I Miss Howard Dean

Howard Dean, having joined the ranks of Al Gore and now John Kerry, is doing what all failed presidential candidates do once they are consigned to the dustbin of history. He is saying things that actually make sense. In a recent speech to students at Northwestern Univeristy, Dean said that Bush appealed “to homophobia and fear and gay-baiting in order to win a presidential election.” He said that the Democrats can try to stop Bush from stacking the Supreme Court, but they “have to thave some chutzpah, as they say in Yiddish, or cajones, as they say in Spanish.”

Call me a Monday-morning quarterback (and as long as it’s still daylight on Monday it’s Monday morning to me), but this is the kind of loveable “straight-talking” that could have won the Democrats a presidential election. I mean, presuming the voting machines used in such an election are the kind that count votes, as opposed to the other kind, the kind that do not count votes, which we here in America prefer to use.

These few Dean remarks made me nostalgic for the good old days, when we were wondering what caused the implosion of the Dean campaign, instead of what caused the implosion of the Kerry campaign, our hopes for deliverance from the apocalypse, and democracy itself? When we thought everything fell apart because of a scream, instead of, oh, the fact that when we vote, it has little bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the election? When we thought that a left-wing governor from Vermont with truly liberal values who outright opposed the war was “just too much” for America, as opposed to now, when we think that anyone who doesn’t use the word “Jesus” or “God” every other sentence, doesn’t think gay people should burn in hell and doesn’t believe that large-scale violence solves everything is “just too much” for America? Those were the good old days. When we thought that a real liberal was too much and a moderate could do the job. Now a real moderate is too much and this guy–an anti-choice Mormon–is the new power elite of the Democratic party. The “If you can’t beat them, become them” strategy is off to a good start.

You know, I’m sick of losing. Let’s think like the New York Yankees and buy us a winner. Why stop at an anti-choice Mormon? Jeb Bush for President in 2008–as a Democrat.