Heck, the first part is also still to be determined. I doubt he makes it through the pre-bout commentary before making it about himself.
I feel compelled to repeat this every time it is brought up. I was a young adult and had followed politics for years. This idea that the scream undid Dean is incorrect as a historical matter.
Prior to the voting, Dean led in all the polls. He was leading Bush in most polls. He was considered to be all but the Dem nominee and perhaps the new President. But a couple of weeks before Iowa, his support started dropping. Then the votes came in and showed that it had absolutely cratered. He finished a distant third.
Nobody thought that he would come out sobbing and he would certainly try to put a positive spin on what was clearly a disappointing night, but he came charging out like he won the Super Bowl, rolling up his sleeves and barking that he was going to this state and that and winning the whole thing “Yahhhh!”
It was simply bizarre and made him look very fake. It was clearly a disappointing night and his reaction had no place. I watched it live and me and everyone else (before the comedians got a hold of it) were wondering if he had just become unhinged. The scream wasn’t mentioned contemporaneous with it.
In short, he had already lost the campaign. The scream was a bit of comedy.
In 2004 there was still very much a strong establishment element to the Democratic party, and they were not going to let Dean just take over. Kerry had the money and the endorsements. Once Kerry started advertising in Iowa and NH, Dean was toast. That’s what made Obama’s rise so remarkable 4 years later. HRC had the machine for much of the election cycle, but Obama came on and really started challenging her inevitability, and over time, she crumbled.
Keep in mind the reality of Dean’s situation too, he was much further to the left of the average Democrat, in 2004 than even Bernie Sanders was in 2016–and note Bernie solidly lost to Hillary, who was not a great politician or particularly popular. Dean was all but certain to get pounded in the primaries as they moved out of “quirky” small states that are always idiosyncratic, so even had he done well in Iowa and New Hampshire he was a dead man walking. He ended up not even doing particularly well in those states.
The reality is everyone knew it was going to be John Kerry, but John Kerry wasn’t a good news story or all that exciting, so the story was Howard Dean. Then reality started occurring as people actually voted, and it was obvious Dean had no chance. The coverage of the Dean Scream is a really good example of irresponsible and stupid journalistic behavior, but it certainly isn’t why Dean lost.
Even in 2020 with an average Dem electorate much further to the left, note that the moment the real voting started there was a dramatic selection of the moderate path, despite the crazy buzz around people like Bernie and Liz going in to 2020’s primary elections.
So, does anybody know how he did? I mean, I can guess…
Just bumping to proclaim I was right. And it didn’t even take 30 days.
He probably did sneak some political commentary in, but from what I can tell he was far more coherent and plausible doing color commentary on the matches than he ever was as president. He seemed to know what he was talking about and his words made sense without some sort of mental gymnastics to interpret them.
Since I have been reminded this thread exists, I wanted to point out that it turns out the drone strike of August 29 was a “100% drone fuckup” that targeted a civilian aid worker and killed 9 other innocent civilians, including children. They think the explosion was due to a nearby propane tank. Furthermore the U.S. revealed that the late aid worker was working with an American aid organization.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/18/world/asia/afghanistan-drone-strike-reaction.html
This story was all over the news last week, again I am surprised it hasn’t even been mentioned on the 'dope. I am personally in favor of restitution, which is under consideration I think. But I don’t know if that will hurt or help, or how the Taliban might react (to us or the victims) if we offer restitution for this particular tragedy.
Re: the remaining Americans in Afghanistan, there isn’t much coverage. Here is one AP story
Blinken said the U.S. government does not track U.S. green card holders in Afghanistan but he estimated several thousand remain in the country, along with about 100 U.S. citizens. He said the U.S. government was still working to get them out.
As of Friday, at least 64 American citizens and 31 green card holders have been evacuated since the U.S. military left last month, according to the State Department. More were possibly aboard a flight from Mazar-e-Sharif on Friday, but the administration did not release figures.
Neither the U.S. nor the Taliban have offered a clear explanation why so few have been evacuated.
[…]
AP reporters in Afghanistan are not aware of any U.S. citizens or green card holders being picked up or arrested by the Taliban.
Of course Fox has some coverage,
“What she is not able to tell you. She went back to get married. She got the letter from the U.S. Embassy telling her and her family they could get into the airport and they went there and 18 members of her family were killed in the bombing,” Wilson said.
[…]
“I had to have a conversation with her. Do you want to leave with your daughter and leave the rest of your family because I can’t get them out right now. All I can get out is you and your daughter because you hold the right passport. She will tell you just, all she has left is who is left in her family from the bombing. She can’t leave them. […]” Wilson said.
~Max
Yeah, I saw that–the WaPo and NYT have good in depth writeups of it. I would argue that it does show the moral peril of just staying in places we don’t belong in like Afghanistan long after it’s been obvious we cannot do any good there. Civilian deaths due to the fog of war are a certainty, which means you should not perpetuate wars needlessly.
Edit: And it likely hasn’t been mentioned much because of a prediction I made a while ago–people just don’t care about foreign policy for very many news cycles, that’s why Afghanistan won’t do any serious political harm to Biden long term. The continuing pandemic and the shaky economy are his chief worries.
Also I think most of the explosion was actually from the missile itself, a propane tank detonating would be a very small explosion that wouldn’t have produced the results seen in the photo. The small flash of a propane tank exploding would likely explain the minor secondary explosive some of the experts believe they saw in reviewing footage / after pictures.
You’re probably right, the Iran hostage crisis would be the exception and this doesn’t seem to be a repeat of that to the average American (despite some right-wing commentators attempts to play it up that way). Personally, I occasionally think about the Americans in Afghanistan. I have just recently read not one but two books about refugees in the last century, one flight which my own family took part of, so perhaps the story hits closer to home for me.
It is becoming increasingly plausible that American citizens are able to leave - by which I mean the Taliban isn’t stopping them, which was my primary concern. But I think the remaining citizens are increasingly those who want to leave, but won’t leave without their spouses or children, such as the interviewee in the Fox article.
~Max
As I understand it the propane tank was in an adjacent courtyard, and caused a secondary explosion that was originally attributed to explosives on the vehicle. They are now saying the vehicle was carrying bottled water.
~Max
There’s been several flights that have taken American citizens out post-withdrawal, I suspect any citizens left who really want to leave will be able to do so. A key issue will be leaving their families behind, generally our immigration/refugee system has a definition of nuclear family that is basically limited to children, spouse, parents, sometimes siblings. Afghan families are larger, more closely connected across generations and across households, and there’s a few who are holding out trying to get a huge chunk of their family tree granted SIVs–but that is very unlikely to ever happen, so they will have to choose between remaining in Afghanistan or leaving some behind.
This really doesn’t seem to be good policy to me (I don’t know about the law or regulations, you are probably accurate in that regard). I would think, at the very least, that parents and siblings of American citizens also have a credible fear of persecution by the Taliban, since until very recently the Taliban and U.S. were engaged in active hostilities. I am continually surprised that I haven’t read about the Taliban arresting Americans or their Afghan families, I think it’s only a matter of time before such a story surfaces. There are already stories about Afghan citizens who worked with U.S. contractors (but are not citizens/green card holders) being dragged out of their homes.
~Max