^∞Fouroboros

Welcome to DeanGoesNuts.com

It's the Arrrrrghh-a-palooza. A compendium of mp3 mixes from that fateful Iowa concession speech and primal scream fest. I pity the foo. [Link] courtesy atrios

Anger and Fear, Fear and anger. What's the difference?

The conventional wisdom is busily peddling the idea that Howard Dean is an angry man, and, that "anger' won't sell to an American electorate. Thanks to his little outburst in Iowa--and to people like Chris Matthews, gleefully playing that Iowa videoclip over and over with a grin reserved for a new toy--Dean may prove them right, for the wrong reasons.

Yet, strangely, there's little mention of the effects of the "paralytic fear" being fuel-injected into the American psyche by the administration Dean and the other Democrats hope to unseat. The dueling narratives seem to be,"We must be fearful about our security." And "We must be angry about the shortsightedness of the current administration."

Taking those as given, my question would be: if fear is the currency by which America is being led today, how is anger at that leader and that tactic misplaced?

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Shorter State of the Union

2002 "Duck and cover!"

2003 "Incoming!!!"

2004 "Weapons of mass destruction-related program activities" *

* Not including tax and tags. Offer not valid in all areas. Your mileage may vary.

Nuance? We don't need no stinkin' nuance.

I noticed last night, and this morning, that several democrats are asking: If the anti-war candidate, Dean, is repudiated in NH, can a candidate like Kerry or Clark or Edwards win with a nuanced Iraq war support position?

(Dean's NH ouster is doubtful, but potentially troubling--that money means he's around long past his useful life. Forget Lieberman, he's camp-following now)

Now the post nomination landscape matters and Joe America's attention will be inching up incremementally. I don't see this being won on an anti-war campaign. Why play the nuance angle? And what "nuance", anyway? Candidate X simply needs to repeat:

"Sure this war. Not that time, not that way. Look, national security is priority one, without it, jobs, healthcare mean nothing. Our kids have nothing. But treat it seriously, not as a prop or a shield for your shallowness. The record is clear from inside and outside the security community: A vote for George Bush says your children will live in the the wreckage of a future he creates.

We could have 50 Iraq's, and be no safer, if the commander in chief allows rigged intelligence to guide his decisions, if he allows staff to blow the cover of our spies in the war on terror simply because their relatives uncover facts that contradict an impulsive choice he's made years before.

This is one National Security decision that does not require intelligence, it requires common sense. If we have a commander in chief that doesn't take his job seriously, we need a new commander in chief.

Deploy the surrogates--the Generals Shinseki and Zinni, the career intel types who are smarting from the political backhand this adminstration has given their first loves: National Security and Rationality. Take that tack, shift the conversation, reframe the issue--there's lots of issues like jobs, trade, education that he's vulnerable on--and you keep him back on his heels. Get inside the Bush OODA loop. "Rove" HIM.

Dean: Well that was ugly

Not the numbers, the speech. The numbers would have been fixable.

I caught it watching the Tweety and Fineman revue--AKA: Hardball with Chris Matthews--and I have to say it's the first time I've agreed with those two and Mike Barnicle in ages: Is Dean that dumb, or just that undisciplined?

To give national voters their first, unfiltered impression of you, playing the role of, I dunno, a pissed off shop steward rallying the boys to go beat the shit out of some scabs.... well, it was amateur nite. [link-cspan] (Realvideo)

Edwards by comparison seemed like RFK, or Clinton. Kerry seemed like Kerry, after a B12 shot, but still Kerry.

What a set of bookends. As an ad creative director with not a few TV spots under his belt, I'd have a field day with Dean if I were a republican, not a democrat, advertising hack. Tonite's video is gonna have a very long shelf-life, $40 million and X00,000 Dean volunteers or not.

1-2-3, A-B-C.

Scorpion needs a ride across a river, asks a frog for same.

Frog says, "but you're a scorpion, you'll sting me and I'll die.'

Scorpion says, "No, no, no. If I did that, you'd die, but I would drown."

Frog figures this makes sense and tells the scorpion to hop on his back.

Halfway across the river, frog feels an excruciating pain. Turns, looks at the scorpion and says, "Now we're both dead. Why on earth would you sting me?"

Scorpion says, "Can't help it, I'm a scorpion. It's what we do."