Howard Dean, a blogger's best friend

One interpretation of the phenomenon that is Howard Dean is that he is a Republican infiltrated into the Democratic Party, his goal being to undermine and paralyze the party over the long term by articulating a nominally friendly yet ideologically heterodox position. Think of Dean as the France to the Democratic Party's United States, or as the Chairman Mao to Senator Clinton's Kruschev.

Based on the content of this speech, I think Karl Rove's underground spy network may have upgraded Dean from "passive" to "active". For example, the article states:

Dean said he is looking for "the age of enlightenment led by religious figures who want to greet Americans with a moral, uplifting vision."

Any conservative worth his salt knows this is immanentizing the eschaton, which is conservative secret code for "I am a bleeding-heart liberal wacko moonbat".

Here's another example:

Another mistake Democrats made in the '60s, Dean acknowledged, was that "we did give things away for free, and that's a huge mistake because that does create a culture of dependence, and that's not good for anybody, either," he noted, a reference to the Great Society welfare programs created by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s.

I'm not sure if Dean realizes this, but the whole point of liberalism, the Democratic Party, the Welfare State, the Great Society, and the New Deal is to give things away for free. That's the whole point of 20th century government: increasing taxes on part of the population to give free stuff to the other part of the population. For Dean to say that giving away things for free is a huge mistake is akin to him saying that 20th century America could have just not bothered to elect Democrats ever. Only someone who drinks the wrong flavor of political Kool-Aid with breakfast could say something like that.

After breaking his deep cover for the conservative media in the beginning of the speech, Dean plays it straight with some relatively conventional liberal flam-flam:

"If you work hard, you ought to be able to support your family," the DNC chairman noted, and "in America, you need the opportunity to work hard, and that means some level of support from government -- no handouts, but some level of support so that you really do have a genuine opportunity to contribute to the country."

Yes, that's right, Dean apparently believes that nobody can genuinely contribute to America or even support their families without getting support from government that doesn't involve getting free stuff. As if we'd all be starving in poverty without goverment officials to give us a rousing "Good work, citizen" followed by a hearty pat on the back.

Or it could be that Dean was just shamelessly kissing butt:

"I came in the wrong door when I first got here," Dean said. "I came in the back, and everybody was talking about praising the Lord, and I thought, 'I am home. Finally, a group of people who want to praise the Lord and help their fellow man just like Jesus did and just like Jesus taught.' Thank you so much for doing that for me."

A move straight out of the Clinton playbook. Nothing conveys the impression of sincere admiration for someone better than claiming to have had a religious epiphany just by being in the same room.