http://makeashorterlink.com/?X11E32177SNIP..."NEW YORK--At least they didn't shoot Howard Dean (news - web sites). Usually, when an American political figure speaks truth to power, he ends up conveniently dead. RFK, Malcolm X, some say Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone: all martyrs to the quaint ideal of telling it as it is as loudly as possible. Like them, Dean scared the establishment. His aggressive style roused youngsters whom aging Boomers prefer to see somnolent. His populist Internet-based fundraising freed him from the corporate donors whose influence keeps the citizens of the world's richest nation living under a Third World system of social protections. Al Gore (news - web sites)'s endorsement transformed a candidate who came out of nowhere (Vermont) into a genuine threat to the southern conservatives who have hijacked the Democratic Party since 1992. Dean was a pro-business moderate, yet he stood poised to radically transform both his party and the American political system.
Of course he had to go.
The same journalists who issued get-out-of-scrutiny passes to George W. Bush for everything from electoral fraud to assassinating U.S. citizens he declares "enemy combatants" to lying about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction nailed Dean for, of all things, "screaming" into a microphone the night he lost the Iowa caucuses. (For the record, those in the audience say, they could barely hear him over the din of the crowd.) ....."
But then of course, Dean might not quite be over yet. But Ted Rall gets Dean and he understands his supporters.