Man...all I can say is Bush did a great job of covering some important issues. In fact, I was a little surprised, pleasantly surprised, that he mentioned fixing the electrical system in the United States.

Safire does a, once again, remarkably insightful discussion on Dean in his column. You have got to read it. Those of you too lazy to click on the damn link...here ya go, an excerpt:

WASHINGTON — Message to Howard Dean: Do not despair! Take a line from Scarlett O'Hara, after Rhett Butler abandons her: "Tomorrow is another day."

Dean was great as an underdog political eons ago, when John Kerry was the early media front-runner. The daring doctor from Vermont — feisty, irreverent, inexplicably confident, an unabashed multilateral isolationist — lit up the far left with his challenge to the Clintonite establishment. He had the magic touch with those yearning for a "new face" and the imagination to turn the Internet into his fund-raising jackpot.

But the qualities that made him a great underdog made him a disaster as a front-runner. The engaging feistiness was soon taken to be calculated anger; the Trumanesque cockiness, as he surged ahead, was seen as smug arrogance. He reveled in the opinion polls and became a sore winner, but piqued too soon.
...

An underdog can snarl and snap and yap and still be liked, even admired; not so a front-runner. As jockeys on a muddy racetrack say, "Front-runners stay clean." Maligning his Democratic opponents as "the Republican wing" of his party was newsworthy when he was starting out way behind, but not when he was ahead as the homestretch began.

Realizing that belatedly, he spun around to pose as a "regular" Democrat. But Dean lost the aura of a romantic rebel when he wrapped himself in the endorsements of Al Gore and Bill Bradley, or when he countered family-value critics by yanking his doctor-wife onto the campaign trail, or when he showed a sudden affinity for organized religion in a final-Sunday churchgoing photo-op with Jimmy Carter. All that reeked of inauthenticity.

Iowa's sharp slap in the face was exactly what the Dean campaign needed. No matter what New Hampshire polls show, he is once again the underdog, his natural state. In modern politics, the way to get ahead is by coming back. The Deaniacs have shown themselves to be inept at sitting on a lead; they can redeem themselves by pulling off an upset in a state that delights in upsets.

Full disclosure: I'm for Dean getting the nomination because it would trigger a resounding vote of confidence in President Bush. With our interests temporarily parallel, here's my advice:

Make your ostensible main target that portion of Bush's State of the Union about Iraq. Be cool with Kerry, a respected senator from a neighboring state who has forever shucked his Herman Munster image. Make nice to Edwards and Joe Lieberman, who are not your problem.

Then go get the goat of Wesley Clark, the Clintons' stalking-horse. You know that the Dean-Clinton battle for the Democratic soul is at the heart of this primary campaign. Since, as underdog, you don't have to strain to be Mr. Congeniality, you can win as the giant-killer — and for next week, the most vulnerable giant for you is Clark.

Your mission, Dr. Dean, should you choose to accept it, is to make mincemeat out of Wesley-come-lately's campaign next Tuesday. That will Big-Mo you toward March 2, Super Tuesday, when decision awaits in delegate-rich New York, Ohio and California, plus seven other states.

Good luck, for a while. If you fail to make it all the way, you'll be able to say that at least we won't have Howard Dean to kick around any more.

Excellent. (mwahahahaha)