 9:56 utc | 7

Link to ACLU/”>Seeing the Forest has a good counter view to Billmon’s.

Posted by: Eli | Jun 10 2005 11:38 utc | 9

I think Dean’s taking a page from Amnesty (although not necessarily intentionally). The only way to get the media monkeys like Chris “smug-bastard” Matthews and Tim “pumpkin-head” Russert to pay attention is to say something so inflammatory that they feel it’s their duty to scold the Democrats or Amnesty for being too partisan or whatever. All of a sudden, the cable news dipshits are calling up all sorts of democrats to talk about what Dean said about Delay, Republicans, etc.. . He has given any semi-intelligent Democrat a golden opportunity to inoculate Dean by repeating that Dean is a good-guy but sometimes inarticulate and inflammatory, thus giving him more leeway to say dumb things, that what Dean really meant, and is correct in pointing out, is that the Republican leaders are
too beholden too fundamentalists like Dobson and corporate thieves like Ken Lay.
How lucky that all of a sudden Media types are asking Democrats why the DNC chair is saying these bad things about Republicans.
why couldn’t the conversation go like this:
Dean: The problem with the Republican Party is that it only cares about white Christians.
Republicans: Why do the Democrats hate white Christians?
Dean: We don’t hate white Christians, but we think the republican party has been hijacked by fundamentalist christians like Dobson, Delay and Bush who try to divide the country by demonizing gays, immigrants, etc… America should have room for many colors and creeds.
Republicans: So do we, and our party does too (Colin Powell Condy Rice Colin Powell Condy Rice.) But we just don’t understand why you Democrats hate white people and Christianity so much.
Dean: We think Rove and Delay have twisted Christianity to fit their political ideology and quest for power. We don’t hate Chritianity, we hate what Rove, Delay, Bush and Dobson are doing to our country and our religion.
Shrum did it perfectly last night on Hardball(paraphrasing):
smug-bastard: “What about that crazy Dean saying Republicans are white, christian males?”
Shrum: “Dean shoots from the hip, Republicans are just using this to distract from their failing on Social Security, Iraq, etc.. .. Just like fomer UN ambassador John Danforth said in the NY Times–the Republicans are too beholden to the religious right.
(I would have thrown this in) Only 41% of the country approve of Bush. Republicans like J.C. Watts don’t want to talk about that so they try to gin up a controversy where there is none.”

Posted by: geronimo | Jun 10 2005 13:05 utc | 11

Billmon you miss the point. No one else is stepping up to the plate to be the firebrand that Dean is. Americans want a straight shooter–and they are finally understanding that Bush isn’t one. The disillusionment with the republicans hasn’t transferred over to support for the democrats because none of the major democrats talk without weighing their every word. I watch the talk shows and not one of them speaks honestly. We want someone who cares about what they are saying, because they care, not because it serves a purpose. Dean at least is fighting for something, and he gets a lot of support from us little people for finally being willing to fight.

Posted by: sgiff | Jun 10 2005 14:44 utc | 13

Well said, Billmon. Dean may be the right guy for the wrong job. And he does need to watch how what he says plays with the media and the public because surely he must know the press is out to get him.
But am I stupid or naive to wonder why the fuck Dean and the Democratic leaders in Congress haven’t gotten together to map out a strategy to take down the Republicans? Jesus Christ, how bad does it have to get? As you said, why was Barney Frank of all people criticizing Dean for what he said about DeLay? And is Biden’s presidential ego trip too important for the sake of the party and the country? Sadly, the answer seems to be yes.
All this continues to make me deeply pessimistic about the viability of the Democratic Party and its ability to save our country from the Christo-fascists.

Posted by: Phil from New York | Jun 10 2005 15:46 utc | 15

I read Billmon as wishing Dean wouldn’t fuck-up his firebrand stuff. Get it right or don’t do it. The corporate media won’t cover the good stuff anywhere near as much as the mistakes or misspeaks.
And of course he holds Dean to a higher standard than himself. Dean is Chair of a political party. Billmon is just a little blogger shouting in the wilderness. Do you see any difference between the two situations?

