Thursday, January 22, 2004
Piqued Too Early
No Launch Codes for You, Dr. Dean
By Ozymandias
Well, we all saw it. Anyone who was watching the friendly and warm victory speeches of John Kerry and John Edwards after the Iowa caucuses, noted the self-deprecating warmth of the Kennedy liberal, and the smooth grace of the Southern senator. We were all there watching, in our living rooms, or bedrooms, or in Roosevelt’s pub in Philadelphia, we were all there watching our democratic process in action when it happened.
We sat and watched slack-jawed as Dr. Howard Dean, the democratic front-runner for President of the United States snapped, and in a raving, bludgeoning rage, ripped off a list of the States that he and his supporters were going to come, see, and conquer, and then, spitting blood and flame, declared with guttural roar his omnipotent goal: to take back the White House!
To eat it, apparently.
Now, we don’t know if either of these two suddenly congenial defects will ever be President. Kerry’s ACLU/NARAL platform will go exactly nowhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, and Edwards is a trial lawyer. Everone knows that the only thing worse than a trial lawyer is a child molester and the only difference between the two is financing.
Together, Kerry and Edwards might be more formidable, and there is no doubt Karl Rove and Co. will be hoping for a huge Dean win in New Hampshire. That probably isn’t going to happen. That clip of the demonic Dean will never die and never get old. It is Dukakis in his tank, or Gore’s Internet, Bush I's "No new taxes" or Clinton’s “that woman”. It is an almost redefining gaffe that reveals irrevocably the poor judgment of a candidate or politician.
Dean has announced to the world that this is not a guy you want in charge of a nuclear arsenal in times of stress. Nukes being a sort of last resort in what will most likely be a pretty stressful situation – Dean losing his mind for a few minutes after a (purely political) defeat doesn’t bode well. Coupled with a small but unfortunate detour into past “therapy” for “anxiety” during a People magazine interview and you have Republican Splinter Group Attack-Ad #1.
That’s the problem with fourth down fumbles. You’ve got to jump on it. But either way, the other team gets the ball. The Bush Campaign doesn’t have to scramble to capitalize on it like the other Dems do. It’s first and ten at the State of the Union.
To be fair, this wasn’t Trippi’s first trip-up. The fantastically strange marriage of the Drs. Dean, while not as strange as the vortex of logic called Wesley Clark, or journalists still being paid to cover Kucinich (sp?) it still did just get weirder and weirder and harder and harder to explain this oh-so-civil union outside of the Vermont cloister. The straw finally breaking the camel's suspension of disbelief was Judith not traveling to Hawaii to see her husband’s brother’s remains repatriated. Wha? She had to work, it seems, at her own practice, on a Saturday. Um…yeeah. Doctors do this sort of thing of course, but they do also attend vital family ceremonies and, you know, schedule for them. Some have even been known to play golf.
Judith’s eventual presence in Iowa was uplifting to supporters but never lost its strangeness. There is of course no doubt of her love for her husband and it is obviously a rock solid marriage. But this is the wife of a man who was a state governor for 11 years. Sooner or later one would think that the facts of politics start to sink in. Or at least someone would stop her in the office, take her by the white lapels, look her in the eye and say, “Jude, you’re a good person and doctor. But your husband is trying to become the leader of the free world, and you need to absorb that your entire life is now different, that this is not some big inconvenience, but rather an amazing opportunity.”
In reality, it’s five months, or even two – because he must be in the clear lead by then to win the nomination. Two months, Judy. And you kids too. (Not that the Bush brats have gained one ounce of empathy for their parents’ causes.) But, c'mon. The kids need to be out there doing their part.
But it’s probably not going to matter. Dean’s deft anger management, both his own and that of others, leading up to Iowa showed a behind-the-scenes control and thoughtfulness about his challenge to Clintonian democrats that was inspiring. He was mad but not crazy. Then the meltdown.
Running for President is actually a lot like standing in that soup line from Seinfeld. The candidates shuffling from state to state, trying to discover that balance of friendliness, confidence, likeability and respect that will get the all-powerful electorate to bestow upon them the big house, the amazing staff, Air Force One, and nuclear launch codes.
Dean let his impatient rage get to him. Standing at the front of the line, he was just a little too bothered by all these guys behind him. Don’t they understand that I’m here? Don’t they understand that I have all these great endorsements? Don’t they understand that I’m going “to take back the White House!!?”
No launch codes for you, Dr. Dean.
