Dean Was Robbed!

ABC News had a jaw-dropping story which I saw, as did a BuzzFlash contributor. The gist - in his famous "I Have A Scream" speech after the Iowa upset, Howard Dean was using a wireless microphone designed to filter out background crowd noises. The televised effect was the very un-Presidential image of a man screaming in an empty room.

However, ABC dug up tapes from amateurs on the scene. In this context, Howard Dean is virtually inaudible, and the scream sounds like someone yelling in Yankee Stadium after a Derek Jeter home run against the Red Sox. Sorry, for non-sports fans, it sounds like a man yelling on a runway while a jetliner takes off behind him - the whole audience was rocking (we saw that in New Hampshire, too) and Dr. Dean is inaudible.

Does it matter? His campaign seems to have collapsed. However, the ABC story may contribute to a sense of victomhood and oppression amongst the Deaniacs, motivating them to fight on.

MORE: CBS News had this in print, at least.

Comments

[Paul Zrimsek]

That Buzzflash guy has hit the nail on the head. Now that we're all agreed that the faraway microphone in which Dean was inaudible gave a truer impression of the speech, I suggest that all future Dean appearances be covered in that manner.

Perhaps now we can move beyond all this superficial image-mongering and talk about the serious issues facing the country. For instance, did you know that there are still tens of millions of Americans who don't know that Bush looks like a smirking chimp?

[Jim Glass]

"Does it matter? His campaign seems to have collapsed."

His campaign collapsed *before* the scream speech or he wouldn't have blown such a big lead to get clobbered so earlier in the day and he wouldn't have been giving that speech. Once he'd lost like that his campaign was in the toaster, scream or no scream.

Did the press make a big to-do about the speech that was piling on the guy as soon as he was down? Yup, sure.

OTOH, it was the press that had pre-designated him the winner of the Democratic nomination in advance, on the basis of next to nothing, to give him his momentum to begin with.

And Dean had been saying crazy stuff all along through the campaign that the press never made much of.

Remember what good Clinton man James Carville said on his CNN show about Dean a good while before Iowa?

"I'm scared to death that this guy just says anything. It feels like he's undergone some kind of a political lobotomy here."

Well, when Dean started getting close to actually winning something the Iowa voters began to get nervous about that, and they showed their feelings about it earlier than the press did.

And *after* Dean lost the press used the speech to bang the gong on that issue and make it reverberate. But they were just playing catch-up-to-the-voters for what they had neglected to do before (Carville aside).

Build 'em up when they don't deserve it for the sake of a story line, kick 'em when they're down for same. (Remember Bush I and supermarket scanners?) That's what they press does. A politician who can't deal with it should be in another line of work, like doctor or something.

[JSN]

Jim is reading from the script.

Around Christmas, the GOP realized Dean could win (no-WMD would be found).

At that time, Fox and the Wall St. Journal started running pro-Kerry peices.

Pathetic, but true. The GOP is picking our candidate.

[Sven]

The crowd video has been out for a while.

[Paul Zrimsek]

We all know how slavishly Democratic primary voters follow the advice of Fox and the WSJ, don't we?

If the GOP actually were picking the Democratic candidate, I believe this would be their order of preference:

1. Sharpton
2. Kucinich
3. Clark
4. Dean
5. Kerry
6. Lieberman
7. Edwards.

[Jeremy]

I don't know if Dean could win or not, but the GOP most definitely thinks that Dean as nominee would be an easy victory for Bush. Easier than Clark. According to the exit polls, the war really isn't that big an issue to Democratic primary voters, and that's Deans only issue. And Dean scares most Republicans (with the exception of Andrew Sullivan, who seems taken with him), so Bush could stop catering to his base, and still win (which he's been doing).

I would suspect their dream list would be LaRouche, Sharpton, Kucinich, Dean, Clark, Lieberman, Kerry, Edwards. Clark is indeed nuttier than Dean, but has better credentials.

But then again, if you somehow believe that Dean did poorly in Iowa because of his concession speech that happened after he lost...

I doubt it even hurt him in New Hampshire. Kerry got a boost because of his win - Dean lost some votes, but mostly because of his disappointing show in Iowa, not his scream.

If there was a media incident in Iowa that hurt Dean, it was his losing his stack against that elderly Republican.

[HH]

I've been to plays and weddings where the audio sounded fantastic... then I watched the video and had to turn the sound up all the way to hear it. I think the idea that amateur video would capture the speech more effectively is fundamentally flawed. Hard to believe that people in the TV business would put forth this meme, especially considering how long the "Dean scream" has been around. Also it was clear from the coverage of his last speech that there was a big, loud crowd there. No screaming or Hulk Hogan impressions this time. This is the same old after-the-fact apologia, and ABC News needs to get their story ideas from somewhere besides Moveon.org...

[HH]

Then again maybe there's a reason NPR didn't "break this story"...

[HH]

Tim Graham does an excellent job of tackling ABC's (likely futile) attempt to resurrect Dean.

[Ambrose Augustine]

I disagree with PZ above. Democrats ought to be extremely thankful that the GOP tries to have a hand in picking the Democratic candidate. Otherwise, this would be the Democrats' order of preference:

1. Veteran who protested Vietnam war by throwing somebody else's war medals (oops, I need to move Kerry down on this list)
2. Guy who says on nation-wide broadcast that terrorist threat to America is overblown (oops, I need to move Kerry down on this list)(although he is an extremely brave guy, he apparently doesn't plan to visit his Senate offices during the ricin shutdown, ah but maybe ricin is the one terrorism issue he fears)
3. Senator with long-time opposition to covert intellgence operations who says Bush should not have used faulty intelligence (oops, I need to move Kerry down on this list)
4. Politician who claims to represent the "little people" but thinks nothing of marrying into Republican-generated fortune and blowing it all on his own political endeavors (oops, I need to move Kerry down on this list)
5. Supposedly high-minded individual who says "everyone counts" but has no problem supporting medical procedures involving insertion of scalpel into the soft heads of newborn unwanted babies (oops, I need to move Kerry down on this list)
5. Ignoramus who apparently believed French and UN officials bribed by Saddam Hussein would work in good faith with Bush to reduce the threat from the Iraqi dictator (oops, I need to move Kerry down on this list)
6. John Kerry

[toy]

Realistic Anus Realistic Anus
Strap on dildos Strap on dildos
Sex Toys Dildos Sex Toys Dildos
Penis Pumps Penis Pumps
BLOWJOB SIMULATORS BLOWJOB SIMULATORS
Butt Plugs Butt Plugs
cock rings cock rings
Bondage Cuffs Bondage Cuffs