Were Dean to say something like “I often beat my wife at chess”, expect them to play the quote as “I often beat my wife” followed by breathless speculation as to how often spousal abuse happens in the Dean household.

Nonsense. They’d play that as “I murdered my wife and ate her, before torturing a fetus to death under an inverted cross. I hate all Christians, especially white ones.” The debate would then be whether all Democrats were Satan-worshipping cannibals or just most of them.

Posted by: Colman | Jun 10 2005 15:49 utc | 17

I gave money to Dean last year and for awhile supported him for president, but it eventually became apparent that he wasn’t learning from the way his shoot-from-the-hip style could be spun back upon him. After the Confederate Flag dust-up, I thought he had learned his lesson — but he hadn’t.
For my money, Al Gore is a much more effective fighter. Look at what he said in August 2003, when he said the Bush administration was engaged in “a systematic effort to manipulate facts in service to a totalistic ideology that is felt to be more important than the mandates of basic honesty.” (emphasis mine) Does this sound weak-kneed? Absolutely not. Is this the kind of thing Democrats should be saying? Absolutely yes. But it’s a country mile from speaking carelessly about white Christians and implying that all Republicans are trust fund queens, even if — especially if — that’s not what you mean.
Billmon is about to hold Dean to a higher standard than he’s going to hold himself to.
You’re damn right he is, and he should. Dean, after all, is the one who makes news, not Billmon.

Posted by: Sakitume! | Jun 10 2005 15:58 utc | 19

I’m with Nightowl.
Dean’s a bit of a loose cannon, but he’ll settle in.
Vapors.
TeHeHe.

Posted by: Groucho | Jun 10 2005 16:32 utc | 21

For my money, Al Gore is a much more effective fighter.
I think this is a pretty good illustration of the situation we’re in. I love Al Gore, and I think pretty much everything he’s said in his speeches for the past couple of years has been brilliant, but to qualify as an effective fighter, you have to, well, have an effect. I wish that was happening, but I don’t see it.

Posted by: Redshift | Jun 10 2005 16:47 utc | 23

Bill, thanks for clarifying your thoughts on Dean. I still think Dean is the right man for the job and that he will hone his media skills. I hope the rest of the party will stop talking about “benching” him on Press the Meat though. Sadly, even Obama got into the act a little.
I’m sure every top democrat has his phone number. They should call him and do a photo-op like Reid did.

Posted by: Pat | Jun 10 2005 17:15 utc | 25

Is he allowing them to show themselves as truly the Republicrat equivalent Demoplicans they are in order to sharpen the contrast between the corrupt party leadership and the rank and file?
You got it my brother. This isn’t about big-tent, touchy feely, lets-all-just-get-alongism. This really IS about taking the party back from the corporate hacks. And it’s working.
Look at the way the DOOPers are now backtracking after all their tsk-tsking earlier in the week. The big pro-Dean backlash has brought the Dempublicrats to the grim realization that Howard really does have the Power, and that they better at least start paying lip service to him if they don’t want a primary fight.
But I don’t think Dean is gonna be satisfied with their lip service. He knows that the Remocans are the single biggest obstacle to his goal of weening the party off corporate slush, and he wants them out.
He won’t make the same mistake he made in the primaries of directly opposing them however – if he learned one thing it’s that he doesn’t yet have enough influence to fly only on the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party.
So instead he sets them up. He throws red meat to the base and challenges these guys to try and take it from our hungry mouths without getting bitten.
When the resulting angry roar is heard by the donkyphants’ corporate patrons, they start wondering whether their zoo keepers have lost their touch at keeping us docile – which is, after all, what they pay them to do.
So Howard wins:
A) The base gets mobilized and non-lobbyist money pours in to the DNC coffers;
B) The Demlicrans lose influence with both the base AND their financeers.
A + B) Individual contributions increase and corporate donations decrease, strengthenening Dean’s control of the party purse strings and diluting the ability of big shots to buy policy on the cheap.
So in many ways I hope the Demoplicans keep bad mouthing Howard. The more they show themselves as the toadies they are, the stronger Dean becomes.
… and all Howard had to do was call Republicans ‘White Christians’. Too easy.

