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Friday, January 23, 2004
THE MEDIA'S RED-FACED RANT.
External link: http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nypost/526952891.html?did=526952891&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT
How did this crazy idea that Howard Dean completely destroyed his campaign with his post-iowa "rant" and "screech" pass from a late-night talk-show joke into the conventional wisdom? It was a story the media almost completely missed on the first two days, but then picked up on after the Tonight Show, Late Night With David Letterman, and the Daily Show all made jokes about it the night after it happened. Then the media picked up on it, the following day, the day after the day after it happened, and now they won't let go of it.
But I don't know one person whose opinion is effected one way or the other by that speech. It's just the media completely making up a story, and then repeating it so often that it becomes the conventional wisdom, and later becomes recorded as history. I agree that Dean didn't help himself with that performances, but Dean's campaign has a lot of problems, and that speech is, at most, the very least of them.
Dean's campaign is faltering because of his poorly-worded statement that "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks" alienated almost the entire liberal wing of the party and many moderates. And then his extremely impolitic and poorly timed remark that "the capture of Saddam has not made America safer" alienated almost the entire moderate wing of the party, and many liberals, despite the fact that it is obviously true. Furthermore, as the front runner, he has had to face countless attacks by almost every other opponent in the race, which have born a heavy toll. And then he came in a distant third in Iowa to the candidate who probably has the best chance of beating Bush.
Those are Dean's problems, and they are probably insurmountable. But one overly-impassioned speech to re-rouse the troops after a big loss doesn't bother anybody except, I believe, political pundits who seem obviously to be using their positions to try to affect the outcome of the election in a way that is taking the focus off of the issues.
link to this item: http://www.creamy.com/blog/2004/01/medias-red-faced-rant.html
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