Comments: ozymandias_1@hotmail.com
No Launch Codes for You, Dr. Dean
By Ozymandias
Well, we all saw it. Anyone who was watching the friendly and warm victory speeches of John Kerry and John Edwards after the Iowa caucuses, noted the self-deprecating warmth of the Kennedy liberal, and the smooth grace of the Southern senator. We were all there watching, in our living rooms, or bedrooms, or in Roosevelt’s pub in Philadelphia, we were all there watching our democratic process in action when it happened.
We sat and watched slack-jawed as Dr. Howard Dean, the democratic front-runner for President of the United States snapped, and in a raving, bludgeoning rage, ripped off a list of the States that he and his supporters were going to come, see, and conquer, and then, spitting blood and flame, declared with guttural roar his omnipotent goal: to take back the White House!
To eat it, apparently.
Now, we don’t know if either of these two suddenly congenial defects will ever be President. Kerry’s ACLU/NARAL platform will go exactly nowhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, and Edwards is a trial lawyer. Everone knows that the only thing worse than a trial lawyer is a child molester and the only difference between the two is financing.
Together, Kerry and Edwards might be more formidable, and there is no doubt Karl Rove and Co. will be hoping for a huge Dean win in New Hampshire. That probably isn’t going to happen. That clip of the demonic Dean will never die and never get old. It is Dukakis in his tank, or Gore’s Internet, Bush I's "No new taxes" or Clinton’s “that woman”. It is an almost redefining gaffe that reveals irrevocably the poor judgment of a candidate or politician.
Dean has announced to the world that this is not a guy you want in charge of a nuclear arsenal in times of stress. Nukes being a sort of last resort in what will most likely be a pretty stressful situation – Dean losing his mind for a few minutes after a (purely political) defeat doesn’t bode well. Coupled with a small but unfortunate detour into past “therapy” for “anxiety” during a People magazine interview and you have Republican Splinter Group Attack-Ad #1.
That’s the problem with fourth down fumbles. You’ve got to jump on it. But either way, the other team gets the ball. The Bush Campaign doesn’t have to scramble to capitalize on it like the other Dems do. It’s first and ten at the State of the Union.
To be fair, this wasn’t Trippi’s first trip-up. The fantastically strange marriage of the Drs. Dean, while not as strange as the vortex of logic called Wesley Clark, or journalists still being paid to cover Kucinich (sp?) it still did just get weirder and weirder and harder and harder to explain this oh-so-civil union outside of the Vermont cloister. The straw finally breaking the camel's suspension of disbelief was Judith not traveling to Hawaii to see her husband’s brother’s remains repatriated. Wha? She had to work, it seems, at her own practice, on a Saturday. Um…yeeah. Doctors do this sort of thing of course, but they do also attend vital family ceremonies and, you know, schedule for them. Some have even been known to play golf.
Judith’s eventual presence in Iowa was uplifting to supporters but never lost its strangeness. There is of course no doubt of her love for her husband and it is obviously a rock solid marriage. But this is the wife of a man who was a state governor for 11 years. Sooner or later one would think that the facts of politics start to sink in. Or at least someone would stop her in the office, take her by the white lapels, look her in the eye and say, “Jude, you’re a good person and doctor. But your husband is trying to become the leader of the free world, and you need to absorb that your entire life is now different, that this is not some big inconvenience, but rather an amazing opportunity.”
In reality, it’s five months, or even two – because he must be in the clear lead by then to win the nomination. Two months, Judy. And you kids too. (Not that the Bush brats have gained one ounce of empathy for their parents’ causes.) But, c'mon. The kids need to be out there doing their part.
But it’s probably not going to matter. Dean’s deft anger management, both his own and that of others, leading up to Iowa showed a behind-the-scenes control and thoughtfulness about his challenge to Clintonian democrats that was inspiring. He was mad but not crazy. Then the meltdown.
Running for President is actually a lot like standing in that soup line from Seinfeld. The candidates shuffling from state to state, trying to discover that balance of friendliness, confidence, likeability and respect that will get the all-powerful electorate to bestow upon them the big house, the amazing staff, Air Force One, and nuclear launch codes.
Dean let his impatient rage get to him. Standing at the front of the line, he was just a little too bothered by all these guys behind him. Don’t they understand that I’m here? Don’t they understand that I have all these great endorsements? Don’t they understand that I’m going “to take back the White House!!?”
No launch codes for you, Dr. Dean.
Comments: ozymandias_1@hotmail.com
