Streaming Noonan - Howard Dean: I Don't Want To Like Him, But The Bad Boy Doctor Has Captured My Heart

on-the-fly alternate version of peggie noonan's "lover's call" to howard dean

I don't want to like Howard Dean. I don't mean I want to oppose him; I mean I don't want to like him. I will find him revolting even if I agree with him, because he has too much power over me, and I am a respectable woman. I desperately don't want the Democratic Party to have a strong nominee this year, or to get weak kneed, for several reasons. One is that it is a threat to the one great party, mine, the Republican Party, and it is dispiriting to think the Democratic Party will be able to summon up a deeply impressive contender. Another is that a culture of greed and crony capitalism is best served by shallow presidential nominees duking it out region to region in an absurd war of competing spin and cult of personalities that conveniently ignores the pressing issues of the day. A third is that I, the Republican Party, and my girlfriends are frigid and overcome with infighting when faced with a strong challenger. When confronted by an alpha male like Bill Clinton, we lost nearly every political battle but still managed to wage the war, weakening his leadership and strength as president (the whole country in the process), and managing to impeach him for receiving oral sex from a consenting and doting adult. We're sore losers, and made a mockery of democracy and America the last time we were in the opposition, just to point out that Clinton was doing the same with his dirty sex behind closed doors, which we had to expose in order for people to know about. When faced with Michael Dukakis we came up with flag-burning amendments (patriotism) and Willie Horton (racism). Those were the good old days. We need to feel unthreatened and in charge before we even pretend to champion American values of liberty and tolerance, let alone respect the president and not criticize him during times of war, which we patriotically made our duty to do in opposition to Bill Clinton and Wesley Clark's ill-advised efforts and zeal to stop ethnic cleansing in Europe.

I do not know how Howard Dean will do in Iowa, but I am one of those who think the Democrats will nominate Dr. Dean, and so I would like to destroy and disparage him before others any way I can. I also would like to dislike him because now and then he says something that shows promise. Yesterday when asked if he ever wonders what would Jesus do, he replied: "No." This was so candid, I loved it. We real conservatives and Christians always lie when caught with that question unawares. Jesus would never advocate preemptive war, or executing the mentally disabled. In the same interview, when asked if his wife would join him on the campaign trail, he said, "I do not intend to drag her around because I think I need her as a prop on the campaign trail." Political spouses often are dragged around as props. It's not terrible to say so. It's refreshing. So much so that I'm beginning to feel empowered to stop being a political prop myself.

So it's hard not to like Howard Dean. He seems as big a trimmer as Bill Clinton, and as bold and talented in that area as Mr. Clinton, and this can only mean he has the goods to become commander-in-chief, not to mention the doctor of my dreams. He says America is no safer for the capture of Saddam Hussein, and then he doesn't back down against overwhelming criticism. My knees get weak just thinking about going against the "Saddam is the bogeyman, he's not under our bed anymore" grain. He floats a rumor that the Saudis tipped off President Bush before 9/11, and then he says it's just that, a rumour, and not to be believed. When he is confronted and scolded for daring to question the integrity of the president, he dissembles with Clintonian bravado, by repeating his dismissal of the rumour, which is a hot currency with a growing subculture on the Internet. This is not a good sign, as calling Dean a liar only exposes our own flank on the same charge.

Unlike our current president, who downplays his quick temper and seems to enjoy war and executions, Dean appears angry about misstated war justifications, the growing and accompanying anti-Americanism around the globe, and the trillion dollar cost of the war. In the past, I have thought of him as an angry Old Testament prophet, less Job than Jeremiah, and that just gets me way too horny. His eyes are cold marbles, in repose his face falls into lines of mere calculation, and he holds himself with a kind of no-neck pugnacity that makes me so wet I start shaking. I like my male friends sunny, easygoing and optimistic, but I think the ladies will agree with me that my lovers need to have access to my nuclear launch code, and that means strength, determination, and no bullshit. Dr. Dean's supporters no doubt see him as their man, but I am optimistic he will be mine. Sigh.