Posted by: Night Owl | Jun 10 2005 17:27 utc | 27

Redshift said regarding my comment about Al Gore’s speeches, to qualify as an effective fighter, you have to, well, have an effect. I wish that was happening, but I don’t see it.
I agree, and I should have said that Al Gore makes a much more effective argument, and if he himself didn’t create an immediate effect back when (other than to energize the partisan troops), the recent and broader application of this theme — “abuse of power” — is hitting home.
DeLay’s problems are cascading down to folks like Noe. The Ohio Coin scandal is affecting several figures. The public is not, in general, happy with the Nuclear Option, radical judges, or the exploitation of Schiavo. Rick “Spreading” Santorum, for one, is reaping the net effect in the polls over his pursuit of his “totalistic ideology.”
Unfortuantely, we have a way to go to convince the mushy middle of the Bush administration’s mendacity — if we ever can. I hope Howard hits the Rethugs hard on this and on policy issues, because when it comes to race, class or religion, he’s proven himself an incapable and ineffective commentator, one who derails more effective lines of attack.

Posted by: Sakitume! | Jun 10 2005 17:55 utc | 29

Democrats need to defeat Republicans at their own game when it comes to enflaming. I’ve noticed over the passed few years of listening to countless diatribes from Hannity and the occassional fatwa from Blondie Bin Coulter, that Republicans seem to opperate within a vacuum of denial. In other words, when a Republican slings mud — even if some of it blows back on themselves — they rest of the GOP is all “Hear no evil, see no evil.” It is as if the blowback of the mud that’s on their own faces never exists even though we can clearly see it. It’s “out of sight — out of mind” and it drives us out of our tree. Republicans are able to do this effectively because of Reagan’s “11th Commandment” — Thou Shall Not Publically Speak Ill Of A Fellow Republican — still sticks with them. Instead, what Republicans do is they speak ill of each other privately, in secret. But when the cameras are rolling, people are watching, they quickly affix the masks and pass off the image of unity. They don’t have to actually exhibit sincerity. They just have to fake it and they’re better fakers than Democrats simply because they learned feigning sincerity from some of the best schysters that ever drug their knuckles though this side of the Mesopotamia — Falwell, Baker, Robertson, Tilton, Roberts, etc.
I think if Democrats where to carry themselves with an strutting, proud, swaggering air that seems to say, “Yep, we fart perfume and shit petunias” (you know, the ol’ Foghorn Leghorn approach?), the GOP’s junkyard dogs would go into guard mode training their bloodshot eyes on to the Dems and — as the Schaivo mess teaches us — every time the GOP goes completely rabid or ecstastic, they end up choking on their own chain. For example, when Dean made his comments about Tom DeLay going to jail, my reaction was the same as Billmon. I looked over my left shoulder at the TV and said, “Not bad, Dean! Needs a little work, but that’s a good start!” Aside from Barney Frank running his yap, the response from the GOP wasn’t pure outrage. To me, it was more like a low growl followed by a check-bark that all dogs do when they sense an unknown threat. Now, if Dean would have said something like, “I think Tom DeLay, in due time, will be cuffed and crammed so far and deep into a federal prison that the warden will have to feed him with a slingshot”, the GOP’s Junkyard Dogs would’ve immediately foamed at the mouth and would’ve been on the lunge … only to be choked back head over 4 legs by their own chain.
Granted, Dean isn’t Foghorn Leghorn, but sadly he’s the closet thing we got.

Posted by: Sizemore | Jun 10 2005 18:00 utc | 31

The confederate flag “dust up” is exactly what I mean by the fact that the media is looking for things to bash Dean with.
Me, too. Again, it comes down to smart phrasing — to selling the substance of the message in an effective manner. And I agree that Dean’s essential point was very substantive. After Dean clarified what he was really trying to say in the post Confederate flag days, I thought he’d be smarter about his phrasing. But he wasn’t, and he still isn’t.
If you allow the substance of your message to be derailed through careless phrasing — if you cannot say what you mean — you’re a sitting duck.

