Zephyr is not a campaign geek. She is a lawyer (and a very bright one, former EiC of the Duke Law Journal) who joined the Dean campaign for the same reason many of us did, because we care about this country and wanted to do something to fix it. Zephyr just gave a little more than most of us, she put her very promising legal career on hold to work full time for Dean.
She didn't get the job as Internet Outreach Director b/c of her great experience in politics. She got it because she is bright, and hard working and because she showed up at a time when people were still thinking "Howard Who?" It was not a role she was prepared for, but, like Moses, she was called and she answered.
Now am I happy with Zephyr's comment? No. But we need to stop blaming the symptoms and start blaming the cancer. People will always say stupid shit -- hell, George Bush can't even open his mouth without a gaffe coming out -- but the SCLM is only interested in seeing our mistakes.
Other people have blamed Zephyr for poorly timing this comment to align with Payola and the Dean announcement, but they are going after the wrong target. Believe me, when the WSJ learned of the payola scandal, they went searching through every first, second and third-tier liberal's closets to find some sign of false equivilence between Armstrong Williams and a liberal. When they found one that also let them attack Howard Dean and the blogosphere, they figured they'd hit the trifecta.
So what's the solution? First of all it is not to turn on Zephyr, to demand her contrition for an off-handed comment any one of us could have made. The right thing to do is to get angry at the media. To portray Zephyr as the latest victim in their smeer campaign, and to renew our determination to fight back against the SCLM. Zephyr Teachout is human like all of us, but the folks at the Wall Street Journal are animals.