Easterhack, The East Coast Kaus

Here's some pretty definitive evidence that Gregg Easterbrook can't read. Following some introductory ass-kissing of Joe Lieberman, Easterbrook writes:

Over on "Larry King Live," Howard Dean was asked why his candidacy seemed to lose steam beginning around the time Al Gore endorsed him. Here is Dean's answer:

Because the establishment in Washington really realized that I might be the nominee and they did not like that. The media folks didn't like it, the other folks in the race didn't like it, and they did everything they could to make sure we weren't [successful].

This is a fairly loopy conspiracy theory. The big change since about the time of the Gore endorsement is that voters have begun to speak. Rightly or wrongly, voters are choosing Kerry and Edwards. Before actual voting began, Dean's campaign was all ephemera--polls, media attention, Internet action. Then voters weighed in, and the voters are picking someone else. Does Howard Dean seriously believe that "the establishment in Washington" somehow secretly controls the way people vote? If so let's hear the evidence, please.

Of course, Dean said nothing about a conspiracy, or about Washington "controling the way people vote." Dean declaring that the other hopefuls "did everything they could to make sure we weren't [the nomineel]" is such a non-controversial statement that it's banal. And certainly alot of Washington insiders and media types attacked Dean -- and those attacks increased at the time of (and in part because of) the Gore endorsement. What Dean doesn't say is that the insiders and the media and the other candidates conspired against him. Either Easterschmuck can't read or he's deliberately pretending that Dean said something he didn't.

(Here's the transcript -- which Easterbrook doesn't link to -- for context.)