Screaming at Dean

"So too, the Democratic leader in the Senate calls President Bush a 'loser,' and the reaction is basically inaudible.

"Look, we're all grownups, but the media's double standard yawns at us again: No injury done Republicans can really count. And if a Republican leader so much as looks cross-eyed at someone media-approved . . . Scandal City.

"I think the press has simply accepted that Dean is a little 'touched,' or alternatively 'passionate,' freewheeling, and that his outrages aren't really news. If Ken Mehlman were grossly insulting or irrational -- that would be 'Man Bites Dog.' But is no Democrat embarrassed by Dean?"

Todd Haskins at Blue State sounds disappointed with Dean:

"While most of us may agree that DeLay engaged in criminal-like behavior with lobbyists, that is not a reason for Dean to lose focus of his main goal: attracting swing voters. Now conservatives like Robert Novak of Crossfire are successfully painting Dean as an extremist. 'This fits the vile pattern set by leftist extremists who send me dozens of e-mails every week saying I should be in prison,' Novak said on yesterday's edition of Crossfire. 'Howard Dean is contributing to this pollution of politics.'. . . .

"Don't get me wrong. Howard Dean is a very smart, articulate and well-educated individual that wants nothing more than seeing his country travel down the right track. But sometimes he needs to put a lid on his loud towards the Republican Party while talking in front of a large media contingent."

The Senate filibuster fight continues, at a snail's pace:

"The bitter struggle in the Senate over restricting filibusters is the culmination of years of growing partisanship and ideological warfare that have transformed this 18th-century institution," says the New York Times. "Many senators entered the battle with a grim sense of inevitability, saddened but not surprised that it had come to this.

"Older senators talk wistfully of a more civil era that they say has now largely vanished. The few remaining centrists say the fierce partisan currents make it very hard to build the bipartisan coalitions necessary to do something big - like shoring up Social Security - or to defuse internal disputes like the present one over judges.

"Senators in both parties complain about the increasingly aggressive demands of outside advocacy groups on issues like judicial nominations, and their unwillingness to settle for anything less than victory."

I guess cheesecake sells newspapers: The New York Post has got pix of Saddam in his underwear. Yowza!

New Republic owner Marty Peretz spanks Newsweek: