THE DEANQUAKE LAST NIGHT

Paul comments that Howard Dean's outburst in his speech to supporters in Des Moines last night seemed "manufactured", and that he's "more than a little scared". I'm willing to give Dean the benefit of the doubt on the first point, it's one of the things he does to rev up his supporters, going back to his "I'm tired of listening to these fundamentalist preachers!" speech a year ago.

The second point, though, is more interesting. I think it's a combination of that, and the fact that Dean has simply never lost an election before, so this is something new for him. I must admit, I cringed a bit when I saw that for the first time. Of course, a week from now we'll all be talking about the results in New Hampshire, and Iowa will be a distant memory.

Dean's explosion was a miscalculation to the extent that it gave the armchair psychiatrists on the right a chance to offer more politically-expedient diagnoses. First Byron York, now we'll wait for Krauthammer.

Lastly, here's Dean's explanation of what he did, posted without comment:

"Thirty-five hundred young people showed up in Iowa to help me win the caucuses," he said. "We didn't win, but I thought I owed them a little bit of fun. We're going to have some fun in this race."

UPDATE: According to Charlow, it appears that Howard Stern made good use of Dean's outburst.

...but gee, people are only talking about one post-caucus speech...