I like Howard Dean, actually, even when I don't agree with his views. It's because he seems to be a real human being, not some sort of a public relations creation or a wind-up political toy. I even like his screaming. So reading this makes me feel or fuzzy and warm inside:
And now, as the Democratic National Committee's Winter Meeting begins in earnest, the Howard Dean era begins.
That means there's some sucking up to do. At the DNC's plenary session this morning, a string of establishment Democrats who tried to bury Dean rose to praise him instead. There was Nancy Pelosi, who pushed pro-lifer Tim Roemer into the race as an anybody-but-Dean candidate, declaring her support for Howard Dean and calling him a "great Democrat" who will "make a great chairman." Pelosi was followed on the stage by Mark Brewer, the head of the state party chairs' association who tried to orchestrate an endorsement for one of Dean's vanquished opponents. Brewer introduced Bill Richardson, who tried to orchestrate a scheme to minimize Dean's powers by saddling him with a more politically palatable "general chairman."
The Democratic party will never succeed as a less anemic version of wingnuts, never, and it's really stupid and suicidal to go that way. Those politicians who feel that way should join the real wingnuts. Whatever Dean might be he's not a wingnut on a diet.