Christmas shopping's finally done and I haven't blogged in over two full "working" days. You must absolutely hate me.

The other day NicMoc wrote that Howard Dean's "whole weasel policy predetermines him to getting whacked, even if he might not deserve it in particular cases." (By particular cases he meant Dean's comment two posts down, which NicMoc concedes is "technically correct.")

It seems "weasel" has turned into a less meat-headed version of "wimp," but its original definition (OK, I mean after it was furry little animal) is somebody who lies or equivocates or uses "weasel words" (according to this dictionary). There are surely plenty of instances in which Dean has done exactly that, but this certainly isn't one of them.

To say his position "predetermines him to getting whacked" is basically a fancy way of saying that since he's wrong elsewhere, it's his own fault that he gets attacked when he's right.

Under Clinton and Bush, constant prevarication seems to have become part of the national discourse. I guess I haven't been around long enough to know whether things were always this bad... but it seems really, really bad. Basically, if you can't take a stand-alone statement and evaluate its truthfulness on its own, then up becomes down and words are just plain meaningless.

What ever happened to speaking truth to power? It's aggravating enough to see a president lying all the time and getting away with it. It's ten times as aggravating to see somebody taken to the matt for actually telling the truth. (And if that's not enough irony for you, he gets called a "weasel" at the same time.)

Lest you think I'm becoming a shameless Howard Dean booster, I'm not. In fact, I think he's a huge, huge problem, but that's another discussion and besides, William Saletan can explain it much better than I can.

Just noticed George Cerny has Dean issues, too.

From the new Dean-o-phobe blog of The New Republic's Jonathan Chait:

It's not that I think Dean would be a worse president than Bush--he'd probably be better, although that's extremely faint praise given that Bush is the worst president of the last 80 years. Bush is like the next-door neighbor who lets his dog poop on your lawn and his kid shoot bb's at your house and who says something irritating to you every day on his way to work. Dean, on the other hand, is like the ne'er-do-well who's dating your daughter.

Dr. Dean, say whatever you want, but you stay the fuck away from my kids!