The Dean Iowa speech reaction reminds me of the reaction of the Michael Moore Oscar speech. The negative reactions are just plain over the top, IMO.

Dean gave a fiery, old school "on to New Hampshire" political speech for his troops (who desperately needed to be rallied at that point), while Kerry and Edwards ignored their troops and gave presidential speeches for the national TV cameras. I would suggest there was not one single thing wrong with Dean's Iowa speech, and that it was given in an old school style of fiery oration in the mold of Jesse Jackson, Paul Wellstone, and many others.

Michael Moore was giving the speech he had every right to give at the Oscars, given the subject category (documentary), the subject matter of his film, and the activist nature of his film career.

I would contend that both Moore's Oscar speech and Dean's Iowa speech were perfectly appropriate for the circumstances in which they were given, but that the mainstream conglomerate media didn't want their messages to be heard, hence the demonization of both men in mainstream media, and the claims that their behavior was inappropriate to the circumstances in which their speeches were given.

Not a coincidence that we see this sort of thing being happening over and over again. It is a consistent strategy being used by conglomerate interests who have a stake in the way dissidents portray the ruling elite through the message and/or the medium.

KimC, is it possible the sinister vibe you say you sense in Dean could have been at least partly suggested by the way the mainstream media has so successfully portrayed him as demonic? There was a National Review cover recently that had a photograph of him I've seen the right leaning media use over and over, which made him look like a demonic madman. Is that sort of media manipulation of a bad photograph of a candidate fair to use as a club to beat up a wildly popular grassroots candidate who is bucking the system?

Or is it an abuse of power by the mainstream media, which is what I am contending.