Howard's End

Was it the kiss of Al Gore that did in (or almost) Howard Dean? Was it the Iowa screech? Was it the fact that Dean, supposedly Mr. Regular Guy, hubristically entreated Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, to ask other Democratic candidates to back off and just let Dean win the damned primaries?

Christopher Hitchens investigates in the WSJ's Opinion Journal, which very subtly supplied a cartoon of Dean looking like a Nazi storm trooper. Onward to Wisconsin!

Note: In re-examining the cartoon, I may have been a bit unkind to the WSJ; Dean perhaps doesn't look so much like a storm trooper, though that raised hand looks a tad suspicious, as an aspiring Huey Long.

Comments

[anon]

Hitchens is sounding like his own worst enemy, something out of Orwell. How many unsupported rhetorical tricks can you put into one article? And get paid for it? The things people will do to support an addiction... It's enough to make you think Prohibition wasn't such a bad idea after all.

[Dan]

How many unsupported rhetorical tricks can you put into one article?

Neat. An ad hominem attack, devoid of supporting examples, posted anonymously. Thank you for your contribution to the marketplace of ideas.

[some guy]

I really wonder what possessed Howard Dean to say the things that led to his campaign implosion. What was he thinking?

[Gene Berkman]

If any issue hurt Dean in Iowa, is was taxes. John Kerry attacked Dean & Gebhardt for their call to repeal all the Bush tax cuts; Kerry said it would be wrong to raise taxes on the Middle Class to pay for George Bush's mistakes.

Dean was also hurt by revealations about how he got out of the draft with a bad back, then spent a winter skiing.

Ultimately, Dean would have had a problem in the general election. President Bush with record deficits, an unnecessary war that is more costly every day, and continued growth of government, would campaign on the threat posed by same-sex marriage, pointing to the Vermont civil union law.

I guess that is what passes for principle in the Republican Party today.

[Jean Bart]

Having been to Vermont, and liking the state a great deal, I have thought about how sham-faced they must feel about how Dean imploded.

[some guy]

JB,

If you've been there recently, do you happen to know what the general opinion in Vermont toward Dean is now?.

[some other guy]

I'm guessing it was right around the time that duck movie came out. Or maybe when he almost failed out of med school. C equals MD, but it doesn't equal President.

[Sir Real]

Every day, Hitchens seems closer and closer to murdering David Horowitz and assuming his identity...

Creepy...

[StMack]

I offered about six theories for Howard's End. Looking back, I should have added a seventh - All of the Above

[joe]

Gene, I have this image of a burly heartland type pounding a Bush-Cheney sign into his lawn while saying, "My boy didn't did in Iraq so a couple of queers could blah blah blah."

I think that's what's known as the Republican base.

[alma hadayn]

Hitchens' writing is getting really hard for me to stomach, his wit and rhetorical elegance notwithstanding.

Take this assertion: "Nobody is going to look back on the Dean campaign with this kind of pride and nostalgia."

Why> Because Christopher can't stand him? After all of those so called embarassments, Dean still has a small army of volunteers, which has to Dean's disappointment failed to translate into electoral success.

But Howard Dean to my knowledge remains the greatest grassroots fundraiser in the history of the Democratic Party, and its a bit simpleminded to attribute this entirely to Joe Trippi saying "Hey, let's have a weblog."

At the height of Bush's popularity, when all the other Democrats were tripping over each other tryng to sound as much like the President as possible, Howard Dean stoop up and said "I'm here to represent the democratic wing of the Democratic Party." The message has become somewhat obsolete, now that the othe candidates have become emboldened, partly to compete with Dean and partly due to Bush's diminished popularity.

It's probably true that Dean is not the most "electable" Democrat. But nothing Dean has said or done is as creepy as Hitchens' obsession with deconstructing the moral fiber of his political opponents (Yes, I know he gave a shoutout to Kucinich and McGovern-that took some real courage.)

[deron]

"C equals MD, but it doesn't equal President."

It did for Bush.

[Craw]

Hitchens is at his best right now. If he'll be remembered for anything, it'll be for standing up to fascism when his compatriots myopically couldn't stop opposing the US. Dean, on the other hand, showed no bravery. He simply carved out a niche based on mindless hatred that was bad for the country and his party. A niche, I might add, he didn't believe much in a year earlier. Luckily for the Democrats, Saddam was captured and we weren't saddled with such a loser for a candidate.

And is it just me, of does the cartoon of Dean look like Phil Donahue?

[dhex]

in more ways than one.

har har.