Daffy Duck rides again
Don't take anything I write here as a slight against Daffy Duck. I've always liked Daffy, who is easily the meanest prick of all the great cartoon characters. I just don't think that Daffy should be the chairman of one of the two major American political parties.
If, as the end of Terry McAuliffe's tenure as head of the Democratic National Committee approached, you were asking as I was, could the Democrats do any worse, you now have your answer. Today they've made Howard Dean, as The New York Times put it, "the official face of the Democratic Party."
The other day I described Dean as being like a "puritanical Daffy Duck." Dean gives self-parody a bad name. He is exhibit A for the case that the Democrats have simply lost their minds.
McAuliffe, the Clintons last gift to the party, was an awful blunder, someone who would have been taking a step up in respectability if he had purchased a used car dealership from Richard Nixon. Guys like McAuliffe you like to keep in the back room, so that the public won't actually have a screwy personality with whom to associate your lowest motives as a political operation. A nurturing of self-image alone would dictate that you at least not put him out on television, but the Democrats did. Yet no sooner does one finish not getting that, than the Democrats turn to Howard Dean as their "official face."
All you have to do is listen to Howard Dean, and watch Howard Dean, and if you're not one of his adoring Deaniacs, you'll get it. At least I hope you'll get it. If you don't, then you should know: he is disturbing.
From the point of view of Republicans this is great news. Republicans are not sure what Democrats are thinking as they make Daffy Duck their party chairman, but they know it's good for Republicans.
It was a little over a year ago that the Democratic Party establishment seemed to wake screaming in the middle of the night, realizing that they were about to nominate a liberal from Vermont as their presidential candidate. Recall that Dean seemed unstoppable a month before the Iowa caucuses. The party establishment quickly found the strategy to avoid nominating a Vermont liberal: nominate a Massachusetts liberal with a higher liberal rating than Ted Kennedy. The analytical energies that were poured into that strategy must have been staggering in depth and scope.
Dean went down, hard. Kerry got the nomination. A horrible and embarrassing presidential nominee was avoided by substituting a merely terrible and annoying presidential nominee.
Why backtrack on that small but welcome bit of progress and now revive Dean, widely viewed, just like Daffy, as a nutty prick, to be your "official face"? Do you really want as your "official face" an odd little man given to adventurous remarks and Leftist causes?
I get a chill up my spine when I hear the frequent reminders that Howard Dean is a medical doctor. If I ever by some emergency found myself in Doctor Dean's examination room, I want the nurse to stay.
If, as the end of Terry McAuliffe's tenure as head of the Democratic National Committee approached, you were asking as I was, could the Democrats do any worse, you now have your answer. Today they've made Howard Dean, as The New York Times put it, "the official face of the Democratic Party."
The other day I described Dean as being like a "puritanical Daffy Duck." Dean gives self-parody a bad name. He is exhibit A for the case that the Democrats have simply lost their minds.
McAuliffe, the Clintons last gift to the party, was an awful blunder, someone who would have been taking a step up in respectability if he had purchased a used car dealership from Richard Nixon. Guys like McAuliffe you like to keep in the back room, so that the public won't actually have a screwy personality with whom to associate your lowest motives as a political operation. A nurturing of self-image alone would dictate that you at least not put him out on television, but the Democrats did. Yet no sooner does one finish not getting that, than the Democrats turn to Howard Dean as their "official face."
All you have to do is listen to Howard Dean, and watch Howard Dean, and if you're not one of his adoring Deaniacs, you'll get it. At least I hope you'll get it. If you don't, then you should know: he is disturbing.
From the point of view of Republicans this is great news. Republicans are not sure what Democrats are thinking as they make Daffy Duck their party chairman, but they know it's good for Republicans.
It was a little over a year ago that the Democratic Party establishment seemed to wake screaming in the middle of the night, realizing that they were about to nominate a liberal from Vermont as their presidential candidate. Recall that Dean seemed unstoppable a month before the Iowa caucuses. The party establishment quickly found the strategy to avoid nominating a Vermont liberal: nominate a Massachusetts liberal with a higher liberal rating than Ted Kennedy. The analytical energies that were poured into that strategy must have been staggering in depth and scope.
Dean went down, hard. Kerry got the nomination. A horrible and embarrassing presidential nominee was avoided by substituting a merely terrible and annoying presidential nominee.
Why backtrack on that small but welcome bit of progress and now revive Dean, widely viewed, just like Daffy, as a nutty prick, to be your "official face"? Do you really want as your "official face" an odd little man given to adventurous remarks and Leftist causes?
I get a chill up my spine when I hear the frequent reminders that Howard Dean is a medical doctor. If I ever by some emergency found myself in Doctor Dean's examination room, I want the nurse to stay.
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