I have many, many friends and contacts in the VT media, and, let me tell you, it's getting increasingly bizarre here at Ground Zero of Dean-land. The reports I hear of snooping around are numerous and illuminating.
Starting around the beginning of December the calls into VT media figures began to really jump. They come from all over, from the obvious to the obscure. There was one guy calling around looking for footage of the Dick Snelling memorial service (Snelling was the Governor who died, causing the elevation of Lt. Gov. Dean), but this guy was really, really reluctant to say who he worked for. There was the Dutch TV company looking for anything about Dean's early days because their population was very interested in Howard.
There were also countless calls (which continue with increasing frequency) from national media organizations in this country. And, in a really revealing fact, most of those calls were some variant of "do you ever remember a time when Dean said something that later turned out not to be true?" Now, a true reporter would call and ask, "Is Dean a straight shooter, or does he color the facts?" In other words, they would actually try to get the real story. But, these calls were all for quotes to stick in stories that were already written. Most reporters here tried to explain that Howard is actually very forthcoming and never had a reputation here as a dissembler, at all. Quite the opposite. But, the researchers didn't want to hear it. They were given an assignment ("go find old quotes from Dean that follow this story we want to tell"), so they tried to do it.
The calls continue.