Posted by: Sakitume! | Jun 10 2005 18:08 utc | 33

Billmon- apparently I’m much less hopeful than you, when I hear that the washington “insiders” know Hilary has the nom. locked for 08, because of money. (that from Mahablog).
I’ve never ever voted for someone I wanted to be prez. I’ve always voted dem because of the lesser of two evils idea. But, with various things that have happened since 2000, I’m to the point that I don’t know if I even need to vote anymore…does it matter?
The repukes train their baby seal killers to make it harder to vote for dems, they most surely stole 2000, and I believe 2002 was a test case for 2004…Max Cleland’s loss is still a mystery to me…unless there are that many stupid voters who would believe the rhetoric that a man who lost his limbs in Vietnam is unpatriotic because he’s not a Bushman.
In other words, I no longer believe in the electoral process in America. My own representative won in a race that used the delay and frustrate tactics in the heavy dem. districts…and won by 1000 votes, after the incumbent refused to challenge it. Of course, a local goon who posted libelous billboards helped the sheep for girlfriends, Sunday Bible School crowd.
So, for me, Dean is really…Deanbo. Different movie for me. Not Howard’s End. Dean is there with his bullet feeders strapped across his chest, an AK-47, or whatever those guns are, firing from his hip, while pissed off and voiceless (as in with the powerful) liberals wait for him to clear a path, and then they pick up the weapons left behind in the retreat and get a little better strategy and part of them make a run behind the lines to hem in the Bush junta.
I guess if I thought politics as usual mattered, maybe I’d be more upset, but it seems that Dean called the repukes theocrats (which is the real meaning of this last statement, and it didn’t get nearly as much traction.
Maybe Dean can get some figures that look at the donations from groups aligned with right winger so-called Christians like the Reconstructionists, the Domionists, Bob Jones U, the REV MOON, and ask for some air time to issue a clarification and explain who these groups are. Explain that Moon, as phillips notes, paid for bush’s first inaugural prayer breakfast, so obviously it’s not just the party of white Christians, because Moon has declared himself the Messiah and people keep taking money from him (this hurts some dems, too, but tough shit.) the Rev Moon will make the Dallas Baptists go ballistic.
Divide and conquer under the guise of “explaining” that statement. Dean can present himself as a person who talks off the cuff…and then go into detail about who the biggest contributors are to the Republicans…like this tobacco deal…and talk about America when it was a nation of business owners who operated on a local scale and knew their neighbors and customers and couldn’t get away with dumping shit into the ground water, declaring bankruptcy, and moving away while parents dealt with the health problems for their children who, btw, no longer have health care….
anyway, my take is obviously why I am not a politician, nor a political advisor of any kind.
Clinton gave away the farm and thought he could make peace with the McCoys and all they did was screw him for getting a blow job. Bush will never be held accountable for his crimes by the current Congress, so someone has to shout about these things from the rooftops in order to be heard.

Posted by: fauxreal | Jun 10 2005 18:14 utc | 35

Susan S
Ten million hours of beating the pavement by volunteers selling the Dean message can be undone in a nanosecond by the assholes in Fox working for Murdoch.
You’re trying to stop an incoming tide with a 9 iron.
My advice, buy a lifeboat.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jun 10 2005 18:25 utc | 37

Ask any of the 21-35 crowd no-shows that failed to dump Bush I:11-22 who Delay is, or what Ohio Coin or Downing Street Memo means, or “yellow cake”, or who Howard Dean is, and they will blink at you for a brief moment, then call up a friend on their cell to, “let’s go do something”.
“Later, dude.”
Dean is shouting in a cardboard box, and the only way he’s going to get elevated up beyond the 7% of Americans who blog is if we send DNC serious green. If we don’t capture the 21-35’s right now, right now when the war is still blowbacking, then we lose bigtime in 2008.
Remember the XI Olympics, “Strength Thru Joy”?
God help us if Bushites make it over the hump,
bring our troops home, and spin up their “life is beautiful all the time,” 24×7 on One Media USA.
March 29th, 1936: Nationwide election brings a turnout of 99% . . . 98.8% go to Adolf Hitler.

