January 22, 2004
THE morning after acting like a man requiring urgent
medical attention, Howard Dean yesterday diagnosed his post-caucus fit in Iowa
as a case of needing to have "a little fun in this
business". And while Dr Dean might have found his primal scream therapeutic, Democrats
were left wondering whether he was stable enough to take on George W. Bush in
November.
After placing a distant third to John Kerry in the Iowa caucus on Monday
night, the one-time frontrunner entered a room filled with supporters, rolled up
his sleeves and went into streetfighter mode.
"We will not give up," he said, his voice rising. "We will not quit, now or
ever. We have just begun to fight."
After rattling off the states in which he was prepared to fight, Dr Dean let
out the scream that stunned. British newspaper The Times said it sounded like "a
child imitating a Tyrannosaurus Rex".
Others were even less kind. "Dean goes nuts," declared online commentator
Matt Drudge. Washington-based commentator Stuart Rothenberg said: "It was almost
like a scene from The Exorcist, when Linda Blair's head spins around. Howard
Dean sounded possessed -- and not possessed by sanity."
The New York Times decided that "Dr Dean looked more like Howard Beale, the
angry anchor in Network, than Marcus Welby, MD".
As the Democratic dogfight moved to New Hampshire ahead of next week's
primary, Dr Dean spent much of his morning explaining his cringe-inducing
behaviour against accusations that it was less than presidential.
Asked to explain by one TV interviewer, the former Vermont governor replied:
"Well, you've got to have a little fun in this business.
"There were 3500 young people that came to Iowa to work for me, and they
worked hard. We didn't get as many votes as I would have liked to ... I thought
they deserved everything I could give them."
Dr Dean's fire and brimstone might have inspired his youth army but it raised
questions about him.
Waring Howe Jr, a Democratic National Committee member from South Carolina,
said: "He's heading to New Hampshire and those people are serious-minded.
They're going to be thinking, 'Who's that cat?"'
It was a toned-down Dr Dean who arrived in New Hampshire, where general
Wesley Clark and senator Joe Lieberman, who sat out Iowa, were waiting to join
the hostilities.
"Those of you who came here intending to be lifted to your feet by a lot of
red-meat rhetoric will be a little disappointed," he told
supporters.
But gobsmacked commentators
compared Dr Dean's performance - which included emitting a long scream that most
newspapers translated as "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" - to a scene from The Exorcist.
Elwood Blues: Our Lady of Blessed Acceleration, don't fail us now!
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