Howard Kurtz Tries To Sound Unimpressed By Dean And Fails

Dean's Moment

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 4, 2003; 8:51 AM


It's the dream of every insurgent candidate to confound the experts, catch fire at the right moment, wow the world by winning the New Hampshire primary and making the cover of Time and Newsweek.


Howard Dean, who was nowhere six months ago, has just pulled off the remarkable feat of gracing both newsmagazine covers today. Unfortunately for the good doctor, it's only the dog days of August -- way before anyone will actually be voting.

It's impossible to predict whether Dean is a fleeting summer storm or will retain his power in the snows of Iowa and New Hampshire. But for the first time, the pundits who initially dismissed him as the flavor of the month, then grudgingly assigned him top-tier status are now saying that the man from Vermont could win the Democratic presidential nomination.

And that has sparked a fierce debate over whether Dean is Carter in '76 (his role model) or McGovern in '72. Whether he's "destiny or disaster," as Newsweek's cover question puts it.

One thing's for certain: No other member of the nine-pack is generating this kind of excitement. The media may have played a role in creating Howard Dean, but at a certain point they were simply responding to tangible evidence -- his Internet celebrity, his fundraising prowess, his ability to tap into the anti-Bush anger among middle-class Democrats. This is no antiwar flash in the pan.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17731-2003Aug4.html


He gets his digs and cheap shots in, but I agree that there's a certain level of respect starting to show in Kurtz's coverage and that of other whore-pundits, as Kurtz points out himself about other pundits above. I really don't think they know what to think of Dean. He's too complicated of a candidate for them to understand with their soundbite brains.

for the most part. They get the "angle" on every event or person that seems to be shared among them all. After that, every story seems to stick to that angle, until there's simply so evidence to the contrary that the reporters eventually change their reporting. Dean is getting to that point.