and the dean fawning continues

An editorial in the Nation chastises some of the Democratic presidential candidates for being petulant and attacking Dean.

The charge of petulance is rather amusing, since if I had to pick any word for Dean, petulant would be it. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about him rubs me the wrong way. His anger often seems, to me, misplaced. And no, I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, so you're more than welcome to disregard that claim entirely.

But this is the sentence that really bugs me: Dean displaced Kerry as the liberal standard-bearer by speaking clearly against the war on Iraq. Do we have to go over this again? Dean's not that liberal. That's his reputation, largely due to his opposition to the war in Iraq, but I'd argue that his reluctance to embrace that label is indicative of just how not liberal he is.

If you want the liberal standard bearer among the candidates, look no farther than Dennis Kucinich. It's entirely true, of course, that there are few stronger signs of Kucinch's eventual demise than the fact that the Nation barely mentions him. For what it's worth, Dean's claim that he was the only candidate to oppose the war all along is wrong; Kucinich's criticism of the current administration has been far more strident.