I like the idea of Howard Dean for DNC chair. I know, I know. "BUT OH MY GOD THERE WAS LAST YEAR IN IOWA AND HE SCREAMED AND...!!!!!!" Jesus Christ, fucking get over it. Yeah, maybe it wasn't a good idea to have a hothead as President. Or maybe it would've been, you know. Who's gonna fuck with this: "You had better not give me any shit because I've got my finger on the button you know I'll push it and so help me god I will SCREAM." Isn't national security our big thing now? This really doesn't sound much worse than just walking over to the Middle East and setting it on fire like Bush has (oh, that's right, I forgot, it's all better now).

Anyway, Dean, while being a politician and therefore a bullshitter, is about as close to "keeping it real" as we've seen these past couple of years coming out of the D side. He seemed slightly less timid than everyone else when it came to expressing himself, and I appreciate that kind of thing. For example, at least Dean picked a fucking side when it came to the Iraq war, unlike some other candidates I could mention. Despite evidence to the contrary, he's not the single-mindedly hard-core liberal some make him out to be, but he's not afraid to find himself on the left with many things as, ostensibly, that's where Democrats lie on the spectrum.

I liked some of the things he had to say when he announced his bid for the party's chair. "The Democratic Party will not win elections or build a lasting majority solely by changing its rhetoric, nor will we win by adopting the other side's positions." My god, that's so simple. Why didn't anyone else think of that beforehand? "The fact that we lost the 2004 presidential race by a narrow margin should not result in the abandonment of our party's core principles." Sticking to principle? Man, this guy is on fire!

This should all just be common sense, but the Democrats can't even do that anymore. The Republicans have done a great deal of work to get the Democrats to be embarrassed of who they are, and the Democrats have bought into it. Yes, Dean's words need to be backed up with future actions to have any meaning. As we learned from Megaforce, "Deeds not words." But at least someone is finally pointing the conversation in the right direction.

"I think that Governor Dean would take his lead from us."

Has anybody ever noticed how stupid Nancy Pelosi is? I mean, like, skull-crushingly stupid. I sincerely hope that Dean, if indeed he becomes head of the DNC, doesn't decide to take his lead from people who aren't doing any leading themselves.

"... but he will reinforce all of their worst instincts."

Once again, trying to shame the Democrats into not being Democrats. The Democrats would do good to get back to their "worst instincts," since that's what helped build the party into the dominant force it once was. Seriously, if the Republicans are saying that Dean would be awful for the Democratic party, then that, if nothing else, is an endorsement for the potential that Dean has to do some good. I don't know if anything truly scares Republicans nowadays (other than being poor and dealing with non-white people, both of which they've done a good job of shielding themselves from... and I mean real Republicans, not the poor and/or non-white motherfuckers they've suckered into getting on board with the R side), but I've gotta think that a Democratic party no longer afraid of who it is would at least have to give them some pause (right before going back to fucking the poor and/or non-whites, including the ones who vote R).

In the end, though, even if Dean totally fucks everything up, how will we know the difference from where the Democrats are today? What can he cost them? The Presidency? The House? The Senate? The Supreme Court? Nuts or not, Dean at least isn't the safe bet, the one who will do a smashingly adequate job and nothing more, like, say, John Kerry (John who?). Yes, I am carefully parsing my words when I say "bet," because Dean is, in many ways, more of a gamble than a lot of the other candidates out there, but that's exactly why I like him in that position. As I've been saying for awhile now, those pussy Democrats need to fucking man up, put some chips on the line, and roll those dice.