Posted by: tante aime | Jun 10 2005 18:32 utc | 39

Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.
On the other hand, just because they are out to get you doesn’t mean that you aren’t a jack ass who is going to get yourself.
Stop playing Rove’s game by excusing Dean because you are angry at the Herd. Dean mesed in his cage and he should clean it up. If he can’t, he isn’t trustworthy because at the critical moment, he will let his team down.
Remember, not so long ago there was another Democrat whose personal flaws set the agenda for the Democratic party. When is enough enough?

Posted by: razor | Jun 10 2005 18:50 utc | 41

Charlie Cook:

Off of the top of my head, I cannot recall a national party chairman from either party winning or losing many votes, and believe for the most part, what party chairmen do is inside baseball.
Swing voters tend to be less attentive to the day-to-day combat of partisan politics, read newspapers less and are not as likely to watch political shows, either on Sunday mornings or on daily cable.
They are also less likely than partisans to listen to talk radio or visit political Web sites or read blogs (or for that matter, read this column).

Posted by: slothrop | Jun 10 2005 19:52 utc | 43

“Isn’t Rove’s game to let personal flaws set the agenda for the Democratic party?”
In a competition there is a competitor who gets to shoot back. So? Isn’t this question equivalent to, “Won’t the Oakland Raiders play dirty?’ Yeah, I would expect.
Rove did not wage Clinton’s finger as Clinton explaind he did not have sex with THAT woman. Nor did Rove Charlie McCarthy Dean’s latest.

Posted by: razor | Jun 10 2005 20:14 utc | 45

Billmon just added A Clarification which I also linked in the above post.

Posted by: b | Jun 10 2005 20:24 utc | 47

Re: A Clairifaction.
Billmon,
Between Dizzy Dean and this thread up, to this point, you elicited 146 comments. More (without digging way back) than in a while.
Obviously, Dean is a real matter of interest to many of we barflies. Please, never say never and don’t hold back next time Howard is chewing on his toenails again.

Posted by: Juannie | Jun 10 2005 20:37 utc | 49

Dean is fine. Stop belittling the man. Belittle the talking heads of the right. Let our lions roar. That’s their job.
Billmon you’re wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong on this. Shut up already.

Posted by: patience | Jun 10 2005 23:44 utc | 51

I am a long time Democratic Party activist who has sat in meeting rooms with a couple of DNC chairs over the past decade or so, and nothing Howard Dean said that has you so upset differs in style or tone from any other DNC chair I have heard.
But with all your preoccupation with what Dean supposedly said, which in context was absolutely appropriate to the audience it was directed, you totally ignore everything else he said over the past weeks…which the oppo research guys in the RNC found not in their interest to release. Too bad you missed it was good stuff. And as usual the stuff they were able to lift had to tortured to death for anyone to possibly take offense, and even then only the most credulous would find such stuff a problem. At least in the reality based world.
I also will say that the voting members of the DNC and their people who have to do the work of the party are pleased with Howard Dean, grateful for his support, and happy with his tenure so far. He is doing exactly what he promised, and running way ahead of schedule which with stuff which will actually effect elections, not this inside baseball washington stuff you find so riveting.
I won’t bore you with the details, it involves the mindnumbing and grueling stuff which has to be done to get people planted in polling places.
Dean was a known quantity when he was elected chair, and he was chosen because he actually did have a plan, and a successful model for bring our party back to the red states (which you might have missed in the last election, but DFA was one of the bright spots in a very disappointing election). Also, Dean was chosen not only what he had to say…which alone is powerful stuff(if you have never heard Dean unfiltered and unspun, you might actually give him a listen) but because of something lost in the discussion. Dean called up every voting member of the DNC and give them unlimited time to tell him what they were looking for in leadership, and he did something which is pretty rare these days, he LISTENED. I have had opportunity to observe Dean with people, ordinary people, most policy people wouldn’t give the time of day, and he would disagree with them, and explain why…and when he was impressed with their ideas, he would take notes, and follow up. Dean does listen. He doesn’t hold a grudge, and he is aware that Republicans and others will attack him for his strengths, and one of those strengths is his ability to put forth a coherent and compelling message.
So rag on Dean all you want, and make false analogies, and snap judgements without the facts….Howard Dean has a thick skin, and will stay on task and on message, and exercise the discipline his critics seem unable to do for themselves.

