Howard Dean: The Gift that Keeps on Giving

With apologies to Ken Mehlman, Howard Dean is quickly becoming the GOP’s favorite party chairman.   Like something out of a science fiction movie, Dean seems to represent some sort of nexus in the universe for overwrought emotion, stupidity and arrogance.  Like a magical Christmas present, he is the gift that keeps on giving.

Let’s look at the highlights for the past few months.  He said that he “hates Republicans”, that conservatives are “evil”, that Republicans “never made an honest living in their lives”, and that the GOP is “pretty much a white, Christian party”.  A few months back at a gathering of black Democrats Dean commented that the Republicans couldn’t “get this many people of color in a single room” unless they included “the hotel staff”.

This makes one wonder if he actually tries to say things that make people question his intelligence.  Former South Carolina Senator Fritz Hollings was famous for making the sort of embarrassing off-the-cuff remarks that he later had to extricate himself from, leaving some to suggest that he lacked the filter between his brain and his mouth that most people possess.  Dean seems to suffer from an advanced case of the same disorder.  Either that or he relishes the taste of his own feet.

And all this is from the head of the political party whose leaders claimed that they learned their lesson in the aftermath of the 2004 election.  They were going to contest for the “red states” and reach out to Republicans, independents, conservatives, Christians, etc..   So how’s that going?  Not too good it would seem.

One congressional Democrat aid worried that Dean’s comments gave Republicans an opening to portray the Democrats as “a godless party”.  Most Democrats who represent anything that even looks like a red state are criticizing the Deanster, such as New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, Virginia Governor Mark Warner and Tennessee Senate hopeful congressman Harold Ford.

Still, some Democrats are defending him.  Illinois Senator Richard Durbin said, “Every single one of us has stuck our foot in our mouths…”  (This often?)  And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi stated that she considered Dean an effective party chairman.  "That is why the Republicans are so relentlessly going after him," she said.   (Yeah, that’s why.)  There’s an old maxim that says never interfere with your enemy when he’s in the process of destroying himself.  All Republicans intend to do is make sure as many people as possible are watching while this guy commits seppuku.

In a special joint press conference meant to stem the damage and give Dean the official blessing of the Democrat leadership, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid defended Dean saying “Well I think, as all of you know, that there isn't a single person that hasn't misspoken."  I thought that to “misspeak” was something you did once or only occasionally, not ever time you open your mouth.  I guess Reid’s definition is a little more generous.

And now it seems that Dean and some in the “main-stream media” are in a little bit of a huff that he was actually asked a tough question during his appearance with Reid.  Fox News correspondent Brian Wilson asked Dean "…if people are focused on the other things that you've said about hating Republicans, about Republicans being dishonest and then this latest comment about the Republican Party is full of white Christians. You say you hate Republicans -- does that mean you also hate white Christians?”  Some in the press and several junior staffers tried to drown Wilson out.  Needless to say, Dean didn’t respond.  Heaven forbid somebody try to use logic to question this guy.

Some Democrats lament that Dean is throwing them off message.  What message would that be?  This is the type of nonsense that substitutes for a lack of ideas and a coherent agenda.

Other Democrats are not as worried about what he’s doing, but rather what he’s not doing.  Democrat strategist Susan Estrich asserts that while Dean is playing the part of a Republican talk show host’s dream, he’s falling down on the job where it counts – money and organization.  In the past few weeks three of the national Democrats’ most prominent fundraisers have quit the DNC.  This comes in the wake of the GOP’s besting the Democrats by more than two-to-one in the fundraising department this quarter.

This will leave the Democrats not only at a financial disadvantage, which will impact their communications, but it will also hurt their ability to expand and improve their grassroots “get-out-the-vote” technology and activities.

All this begs some obvious questions.  If the Democrats are so unhappy with him, 1) why did they elect him, knowing his past history? and 2) why don’t they actively move to get rid of him?  Answers: Because 1) the radical liberals elected him and are in charge of the party and 2) the sounds emanating from his mouth are exactly what they want to hear. 

Dean is a perfect representation of the current incarnation of the base of the Democrat party’s supporters; the wild-eyed, full-throated, secular, left-wing elitist liberal.  All told, I think it’s safe to say that the Democrats have found their man.