Caucus cacophony.

At first I was concerned about Howard Dean's apparently weak showing in the Iowa caucuses last night. But then I flipped over to MSNBC (I know, I know -- but I was in one of those moods where I wanted to hear a conservative slant on things, just for the entertainment value of the depth of their smirking), and lo and behold, there was Pat Buchanan, claiming that Dean, once again in the position of scrappy underdog, was perfectly positioned to take New Hampshire and the rest of the country and assure himself the nomination. And I figured, well, either Buchanan is wishing this to happen because he thinks Dean would be the easiest for Bush to beat, or he has a salient point.

And I can't believe I just typed the words "Buchanan" and "salient point" in the same sentence.

But all that was before. Yeah, before. Oh, you know what I'm talking about, don't you? Yep. The Speech.

Actually, that gives it too much credit. Maybe I should call it "The Screech." What ... the ... hell? At first, when he took the stage, all Dean-goofy-grinning and rolling up his sleeves, ready to "get down to bidness" on the east coast, I thought: "Oh, okay. I see what we do here. We're spinning." He took his words in the "look how far we've come" direction. And it was actually working nicely. And then we crossed into the bizarre: The laundry list of all the states where the Dean campaign would fight, culminating in his return to D.C., where they would "take back the White House! Aaaaaiiiiieeeeeeee-haaaahhhhhhh!"

My jaw dropped. Did that sound come out of a human?

Oh well. Surely he'll recover, right? I mean -- mark my words -- that beastly ape-yell will be The Daily Show's "moment of zen" on tonight's edition, but that'll be the worst of it, right? Wrong. He did the list again. He threw in some different states, but basically tried to sledgehammer this geography lesson into a motif, all red-in-the-face, and seething. And then he said: "I ..." But someone in the audience caught his eye, and Jesus Christ, he started the state list again!

Finally, some all-too-tiny voice that tells him to "put the damn brakes on, already!" got the message to his skull and he got off that groove with this (paraphrased) gem: "Now, we have to say some polite things up here ..." And he went on to do his thank-you's. Well gee, Howard. Sorry to put you through a painful, public display of gratitude.

Somebody better hurry up and tell Dr. Dean that it don't matter what his message is, the medium was really sucking last night. It won't matter how impassioned his supporters (and that includes me) are; when they get a look at the goofy Tasmanian Devil that spat and screamed on that stage in Iowa, they're gonna have a second thought. I've read about his lack of self-control, but never had I seen it expressed so blatantly. If I send him any more money, I'm gonna earmark it: "Please use for a decent handler."