Anybody who's regarded as a serious candidate for president is held up to much closer scrutiny by the media, regardless of ideology. And Dean's "shoot from the lip" style, which endears him to so many people, causes the media to take an even closer look at what he's saying than it otherwise would. Since media coverage is never perfect, much of this attention is also imperfect.

NPR has a great weekly media criticism program called "On The Media". If you think you have a case against Mr. Solomon, bring it to the attention of OTM.
http://www.wnyc.org/onthemedia/

All this Bish, Inc. sponsored anti-Dean stuff actually makes my heart sing. It means that they are scared shitless of him.

Why does the National Review BEG that he be the Nominee? Because they want to dupe Democratic voters into fearing that Dean cannot beat Bush, and nominate someone whom Bush can trounce. (Since when should any Democratic primary voter listen to a damn thing the National Review says - the logical thing would be to do the exact opposite of what it says).

The Dean / Clark ticket (and Edwards as AG) is going to send Bush crying home to his momma.

Why does the National Review BEG that he be the Nominee? Because they want to dupe Democratic voters into fearing that Dean cannot beat Bush, and nominate someone whom Bush can trounce.

While you still have your tinfoil thinking cap on, consider: actually, another level - they want to dupe Democrat voters into thinking they are belittling Dean because they actually fear Dean, but actually they don't fear Dean, NR just wants you to think they are promoting him disingenuously because they fear him.

Interesting conception: infinite regression conspiracy mongering!

WhoMe? I have to stand with Harden on this one- it reminds me of what the CEO of Coca Cola said when media reports accused him of promoting "New Coke" and taking a hit in sales in order to reintroduce the original formula to bigger sales- "We aren't that dumb and we aren't that smart."

Still, I'd like to suggest that people read Lou Cannon's masterful Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power. The problem with Reagan bios is that about 99% of them are written by people who idolize him and write away all of his faults and make him out to be some kind of golden god and about 0.9% are written by people that hate him and turn him into some sort of monster. The reality is of course somewhere in between and Cannon- a reporter from California who started covering Reagan in the mid-60s and who seems to like Reagan personally but doesn't idolize him whatsoever talks about Reagan's proclivity to "shoot from the lip." He said things like trees cause more pollution than factories, suggested that we restructure the federal government in a way that would be actually impossible, he told an improper ethnic joke while cameras were rolling and on and on. Liberals say that this shows he was dumb, the truth is he simply misspoke when he got going in front of a crowd. Dean is much the same way. It seems that Reagan had no trouble getting elected and while Dean will most likely have a much tougher job than the Gipper ever did, I don't think his "fast talking" ways will be what sinks him.

It is interesting, though, just how dumb and/or gullible reporters can be. "I've got a great idea for a story- now if I can only bend the facts to fit just a little more..."

Hey, following the thread, Solomon is at it again today:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040109/ap_on_el_pr/dean_speaking_fees

Not surprisingly, I guess, is that this is just a lot of slanted innuendo, without anything to indicate that Dean actually DID anything untowards.

First, he took a "lot" of money (well, I guess $60K is a lot if you're a Democrat. It wouldn't even register in the Republican world.) Well, took is a funny way to put it, when it's shown that $62,500 was money pledged to a charity Dean created. Maybe if the reporter did a bit of digging to show that there was some way which Dean was actually profiting personally or politically from the work of the charity that would be a story. But I just don't see it here.

Second, he took 13K in speakers fees - much from a company which was involved in a federal suit. Of course, Dean was in no position to influence the federal harassment suit, but why would the AP reporter want to point THAT out?

Third, it's pretty slimy to spend such a large part of the article discussing whether receiving honoraria is legal in other states. The question is whether it's legal in Vermont, which it was. Then to quote the current governor 's spokesman who "believes it 'unlikely that he would accept honoraria to speak on a subject clearly related to his duties as governor,' " - WITHOUT doing anything to tell readers whether the speeches Dean gave were 'related to his duties as governor' or not - is really really lazy, really really stupid, or just something unrelated to journalism altogether.

Fourth, nice play up on the "gifts". I'm sure that AP has the resources to investigate a little deeper on what they might have been, or whether the tax breaks mentioned targeted Primmer in some way, or were just general tax breaks. Why not bother?

Looks like Solomon will spend the whole season throwing s*** against the wall, to see if something will stick.