In a great and thoroughly common sense column by Eric Alterman,
The Nation details the conflict between the Democratic Establishment and the Dean campaign. The Nation accurately pegs much of the Media as part of this Democratic Establishment.
While the
[Washington] Post editors and Brooks speak for hard-line neocons, Dean receives no less abuse at the hands of many genuine liberals. My colleague at the Center for American Progress, Matthew Miller, attended the speech and found it lacking, not in substance, which he thought properly Clintonian, but in presentation. "When Dean barked it out, it felt smaller and shabbier, as if he were lecturing us on simple facts we ought to have known." Miller worries at length about what it means that Dean accidentally thanked US soldiers for their "services" rather than "service." Jonathan Chait, so obsessed he now operates an anti-Dean blog at
The New Republic, also admits that the position that so exercised the
Post pooh-bahs is "narrowly true." Chait's problem with Dean, and I quote, is that the Vermont governor "gives off the vibe that he likes to equivocate about the bad guys rather than recognize them for what they are" (what a bummer that Dean dude is...).
ABC's Sam Donaldson made the same silly point, admitting that "in context, you know what he's saying," but when normally perspicacious pundits like Miller and Chait talk in terms of "feelings" and "vibes," something more than policy disputes are at work.
This article just adds further evidence to me of the fact that so much of the anti-Dean sentiment and the rising desperation of the other candidates is all about ownership of the party. Whether you're a Dean, Clark, Braun, Kerry, or even Lieberman (or any of the other Dem candidates) supporter, stand up to the establishment and be counted. Let's make sure we continue to be a real democracy!