(I posted part of this last night, but I have seen a number of comments from people who haven't seen the speech, so here it is again now that things have calmed down a bit.)
The Dean non-concession speech has been put online at Fox News Access. For those who have not seen this or want to suffer through it again scroll down to the second block. There are several candidates and it is titled simply "Howard Dean". If you can stand the disgusting, unbalanced plug for Bush's State of the Union speech, they have video of Howard Dean's speech as it was shown live on Fox.
By the way, as I mentioned several times, as far as I am concerned Dean is through. Imagine if you will a Bush ad with Dean raving in the background with a voice-over talking about national security and economic stability and 'experience you can trust' punctuated by breif bursts of Dean snarls. Especially that bizarre howl. Sorry, but I just cannot believe anyone who cracks apart like this on national TV will ever become President of the United States. As if Dean did not have enough strikes against him already.
Just my thoughts (though qualify that with the fact I have never been optimistic about Dean's chances). I do feel sorry for his dedicated supporters (I certainly have nothing personal against Dean, he's just not electable in my view, definitely not in Iowa) but Dean is through. Anyhow, may the best guy win.
PS. I wish Richard Gephardt all the best. I hope he makes a ton of money as a union lobbyist or better yet gets to be Secretary of Labor starting in 2005.
Here's what the fine liberal folks at TomPaine.com
had to say about Dean's brain seizure:
Dean looked like a mental patient on crystal meth: out of control, snarlingly screaming, vindictive (hollering that he'd beat Kerry in Massachusetts), verbally dispersed, his face contorted. He became the caricature of the angry, incautious wild man his opponents and the punditocracy had been decrying. This deranged performance, as one TV wag put it, meant it was no longer a question of whether you'd want this doctor in the White House, but whether you'd even want him in the emergency room. His candidacy cannot recover from this revealing, nationally televised, Nixonian moment. No wonder gentle George McGovern, a Wes Clark supporter, felt moved in a post-vote CNN appearance to pointedly underscore his "complete confidence in Clark's emotional health."
My mother who was visiting said afterward that she couldn't bear to watch. It's like when you see someone embarrassing themselves (she said) and you reflexively want to look away as if it will spare them the humiliation. My brother (we were on the phone) literally was just like "has Dean lost his mind?" I could hear my sister-in-law laughing in the background and saying "Oh my God, what is wrong with him? Is he drunk?"
The speech was bad. It was dreadful. When that speech came on during my phone conversation everyone was just stunned. It wasn't media spin that did it. We were just all like, what the fuck? I actually wasn't as taken aback by it all as they were, because I'd seen Dean go over the top before watching him stumping on C-SPAN. But, if the typical reaction was that of my family, then I have to say the speech was dreadful.