bring it on

Chris Suellentrop puts the debate Dean pile-on into perspective:

But the real story of the debate turned out to be the same as the old story: Let's all gang up to try to stop Howard Dean. The former Vermont governor continues to be attacked from the right by his opponents, who are using the same tactics that the GOP would surely use against him in a general election: 1) He's a flip-flopping politician who will say anything to get elected; 2) He's weak and inexperienced on national security; 3) He's going to raise taxes on average Americans.

As a result, Dean is facing several candidates who are serving as the functional equivalents of stand-ins for Bush. Kerry is using the "tax families" that Bush used to great effect in the 2000 election to show how changes in tax rates affect specific American families. Lieberman is at least as hawkish as Bush on terrorism and Iraq, and probably more of a free-trader. And now Clark comes along as the candidate who possesses at least the appearance of an unbeatably impressive aura on defense and national security matters (even if substantively he agrees with Dean). During the debate, Kerry accuses Dean of wanting to raise taxes by $1,000 on 32 million couples, and by $3,000 on one specific firefighting-and-teaching New Hampshire couple. Lieberman accuses Dean of abandoning "the Clinton-Gore record" on middle-class tax cuts and trade. And Clark doesn't say anything about Dean, but when you're a general, even an antiwar one, you don't have to.

Democratic partisans are probably dismayed by all the criticism, but the truth is that if Dean wins the nomination, he'll have been made stronger by the gantlet he's being forced to run. And if he can't beat what he calls "Bush Lite," how can he expect to beat the real thing?