Where you Goin' With This, Howard Dean?

Last night, as I went to sleep, I thought about Howard Dean. Now here's a guy who is reasonably bright, who's obviously an accomplished fellow. He didn't get the job he wanted (though he did pick up a nifty nickname along the way), but he got a nice consolation prize. And yet he comes across as this bumbling guy who's just desperate to be liked, desperate to be taken seriously, blinking in the unaccustomed bright lights.

The occasion of these thoughts was the rebroadcast of a speech he'd given on, I think, Tuesday, about how Bush in particular and the Republicans in general are making a terrible mess of the health arena. I didn't hear him say that he of course knows this better than most, him being a doctor (unlike Bill Frist, who seems to like to waggle that credential in whenever he gets a chance), so with luck he did not. And he made a number of good points about how the Bush plan is biased in favor of people with a lot of discretionary income. (I don't know if Bush intended it as yet another goody for his pals in the River Oaks Club. I hope not.)

But though he made good points, he delivered them badly. He stumbled on words at times, he seemed to lose the thread of what he was saying, then come lurching back into line. He grinned and grew solemn by turns. (I know: doesn't this sound like Dubya?) Even his strained, elongated joke at his own expense came across lamely.So that all in all, the tenor of his message -- not the content, but the way that it came across -- was one of an earnest person in over his head. Now, heck, I don't know, perhaps this is what it looks like when someone is being honest -- not pretending that he knows all the answers, or that the answers will be taken care of when the time comes. But the feeling I got was that he was winging it, hoping that the audience would begin singing along, so that he wouldn't so much have to persuade them as just keep the beat going.

I don't expect eloquence, Howard. But I do expect better than that sorry performance. I think it goes a long way to cheering the Republicans that maybe, despite the odds, they'll hang on, after all.