Fact-esque

Dean for Surgeon General - or Health Reform Director

Gupta's out and I don't care why.  The Health Reform Director still hasn't been cast. Can Dean please have either of those jobs, for which he is so obviously well-suited? It's probably because I live in the blogtopian bubble but I feel like he's been auditioning for them for months now.

Dean Visits Savannah on Friday

Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean - one of the few reasons still remaining to continue belonging to the party - will be coming to Savannah on Friday as part of a fund-raising tour.

[T]he willingness of Dean to spend time in Georgia is widely seen as more evidence that the national party thinks the tide is turning.

"It's definitely an indication that they think Georgia is in play," said state Democratic Party Treasurer Rex Templeton Jr. of Savannah.

Savannah Alderman Mary Osborne, a leading local Obama backer, agreed.

"They see a great opportunity to turn Georgia back into a Democratic state," she said.

There's going to be a rally in Forsythe Park - which is HUGE - at (ouch!) 8.30 AM. Dean will speak for 10 or 15 minutes and then he'll be off for Macon and Augusta for the rest of the day. I plan on being there but it's a real question whether I can make it that early. If I do, I'll let you know what happened. (Dean isn't very popular around here, so it should be interesting, if for no other reason than to see if Barrow, the DINO coward, will allow himself to be seen with Howard in public.)

Going Forward

Thanks to my willingness to believe Edwards' promise not to forget the people he said he was fighting for during his campaign and to Lambert's suggestion to make sure that Clintama don't either, I've officially bounced back completely from Edwards leaving the race and good for me.  It took me slightly longer to recover from Howard Dean's withdrawal from the 2004 race but he was my first love.   If I ever meet Edwards, I'm going to be sure to try to get his thoughts on how he became the Dean of 2008 after he gave him such a hard time at every opportunity before that.  And I'd like to know what happened to put him on that path.

Anyway, in honor of my recovery, I think I may have found something very cool to look at before Avedon did - although I wouldn't bet on it. 

Fact-esque!

 

Back to the Future

It looks like Edwards is getting the Howard Dean treatment from the NYT.   The only surprising aspect of the snide and innuendo-filled story they front-paged today about the anti-poverty center Edwards set up soon after the 2004 election was that the poisonous Jodi Wilgoren didn't write it.   I'm still waiting for her to come back to bring the peanut butter to the party.   But it may be that Leslie Wayne is going to have that covered. 

As for Edwards, maybe now he'll appreciate what Dean went through (and still goes through) as the good senator either stays quiet on the sidelines or piles on.

One

There's exactly one person in politics whom I respect and that's Howard Dean.  It's not because I fell in love with his campaign in 2004, although I did.  It's not because he's my kind of liberal, although he'll do.  It's not because he's the smartest guy in the party, although he is.  It's because he has the strength of character to keep working at what he believes by doing a largely thankless job while being undermined by a big part of his party. 

Quick! Someone Call Little Green Footballs.

There's photoshoppin' afoot and it's changing the context of images that the American people use to make decisions about important events.   This will not stand.  I eagerly await the purging at the RNC of all responsible for choosing to run an photo enhanced to make Howard Dean look like Hitler in their latest web ad.  I expect to see some outraged wingnut bloggers being interviewed about this on CNN any minute now.

Watertiger has the details.

UPDATE:  Chris Anderson (via Atrios) has a cool before/after clickable image now that the image of Dean has been cleaned up.

Disappointing

I guess I had hoped that Dean would stay out of the insanely counterproductive political posturing regarding al-Maliki that has apparently become Job One over at the Democratic HQ.   No such luck:

Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean on Wednesday called Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki an "anti-Semite" for failing to denounce Hezbollah for its attacks against Israel.

Al-Maliki has condemned Israel's offensive, prompting several Democrats to boycott his address to a joint meeting of Congress and others to criticize him. Dean's comments were the strongest to date.

As a guy who suffered stupid, shallow, counterproductive condemnations when he tried to tell the truth, you'd think that he'd have the experience, to say nothing of the integrity, to avoid making them himself.  You'd be wrong.

Wow, Don't Mess With the Dean Brothers

I know the email from Democracy for America (formerly Dean for America) is  a fund raising scheme but it's a wildly entertaining one:

Dear Robin,

Tom DeLay announced he's quitting Congress today because he's afraid of losing his seat to a Democrat.

Democracy for America has dogged DeLay for years.  With TV commercials and billboards, at rallies and online, DFA has been on the front lines of the battle to clean up Congress.  But we didn't think DeLay would "cut and run" like he did.

If he did nothing wrong -- as he claims -- then Tom DeLay shouldn't be afraid of a re-election campaign in a district he drew for himself.  But he is quitting by mid-June. 

Let's help send Tom DeLay the rubber chicken award he so richly deserves:

http://contribute.democracyforamerica.com

For every $50 Democracy for America raises today, we'll send Tom DeLay an authentic rubber chicken for his mantle.  It'll be our goodbye present.

If you can't donate today, you can still sign the "Thanks for the Memories" card that will go along with the chickens being delivered to his office in Texas:

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/tomdelaymemories

My favorite memory is when DeLay called my brother, Howard, "a cruel and extremist demagogue."¹ I bet you have a favorite DeLay memory too.  Maybe the lobbyist funded golfing trip to Scotland; or the time he spouted, "I AM the federal government," in a Washington restaurant while chomping on a cigar.²

Send Tom DeLay a rubber chicken and a goodbye note today:

http://contribute.democracyforamerica.com

In 2006, with your help, the chickens will come home to roost.

Thanks!

Jim Dean
Chair, Democracy for America

Can I Get an Amen?

From FDL, Parchutec with advise for the Dems:

Howard Dean's candor does not hurt you. But when you leave him out there to draw fire without backing him up and defending him, you hurt the party. When the establishment Dem consultants tell you not to look weak, well, in spite of their timid counsel, this is how you do it.

And when state party hacks wander around telling Progressives that they really like Howard, they really do, it's "the party" that doesn't get him like we do, that just makes everyone listening want to hurl all over their $300 loafers.