Back to the matter at hand, there is a disjunction between Dean's ethnic background and his personal style. His background is eastern WASP--Park Avenue, the Hamptons, boarding school, Yale. But he doesn't seem like a WASP. I know it's not nice to deal in stereotypes, but there seems very little Thurston Howell III, or George Bush the elder for that matter, in Dr. Dean. He seems unpolished, sexy, doesn't hide his aggression, is proudly pugnacious. He doesn't look or act the part of the dry and boring WASP who's lousy in the sack. This may be partly because of his generation, and his days growing up in the 60's. Forebear WASPs didn't really learn How It's Done the way their carefree, experimental sons did. (Boomers of every ethnicity are more exciting than their forebears.) George W. Bush is a little like this too--he partied as hard, and had as much sex, as any of them. At any rate there is some political meaning to this. It will be harder for Republicans to tag Dr. Dean as Son of the Maidstone Club than it was for Democrats to tag Bush One as Heir to Greenwich Country Day. Howard don't play that.

To be honest, Dr. Dean's determined look and strong demeanor will only cause him to ignore me for a younger, hotter, richer babe. Oh, to be 20 years younger! Play doctor with me Dr. Dean!

Ahem. Back to politics. Howard Dean is as much like George McGovern as 2004 is like 1972, which is to say not much. But Dr. Dean is like Mr. McGovern in an important way. Mr. McGovern was guided and inspired by his own sense of a particular ideology. He reflected it, and his young supporters, who that year took over the party, shared it. They stood for something. Dr. Dean, and his supporters, young and old, seem to have more than just a coherent platform. They also have an aggressive and winning attitude, one that combined with the Internet has the power for the first time in American modern history to counter the mainstream corporate and government media.

Howard Dean's rise is about two things. The first is the war. Most of the other serious Democratic candidates caved in like proper inferiors. Dean didn't dare back down, or appear equivocal: The Bush Administration is not being straight with the American people, and American lives, loves, treasure, and reputation is at stake. Would Jesus rush into war under false pretenses? And, as developments have unfolded, his position has been vindicated. This was pitch-perfect for an already offended and betrayed American people resulting from the debacle of the 2000 election. Having gained the advantage, Dr. Dean never let go. His imprint was set. He left his competitors stuttering, "But at the time the president's data did seem compelling, and so . . ." He forged on. His was the shrewdest, quickest read of the Democratic voter of 2004, not to mention the shoddy evidence and shifting justifications of the pre-war period.

The second reason for his rise is that he is not an insider but an insurgent. He has an insurgent's attitude and blunt displeasure (or sometimes uncanny poetic imagery, as when he referred to members of Congress as cockroaches scurrying from the light of free information and popular access to governing). The young and Internet-savvy, along with the politically disenfranchised, found this approach attractive. (An essay should be written by a Democrat on how the Democratic establishment--the men and women of the Clinton era, the party members in Congress--can become a strong and loyal opposition without being chumps.) Dr. Dean's forces used the Internet with great and impressive creativity, and not only in fund-raising. Have you seen Flat Howard? It's a life-size Howard printout you can get off your computer. You tape the pieces together and have a life-size Howard Dean. They're ingenious and spirited in Dean-land, and my copy hangs on my ceiling, though I secretly fantasize the coming of an Inflatable Howard.

Because Dr. Dean is operating as an insurgent, not only within his party and America, but in my heart, we hold him to different standards. Were the justifications and evidence for the war in Iraq inconsistent? No, Bush is nimble. Was he dishonest in his statements about the threat of Saddam Hussein? No, he was just tying those establishment opposition Democrat types in knots. Mr. Bush's supporters seem to like him not in spite of his drawbacks, but because of them. Dr. Dean means to heal this malady.

I want to dislike my Howard, but he is the object of my deepest and darkest fantasies, and God knows I need some sexual healing. Methinks Jesus would approve.

as you can see, the final version differs markedly from this first draft