YEAARRRGGGH!!!

(ed note: i piddled around with this for a few days last week but never quite wrapped it up- then along came Secretary Negroponte, and this fell by the wayside- but i already trashed the Gannon/Guckert and Ward Churchill pieces so it seemed a shame to waste this, too)

Well frost my ass and call me Cupcake - the corporate weenies at the DNC finally did something right. Congratulations to them and to their new Chairman.

On Saturday, the 447 Head Dweebs met and elected Governor Dean on a voice vote, ending several months of acrimony and tremendous pressure from the State party chairs, grassroots activists (both strongly pro-Dean) and the Republicrat / DLC wing of the Party, who aren’t so enamored of the feisty Vermonter. But for the first time in a long time, Main Street pwned Wall Street. God, it feels good. Just an opinion of course, but I’m willing to bet that their actions Saturday also ended several years of asswhuppins by the increasingly religiofascist Republicans.

In case you’re wondering what I think about the DLC and their apologists, these are the cretins who want the Party to back away from its positions on things like women’s rights to make their own reproductive decisions, equal civil rights for GLBT folks, verifiable voting and sensible gun control - all in the name of Diversifying The Party, or Tolerating Intolerance, if you will. They make me sick.

So what, exactly, does Chairman Dean bring to the Party? Depends on who you ask. One of the many, many, many things that the Vichy Dems and Republicans agree on is that he’ll give the DNC a voice. A loud one. In fact, they say, he’ll be a scream. Y’see, like the Republicans, the members of the Corporate, Repub-lite wing of the Democratic Party honestly believe that we, the American people, are stupid fucks incapable of critical thought - we'll complacently swallow any bullshit that Someone In Authority (read: any asshole who meanders in front of a TV camera) cares to excrete. No concept that's too complicated to fit on a bumpersticker or in a 15-second soundbite need apply. That’s why you still find them wringing their hands over selecting An Ultraliberal Madman to run the show. (Now, I’m not saying that they’re entirely wrong in their assessment of my countrymen and -women. Obviously, trolling for the stupid fuck vote has worked well for the Repubs since ’94 - okay, '80. Problem is, it hasn’t been quite as successful for the Dems - mostly because that demographic has already been largely, although not entirely, taken.)

Thing is, anybody with Internet access, an inquisitive mind or just a healthy dose of skepticism already knows The Scream was a creation of the Mainstream Corporate Media. Hell, they owned up to it a year ago.

Short version: Then-candidate Howard Dean had quickly established a reputation as a fiery, outspoken outsider. He called ‘em as he saw ‘em: the Bush Administration, his Primary opponents, even the sycophantic Media. Now, the Corporate Media love a good show - as long as the camera isn’t being pointed back at them (Google "Jeff Gannon softball" and count the number of MSM references).

(ed note: me again- this was last week- since some outstanding bloggers and websites, Stewart, Maher and Olbermann have kept the story alive, Gannon/Guckert's fellow whores in the MSCM actually have taken some note)

When Dean suggested that they were behaving more as lapdogs than watchdogs, they declared war on him.

Shortly after his criticism of them, stories began to appear in the MSM which painted him - invariably in the passive voice, to avoid having to acknowledge their own words - in a less than flattering light. You may remember various reporters sliding in phrases like "some have called him unstable." Yeah, and some say Sean Hannity blows Donald Rumsfeld for pocket change. Some say that Ann Coulter’s downward spiral into madness was due to the pressure of her secret (?) hermaphrodism. Some also say Candy Crowley has been known to get down on all fours in the Oval Office, face buried in tiramisu, while being sequentially, and roughly, serviced by the White House Press Office. In fact, some even suggest that the strain of facing that pale, gelatinous, quivering mass of insatiable lust is what finally drove Ari Fleischer to resign. Hell, it has been said that Brit Hume only feels like a man when he’s doing Bad Touch on adolescent waterfowl.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so the MSM, the Rovians and the DLC were - and, despite being called on it, many still are - all banging the Crazy Howard drum.

Then he came in third in Iowa. (remind me some day to tell y’all what I think about our primary system). That night, he spoke at a rally of campaign volunteers, and the rest is the stuff of urban legends, just like Gore's Internet and Clinton's Runway Haircut.

Dean's supporters obviously have a different view. They claim that he'll bring the same things he brought to his campaign. Grassroots support and activism, passionate populism, a kind of honesty that the Inside The Beltway types are terrified of and a big, shiny, clanging set of brass balls. Remember, this is the guy who took his campaign into Dubya's back yard in the early days.

Now, about the claims that Dean is an ultra-left Liberal.

Horseshit.

Dean's moderate history is well documented. As Governor, he was highly regarded by the NRA. He kept a balanced budget. His environmental record was moderate, at best. Again, even the most hardcore Deaniac will acknowledge that he was a much more centrist candidate than, say, Kucinich or Sharpton or CMB.

See, the problem was that Dean was the only leading Dem Primary candidate who spoke out against the Bush Administration's illegal invasion of Iraq. In Dumbfuck, y'see, against an illegal war = pacifist = hippie . See how easy it is when you allow the spinmeisters to tell you what you think?

Personally, although I never considered myself a Deaniac, I agree with his supporters. Though I don't agree with all his positions, I have a tremendous amount of respect for his straightforward, no-bullshit approach. Too bad there isn't more of that around.