Posted by: Nancy Richardson | Jun 11 2005 1:20 utc | 53

For the Dean or Death crowd, I’ve got two words for you: Newt Gingrich, who as I recall was a real partisan favorite a few years back and nearly torpedoed his entire party when his mouth got ahead of him and the opposition was able to make him the face of the party. I supported Dean in the primaries, was happy to see him elected chairman but Billmon has nailed it. We are at a critical moment in history, and we need to tar the enemy, not alienate those we might otherwise reach.

Posted by: Jimmy Jazz | Jun 11 2005 5:15 utc | 55

@patience and Mary
Not that I’m entirely innocent on this score, but being rude to billmon or any of the others who so regularly sustain us here is not building our strength. Please show some respect, and just argue instead.

Posted by: citizen | Jun 11 2005 6:07 utc | 57

Jimmy Jazz,
Re: Newt Gingrich – Despite (or maybe with the help of) Newt’s mouth, the GOP gained complete control of government. He dropped out for awhile, at least from being front and center, but he’s not dead.

Posted by: Susan S | Jun 11 2005 11:03 utc | 59

Not often that I can say that everybody is right. The Dean apologists and Dean attackers are all correct. And both sides, in their need to assert that they are more right than the other, will insure that the GOP remains the majority party. We seem utterly incapable of laughing and blowing off an inconsequential and/or poorly phrased statement by anyone on our side. Like Clinton, we are all so afraid that we may offend someone that we beat up on our own for the opposition. It’s like when our QB stumbles, our tight ends and backs tackle him along with the opponent. Dean may or may not be up to the task, but elected DC DEMs and rank and file bloggers are definitely far inferior to the opposition.

Posted by: Marie | Jun 11 2005 19:06 utc | 61

corrections:
don’t know why the focus was on that state.
&
it was our moral obligation to care about them like they were our own.

Posted by: hello | Jun 12 2005 0:58 utc | 63

petition in case you are interested
To:  Democrats in U.S. Congress
Recently some Democrats in Congress have chastised Governor Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, saying that he does not speak for the party.
We the undersigned have a simple message we would like to convey to you:
Howard Dean Speaks For Me
And, we respectfully request that you refrain from public criticism of your fellow Democrats and that you begin to speak for us as well
Sincerely,

Posted by: annie | Jun 12 2005 1:37 utc | 65

Adding to my above comment the conclusion which was obvious to me but may have been lost:
Billmon erred when he said that Dean needed to tone down.
Toning down is exactly what the GOP wants of him. That is the direction they are pushing him. It’s difficult at times to resist the push when the message machine cranks up to full volume; even Billmon got suckered by it and said he thought Dean needed to tone down.
But I think Dean’s smarter than that. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, and I don’t think Dean should back down one whit.
In fact, if the GOP fails in getting him to tone down, then they are in fact (foolishly) doing some great work in pushing his message for him. The more they repeat Dean’s remarks, the more people hear them. When a FOX News pundit repeats for the ten thousandth time “Can you believe he said the GOP is corrupt?”, the echo that you hear is “the GOP is corrupt”.
Bravo, Dean… way to play the Wurlitzer.

Posted by: Drew Thaler | Jun 13 2005 17:31 utc | 67

Sorry annie. Maybe there will others who missed your post on Saturday.

Posted by: beq | Jun 14 2005 12:27 utc | 69