January 23, 2004

Was Dean Just Another Dot-Com?

Salon says Howard Dean may be just another dot-com boomlet gone bust.Also, don't miss this report from The New Republic on how the Deaniacs posting on Dean's blog reacted to Dean's plummeting poll numbers and his shreik-heard-round-the-world.

Another adds: "That speech was IDIOTIC." "What is a guy with a doctorate doing screaming like an unhinged animal for?" someone else asked. Pablo in New Mexico likened Dean to a "chipmunk on crystal meth."

The momentum Dean established over the summer and fall bore a striking resemblance to the straight-up curve of the dot-com boom. But, post-Iowa, that curve is pointing in a different direction, and now the question is, as was the case with so many of those dot-coms, was there every really a good product beneath the hype? Or is Dean really just buzz, nothing more than a pet food-selling sock puppet who, buoyed by his campaign's Internet savvy, momentarily came to seem like a really good idea?