i have a scream.
Howard Dean.
These days of a baffled administration unable to seize the mandate of the 2008 election and a President being abused left and right by political opponents have left me longing for, of all people, Howard Dean.
Why? Because one could argue that Dean deserves a place as a figurehead of the left-leaning coalition that brought Obama to power, and which the President has steadfastly refused to recognize in any but the most superficial of ways.
From the 2004 primaries, in which his campaign perfected the technology of Internet political organizing even as it was utterly ruined by the technology of the unidirectional microphone, to his under-recognized role as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, where he cultivated the fifty-state strategy that, one could argue, brought such success (or at the very least, contributed mightly) to the resurgence of the Democrats, Dean has been crucial to whatever success the Party has had as the representatives of, advocates for, and implementers of progressive policy.
So, in place of President Obama’s calm and mature (and worthy, despite the lack of civility from the other side) whispers of bipartisan consensus, a whisper that he voices despite all indications that it will have no effect whatsoever, one longs for a bit more of a scream these days.
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