Sooner than expected, Howard Dean is obliquely threatening to bolt the Democrats, should he be denied his rightful place atop the ticket.  "If I don't win the nomination, where do you think those million and a half people, half a million on the Internet, where do you think they're going to go?"

The childish tone, so reminiscent of a schoolyard threat to take the bat and ball home, is consistent with other pieces of the puzzle which have been falling into place recently. Little Howard, as his parents called him, has got some ego problems, which explain his bad temper, his arrogance, and his impetuosity. Dr. Dean's deck may not have 52 cards, but it seems to have more than two jokers.

Witness his whine to Terry McAuliffe: "If we had strong leadership in the Democratic Party, they would be calling those other candidates and saying, `Hey look, somebody's going to have to win here,' " A poster on Lucianne.com aptly translated this into playground vernacular: 'The other kids pulled my hair and called me names!'

Howard Brush Dean III may not be accustomed to rough—and—tumble play. Childhood experiences often explain a lot about later emotional problems. Fortunately, the facts of the childhood of Howie Three Sticks are beginning to come to light.

In a remarkable (in the sense of laughable) Sunday New York Times profile by Rick Lyman, we learn that his Park Avenue and Hamptons childhood really wasn't all that elite at all. His mother Andree Maitland Dean claims, "Howard didn't have the least bit of a glamorous upbringing....I don't think we could even keep up with the Bushes." Of course. Howard's childhood must have been an ordeal of humiliation. How are the heirs of the Dean, Witter finance house ever going to compete with the glamour of the ranch house in one of the best neighborhoods of Midland, Texas, where W grew up?

Mrs. Dean (that's Ho Ho's [his childhood nickname] mother; his wife calls herself Dr. Steinberg) oozes the kind of faux humility only the fairly rich can muster, when comparing themselves to the wealth of  billionaire neighbors. We learn, for instance, that 'every time she had a baby, the dining room would serve as a bedroom for the newborn and his nurse.' The Park Avenue apartment had only three bedrooms. Everyday folks, who also ponder where they are going to put the nurse taking care of the baby, can surely identify with that problem. We all understand why the family needed to get away to the Hamptons so frequently.

But don't be concerned about Howard's lack of maternal nurturance, when crammed into the dining room with his nurse. Mrs. Dean helpfully explains that "When I was growing up," she said, "we didn't even treat the servants like servants." By extension, we can infer that her servants treated the offspring of their employer like blood relatives.

Attachment would seem to be an issue for Howie Three Sticks. His wife has kept herself as far as possible from the campaign, and there have not been a lot of trips home to Vermont, for the candidate to renew his familial bonds. Dr. Steinberg, in fact, has been quoted as saying that she wants her husband to get this whole thing 'out of his system.' Meanwhile, his son, mercifully not named Howard Brush Dean IV, was arrested earlier this year for burglarizing a country club of its liquor supplies.

What gives the most pause, however, is a statement Dr. Dean made over the weekend in Iowa, as part of his whine. "I think eventually the nomination is going to be won by somebody with a positive agenda," Dean said. "What's happening is, in their desperation, those guys have thrown their positive agenda out the window. I can't imagine it's going to help them. It might hurt us but it can't help them."

The man whose entire campaign has been built on negativity now criticizes his rivals for their lack of a positive agenda. The man who couldn't credit the capture of Saddam with making us one bit safer now has deluded himself into thinking that he will give voters the warm and fuzzies. Attachment is indeed the issue. Attachment to reality.

Posted by Thomas  12 29 03