Ummm, Nancy? Little tactical hint: When your enemies respond to one of your decisions by high-fiving each other and doing the Happy Dance, you MIGHT have made a mistake...

Good God man! I know it's supposed to be a funny Alfred E. Neuman thing but that poster is the most frightening thing I've seen in a long time. It's like Orwell's Big Brother with a bad haircut.

There has to be a method to the madness, right?

I have to wonder if this is some sort of grand theater in which he portrays himself as so batshit crazy that the eventual nominee will seem rational by comparison and be able to say "Not only am I centrist, I'm pretty much the only one who can keep this guy in check."

It's tough to do, but Bush has done that with the radical religious side of the Republican party. If you look at what he's done and said, he's not nearly the wild-eyed zealot he's made out to be.

So it can work, but only if the eventual nominee is effective at appearing Democratic, but not too Democratic. Meanwhile, Dean can keep shoveling out that red meat to the true believers.

Of course, it's much more likely that they're all a bunch of elitist paranoid nutbags. Never attribute to conspiracy that which can be attributed more easily to mere incompetence.

Good point, Steve. Don't forget, it was Harold Ickes' endorsement that ultimately put Dean over the top in terms of votes. Until then he was "iffy" at best.

So essentially, Dean got the job with the help of the Clinton camp.

That makes your theory all the more interesting, considering Hillary's recent moves to the center (with the occasional Gore-style rant thrown in to keep the DUers happy).

Sure it's Dean and Alfred E. Newman. But my second thought was: what if Dennis Kucinich had a child with himself?

Eeewwww! Now I'm going to have nightmares.

If Pelosi is right, then the Dems must think Bush is incredibly effective.

I think some people are giving the Democratic Party far too much credit. They put Dean in charge because he represents what they have become: a hyperbolic, tantrum throwing clique of far left rich adolescents. Hopefully the American people will continue to see that shrieking like a cat stuck in a blender every time a press microphone is near your cake-hole does not indicate any degree of seriousness. The GOP can act like a carnival of asses sometimes, but at least the majority of them are grown-ups.

I was listening to the afternoon commie radio show yesterday and a caller said something like this;

"...they think they voted for this man because he's a good guy, and because they like him. But they don't understand that he controls them through fear, by whipping up their fear...they hate gays and immigrants and that is why they like him....blah blah blah..."

Many people on the left actually believe that I voted for Bush because I'm a bigot. Incoherently reacting out of fear, not a rational thought in my head. Same thing they said after the election, nothing new here.

This spinning of what Dean said is wishful thinking on their part.

They are reacting as if we are trying to shut the guy up, when actually we want to give the guy his own cable channel. Dems, you WISH we'd shut him up! Not gonna happen. And if he is saying what the American people want to hear, then why the blackout and downplaying of his statements and the ensuing jeers by CBS, ABC, NBC....?

Enjoy the ride, the conservative revolution has only just started.

another good column

Perhaps the proposed Dem strategy isn't really a strategy (as it they MEAN to posit an '08 contender as moderate compared to the loonies), but that doesn't mean that it can't happen in the natural way of things. I mean, '08 is a long time away and a lot can happen to a party's leadership in that time. 3.5 years is plenty of time to realize that they made a very big yet honest mistake with Dean and correct.

Howard Dean's Raised Voice Isn't Raising Cash

That's it! He's Dead Duck! His days are numbered and too bad too, because as lauraw said:

we want to give the guy his own cable channel

All the conspiracy theories about Dean taking attention from the Liberals so they can look moderate and then fire him give them far too much credit. They stumbled into this one the way they stumble over everything. The only one who perhaps might benefit from this is Hillary as she continues to try to appear as a centerist. And if anyone is being macheivellian here it is the Clintons for the above conspiracy theory is exactly the way they think, and act. Will it work? No, it is too clever by half and they won't be able to erase the damage done to the party if this guy stays for awhile, which (now that he's not pulling in the $$$$) he won't.