Howard the Lame Duck

Matt Grills

Why are we still hearing from Howard Dean?

In this painful interim between his failed presidential bid and his big-screen debut in the sequel to “Anger Management,” Vermont’s Hulk refuses to go away. On every channel, there’s his scowling face, spitting out one poisonous remark after another.

Bitter, party of one. Your table is ready.

At least once a week, which is once a week too often, the news networks have a headline that starts with the words “Dean says ....” Even Democratic voters, not renowned for their brains, lost their fascination with this man months ago. What’s it going to take for the media to dump him?

I’m not saying Howard Dean is crazy, but his life has become a sick obsession with George W. Bush. He hates the president so much that it boggles the human mind. Sometime soon it’s going to come out that he carries on conversations with himself about those “filthy little Busheses,” a la Gollum from “Lord of the Rings.”

Just last week, Dean ranted to anyone who would listen about how politics are behind all these terror alerts. “In the last two days since I made this charge,” he blubbered to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, “they’ve been covering their you-know-what’s and trying to come up with additional information.”

That’s right, Howie. Your brilliant mind is the first to conceive of the idea that Bush might be playing politics with the terror threat, an ingenious charge that no liberal has been crazy enough to make since 9/11, as evidenced by the unwavering support they’ve given our president in the ensuing war on terror.

Funny thing, those terror alerts. Barely a day goes by that we don’t read of possible al-Qaeda threats. Yet the president’s critics deny we’re safer today than we were three years ago. I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel safer knowing the government is responding to any intelligence about possible terror threats, even if that intelligence turns out to be outdated.

Giving Howard the attention he so desperately craves, Vice President Dick Cheney responded to the criticism by commenting that Dean “doesn’t know anything” about terror groups. He could have stopped after the word “anything.”

If ever a man deserved a life of obscurity, Howard Dean is that man. Lo and behold, the world is not that fortunate. In the past few days, I realized with horror – not to mention a painful series of stomach cramps – that Howard Dean is not going to go away. Like the Clintons, he will forever be in our faces. At least they have a reason for sticking in our subconscious; they were in the White House for eight years. What has Dean ever done, aside from howling like a harpooned bear during the Democratic primaries?

Now just a fond campaign memory, the infamous “Dean scream” is being replaced in U.S. households by the screams of angry viewers who just want to watch the news without his silly accusations and pouting-child mannerisms.

At last, though, a ray of sunlight penetrates the dark clouds. On Sunday night, Dean subbed for the host on CNBC’s “Topic [A] With Tina Brown,” and he broke the joyous news to guest Jon Stewart that he’s not quite ready to go from political activist to talk-show host. Ladies and gentlemen, my Thanksgiving just went from one day to two.

I suppose I could delight in watching Dean embarrass himself, but it hurts. Don’t you feel sorry for that old man who leaves his house wearing underwear on the outside of his pants? In a way, that’s Howard Dean. I’m convinced that if he had a clue about how he sounds, he would stay at home screaming into his pillow.

Dean did not come close to winning the Democratic primaries. He is not president and he will never be president, except in his mind. You know, like Al Gore.

Dean’s advisers should urge him to focus his energies on demanding royalties from all the remixes of his Iowa screech found online. I hear the best include James Lileks’ “Yeeahg,” “Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train (Dean’s Aboard),” “Welcome to Dean’s Jungle” and Jonathan Strong’s “Dean Goes Nuts.”

In the meantime, Howie, the true Democratic nominee is going to New Hampshire and South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico. He’s going to California and Texas and New York. And he’s going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan and then he’s going to Washington, D.C., to take back the White House. And you’re not going.

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Matt Grills is a writer and conservative activist living in Indianapolis, where he works for a nonprofit organization. In 1997, he earned a bachelor's degree in religious studies from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Ill. He has written for a handful of Hoosier newspapers and is a member of the Indiana Leadership Forum, a program that encourages emerging community leaders to increase their involvement in the Republican Party.

darthgrills@hotmail.com