January 21, 2004
SING ALONG
Yet more Howard Dean audio fun, from James Lileks and Jim Treacher. Dean’s genitals-in-a-blender howl is the YEEEAAARGH!! that launched a thousand mp3s! An earlier Screamy Deany dance hit can be found here.
Incidentally, the Washington Post goes with Yaaaaaaaaaah! National Review Online prefers YAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!.
According to David Hogberg, “One of Howard Dean's selling points is that his campaign attracts a lot of people who do not participate in politics.” They sure don’t:
Kelly Chambers, a precinct captain for Dean on the south side of Des Moines, speculated that the near zero temperatures had kept many elderly people away from the caucuses and that hurt Dean.
Damn that global warming! Err ... cooling. James Morrow looks forward to a hard-fought election:
In the wake of Iowa, Dean's candidacy looks far less assured. For American voters, that suggests Bush may have a tougher time than anyone has previously thought. Which means the 2004 presidential election, rather than being a foregone conclusion, will be a great illustration of that cherished conservative virtue, competition, in action.
But don’t count Dean out just yet, writes Janet Daley:
As everybody keeps saying, the New Hampshire primary is next and that state is full of what CNN approvingly described yesterday as "highly educated professionals who are likely to support Dean". In other words, once we get free of all these yokels from the sticks, our guy will really come into his own. What we need is an audience game for anti-war tirades and eager to pay more tax.
UPDATE. The Weekly Standard’s version: AARRRGHHA!
Posted by Tim Blair at January 21, 2004 12:00 PMI believe that scientists have now determined that publicly screaming "Yeeeaaargh" is the first overt sign of Mad Cow disease.
Posted by: Lewis at January 21, 2004 at 12:05 PMHe...it's like...what....maybe his....ummm
Damnit, I can't even think of anything cogent to say about this little pep rally outburst!
Posted by: rinardman at January 21, 2004 at 01:41 PMSCREW ALL OF YOU!!!! FIRST, I'M GOING TO TAKE NEW HAMPSHIRE! THEN, SOUTH CAROLINA, ARIZONA, AND THE REST!!!! THEN, WHEN I'M PRESIDENT, I'M COMING AFTER ALL OF YOU IN AUSTRAILIA WHO SAID I HOWLED LIKE A MADMAN!!! TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE!!! HA HA HA !!!! HERE I COME!!! HEEEEEEEEEEEEERE'S HOWIE!! WHAT? WHAT'S THIS? I DIDN'T ORDER ANY TRANQUILIZER!!!! I'll get you for....
Posted by: HOWARD DEAN! at January 21, 2004 at 01:50 PMHow does that differ from this (apart from the YAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!)?
I say to you today, my friends, let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York; let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania; let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado; let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that--let freedom ring from Stony Mountain of Georgia; let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee; let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
Posted by: Pig head Sucker at January 21, 2004 at 01:55 PMThat Lileks MP3 has to be one of the most hilarious things I've heard in a month. The guy's a comedic deity.
Posted by: David Gillies at January 21, 2004 at 02:37 PMThis supposed to be the rebel yell that was going to put Dr Howie in the good books of those Good Book-readin' NASCAR fans in the South?
Posted by: Uncle Milk at January 21, 2004 at 03:13 PMI went to the DemocratsUnderground thread to which Taranto at OpinionJournal linked. Must have been a hundred comments saying that Dean seemed crazy, many think he’s toast. One of them said something that was my impression too: Dean’s scream didn’t sound quite real. It was lame somehow, though it was certainly convincing as a sign of an unsound state of mind. Dean was, I think I read somewhere, a wrestler college, not physically a wimp, but he’s lived a pretty sheltered life. Well, whatever. Somehow it falls flat when he tries to sound wild & tough.
Posted by: ForNow at January 21, 2004 at 03:18 PMSorry about that. Dean a wrestler in college. Not “a wrestler college.” A wrestler college!—I don’t think there’s been something like that since the days of Plato.
Posted by: ForNow at January 21, 2004 at 03:24 PMWhile the Mad Doctor's strangled "rebel yell" will be the "shriek that lives in infamy", Dennis "mind-control satellites" Kucinich appears to have attracted the looniest of the loons. Evan Coyne Maloney conducted some truly astonishing man-in-the-street interviews outside the venue of Al Gore's hilariously ill-timed global warming speech.
Absolute Comedy Gold (click the link for the vid.)
Posted by: Spiny Norman at January 21, 2004 at 04:31 PMWell, Pig head Sucker, it differs in this respect: If deanie weanie had said what you wrote for him, I would have thought..."at least he's well-spoken!"
And not "what a looney toon!!"
Posted by: rinardman at January 21, 2004 at 09:20 PMAs David St. Hubbins said, 'there's a fine line between clever and stupid.'
I think ForNow has nailed it. A Park Avenue type guy tries to give a full-throated roar, and this is the result. It sounded like he was getting ready to bite someone in the neck.
And yes, go with all haste to Lileks. He's added techno music, police sirens and a harmonica. I still laugh out loud whenever I think of it.
Posted by: Annalucia at January 21, 2004 at 10:39 PMI agree with Uncle Mike. I think Dean was trying for a "YEEEEEEEE-haaaaaaaaaaawwwww" to impress the rednecks in the trucks with the Confederate flags in the upcoming S. Carolina vote. However, he was handicapped by his boarding school background and it came out, well...just plain wrong.
Posted by: JohnO at January 21, 2004 at 11:06 PMNo there is no "wrestler college" but there is a wtrestler school
http://www.thewrestlingmall.com/uploads/CampBrochures/br70/
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Posted by: LB at January 21, 2004 at 11:33 PMDamn the Right Magazine's server for reaching its bandwidth limit!
Posted by: C at January 22, 2004 at 12:39 AM
"As David St. Hubbins said, 'there's a fine line between clever and stupid.'"
Actually, that was Nigel Tufnel.
Soon appearing in New Hampshire, according to a marquee:
PUPPET SHOW
-----------
HOWARD DEAN
and that state is full of what CNN approvingly described yesterday as "highly educated professionals who are likely to support Dean"
Some prespective from a former resident of NH. Yes, there are lots of professionals that live in towns like Bedford, Amherst and others near the NH / Mass. border. However, NH still tends to lean conservative, and the presence of the Loudon International Raceway lends credence to a statement made by one of my buddies: "The only place yiou can find NASCAR (read: redneck) fans is in the South and New Hampshire."
Posted by: Roger Bournival at January 22, 2004 at 02:23 AM"presidential election, rather than being a foregone conclusion, will be a great illustration of that cherished conservative virtue, competition, in action."
James Morrow must be intentionally misinterpreting the conservative notion of competition, which, of course, is the absence of legal barriers to markets. Conservatives have nothing against a sound drubbing of an inferior opponent. That would in fact mimic the marketplace where inferior ideas lose to better ones.
There is no incongruity between desiring low barriers to entry and trampling an opponent. Actually, Mr. James Snide Morrow, to propose the inverse would be the ridiculous position.