Incohere!
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: "Big Iron" by Marty Robbins
With thanks to Pejmanesque for the link, here's a shiv between the ribs from Patrick Ruffini on the subject of Howard Dean's negative influence on the Democratic Party:

It's safe to say that Howard Dean's first four months as chairman of the Democratic National Committee have not gone exactly according to plan. After a Presidential season in which small donors eclipsed the power of the bundlers, Dean was supposed to keep the spigot of Internet money flowing, and perhaps even juice it up some more after the departure of the reviled McAuliffe. The selection of this unconventional politician was supposed to have morphed the DNC from a shadowy, inside-the-Beltway cabal into a populist grassroots machine, with a little bit of the same pop, sizzle, and spontaneity that characterized Dean's rise to the top of the Democratic field. In my parochial area of concern, online politics, Mr. Internet Candidate was supposed to be running laps around the Republicans, attracting hundreds of thousands of quirky, devoted online followers.

Instead, the DNC was outraised by the RNC $34 million to $16.7 million in the first quarter – following the 2004 cycle where the DNC actually raised more. Big donors are leaving in droves. The antics (helpful anthology here) that seemed refreshing and out-of-the-ordinary on the campaign trail are now grating and uncouth. And the DNC's web site still sucks, its blog has remained essentially unchanged since the election; gone is the excitement of Blog for America, in is the quaint charm of a major party weblog with 1, 3, and 7 comments respectively on its last three substantive posts. So much for the Internet Candidate™.

And how do the morons at Eschaton respond to my criticisms of Dean in their comment threads? By declaring ---with too much emphasis and generosity to actually be true--- that they're off to donate ever more money to the DNC. Got that? As a [rebuke] to me for my sensible remarks, these partisan bottom-dwellers ---who wallow in the mud of hatred for yuppies and Rethuglikkkan $cum--- can only think to send money to the Democratic Party. For what? More money would equal more approval of Dean's chairmanship? That's certainly interesting! All that more money is going to do is pay for the extra toppings on the pizzas the envelope-lickers will be ordering. You know: from their five-figure-a-month office space in a downtown near you where their coat-and-tied hippy bosses strategize on how to appear grassroots enough to fool you yet again.

Nader's still right about the two-party machine, even if you dumbasses still hate him for 2000.