I’m rather less than a <$NoAd$>push-over for Howard Dean. But David Brooks’ anti-Dean column in Tuesday’s Times is like one long primal scream.
It’s filled with stuff like this from the lede …
My moment of illumination about Howard Dean came one day in Iowa when I saw him lean into a crowd and begin a sentence with, “Us rural people. . . .”
Dean grew up on Park Avenue and in East Hampton. If he’s a rural person, I’m the Queen of Sheba. Yet he said it with conviction. He said it uninhibited by any fear that someone might laugh at or contradict him.
Hmmm. I don’t know. Hasn’t Dean lived in a predominantly rural state for like twenty-five years? (According to census data, Vermont is the most rural state in the nation.) Every pol likes to suit his biography to the needs of the moment. But that fact would seem to give Dean’s statement at least a measure of credibility, no?
A weird column …
