Mon, January 26, 2004

Months ago, I referred in this space to the fact that I was asked by Athletic Reporter co-creator Joe Mulder to Photoshop the Atlanta Braves logo off of a baseball cap in an image for publication on the Athletic Reporter. (I could link to the column, but I won't because it refers to me making out with girls, which – come on – none of us needs to re-read.) As a lifelong Braves fan (admittedly, a half-hearted one), it stung a little.

Tonight, I was asked to do my part in perpetuating the misconception that Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean is some kind of raving goon who hollers like a maniac and yells at people and is just generally furiously insane. I had to Photoshop him into a wrestling ring as a "fiery and combative" wacko WWE character. This hurt a lot more than the Braves thing, which I only made a big deal out of at the time because of how magnanimously Joe presented it to me.

The reason the Dean photo upsets me is that I think the fact that Howard Dean has been reduced to this one-note screaming psycho by the media represents a function of the systematic dumbing-down of political information. They're covering him more closely because he's the front-runner, and because part of his personality is his willingness to speak his mind directly (something sorely needed in American politics), it's easy to peg him as a loose cannon. Then along comes some footage of him getting a little excited at his Iowa concession speech and it's a free-for-all.

I wouldn't be upset if the footage depicted Dean acting like a deranged person, but in fact he's just getting excited and trying to rally a group of people who worked extremely hard to deliver a victory and ended up coming in third. I applaud his enthusiasm and his understanding that their contributions needed to be celebrated – and their spirits lifted – after such an upset. As I've said since I first saw the footage, if he'd had a shorter list of states to name, none of this would've happened. But he simply got too "into it" too fast, and then he had to keep going up, but there were too many more states to name, and eventually he just couldn't go any "bigger" without screaming wildly. But at no point does he seem insane; he's just being pumped up, and it's thoughtful of him to do that. I'm sure most of the volunteers in the room were understandably depressed.

So, here comes the media, and they've already put plenty of effort into casting Dean as a whooping madman, so they run the footage and make it into a liability when it really shouldn't be. What's more, the comedy writers and late-night hosts grab hold of it and make a very trite and predictable joke about Dean having flipped his lid. What's dangerous about this is that what began as his courageous honesty has been turned into some sort of negative, when all he's really done is slip up a few times and say something off-the-cuff that might have merited a more diplomatic turn of phrase, and then he tried to rally his troops after a particularly surprising defeat. I mean, they'd even lost to drawling boytoy John Edwards! They needed their spirits raised!

So, while many Dean supporters I know are allowing the media to talk them out of his electability, I remain steadfast in my support of Howard Dean because the only thing that he ever did to get himself into this mess is to speak his mind, believe in something, and try to infect others with his enthusiasm for much-needed change in this country.

To Dean and his many supporters, I apologize for doing my part to contribute to a cheap joke. Joe is a good guy; he knows funny, and in his way he's just delivering enjoyable comedy, as he always does. He's not doing it to be mean-spirited, he's doing it to be funny (and at least his wrestling-themed approach is original). I know that if I asked him, he'd similarly put his beliefs partly aside to assist with a creative endeavor in which I believed.

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