Well, I was all pleased with Dean, and his move to unify the party...for about three days. I very much appreciated his tone and message in Sunday's MTP appearance: he went beyond a pro forma call for unity, and made a convincing case for why he was supporting Kerry. He deflected footage of his earlier attacks on Kerry brilliantly: not only saying "it was a tough contest" but "I've gotten to know John better since then". That's a fantastic way to make sure neither his current praise for Kerry, nor his previous attacks on him, seem insincere.
But then he showed, again, why he is a loose cannon who seems to damage his own party as often as he scores hits on the GOP. Buying explicitly into the idea that we should retreat in the face of al Qaeda attacks and hope they will leave us alone...oy. Kerry's camp rightly disassociated itself from the remarks, but Kerry just recently appeared with Dean, Dean will speak at the convention...etc. Please, Howard, zip it (or at least don't speak off the cuff) until about eight months from now, mmkay?
Good to see Kerry, at least, shares my view about the Spanish situation (that I expressed in one of my diaries yesterday). From the NY Times, apparently before Dean's comments:
Mr. Kerry, speaking for the first time about the Spanish election, told the ABC network affiliate in Phoenix on Tuesday:: "In my judgment, the new prime minister should not have decided that he was going to pull out of Iraq. He should have said this, This increases our determination to get the job done."