it's not the speech, it's the context.
dean spent tons of money, imported 3500 troops, got Tom Harkin's endorsement -- and got EIGHTEEN PERCENT of the vote.
basically the biggest defeat imaginable.
why? because he was viewed as
a) arrogant; and
b) angry
so what does he do?
at the very moment when most americans start to look at the field for the first time, and they're hearing how he had a big lead and blew it by being angry and arrogant, he gives a concession speech that was
a) angry
b) arrogant
c) fucking weird
luckily for him, it was weird enough that he's been able to turn it into a joke.
but what's so unpresidential is the terrible judgement he exercised about the timing of the speech (i think this is a better way to view it than the tenor of the speech at that moment).
the media didn't make him act like a completely ungracious, hysterical freak of a THIRD PLACE FINISHER. He did.
Dean apologists seem to think, somehow, that Dean did just fine in Iowa except for this one bad speech.
the speech isn't the point. the terrible defeat is.
actually he's LUCKY that people are focused on the former and not the latter.
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dean spent tons of money, imported 3500 troops, got Tom Harkin's endorsement -- and got EIGHTEEN PERCENT of the vote.
basically the biggest defeat imaginable.
why? because he was viewed as
a) arrogant; and
b) angry
so what does he do?
at the very moment when most americans start to look at the field for the first time, and they're hearing how he had a big lead and blew it by being angry and arrogant, he gives a concession speech that was
a) angry
b) arrogant
c) fucking weird
luckily for him, it was weird enough that he's been able to turn it into a joke.
but what's so unpresidential is the terrible judgement he exercised about the timing of the speech (i think this is a better way to view it than the tenor of the speech at that moment).
the media didn't make him act like a completely ungracious, hysterical freak of a THIRD PLACE FINISHER. He did.
Dean apologists seem to think, somehow, that Dean did just fine in Iowa except for this one bad speech.
the speech isn't the point. the terrible defeat is.
actually he's LUCKY that people are focused on the former and not the latter.
- big jimmy 1-23-2004 10:19 pm