Howard Dean's inimitably repulsive advocation of the Democratic Party has been a topic of conversation over at National Review's Corner, and a reader has chided all the talk of the former Vermont governor's very short suit.
Kathryn Lopez takes this criticism as overanxious — "Hush, hush," she writes — but the correspondent has a point. Conventional wisdom seems to hold the MoveOn fringe totally responsible for Howard Dean's nomination, when it should be obvious that the Clintons could have blocked Dean or at least extracted public concessions from him. Instead, Hillary and Bill stepped aside — making possible Dean's spectacular demonstration of the Peter Principle. While it's hardly beneficial for major party figures to dismiss their party spokesman as someone who does not speak for the party, Dean's opponents in the Democratic Party, from Joseph Biden to Bill Richardson to John Edwards, are separating themselves from Dean and effectively walling him into his own, little brick-lined cell. If they succeed, Dean will politically immolate without significantly damaging the party; Democrats like Hillary Clinton simply need to step back and let Howard Dean be Howard Dean. At his current clip, Dean could be at his weakest shortly after 2006, the perfect scapegoat for a few painful but sustainable losses.
DIFFERENT ANGLES AND POSTSCRIPT: David Freddoso sees Dean yanked offstage sooner than 2006; while that might spare Democrats a few seats in state and national elections, and will certainly leave Republicans one less thoughtless opponent, Dean's career would not be as fully scuttled as his competitors wish. Rush Limbaugh, on the other hand, believes that Howard Dean is the legitimate pick from the Democratic Party's growing nihilist faction, an avatar for leftism's secular, relativist, anti-nationalist and anti-capitalist self-estrangement from America.
Let me clarify: the Democrats are in a little more trouble now than nearly one year ago, whether an incendiary man like Dean is the party's most popular or if his direct challenge to another faction is worth the rather severe plan I've suggested above. Removing Dean will not solve the party's fundamental, ideological dilemma.