Howard Dean is nostalgic for the '60s. Isn't that like a Republican being nostalgic for 1929?
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BY JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, June 28
Party Like It's 1968
CNSNews.com reports on a very strange speech by Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee:
<<< "We're about to enter the '60s again," Dean said, but he was not referring to the Vietnam War or racial tensions.
Dean said he is looking for "the age of enlightenment led by religious figures who want to greet Americans with a moral, uplifting vision." . . .
Alternating between references to the "McCarthy era" of the 1950s, which he accused the Bush administration of reviving, the decade of the 1960s and the current era, Dean explained that he was "looking to go back to the same moral principles of the '50s and '60s."
That was a time that stressed "everybody's in it together," he said. "We know that no one person can succeed unless everybody else succeeds." . . .
Before leaving Tuesday's conference, the DNC chairman thanked those in attendance for giving him "a big lift."
"I came in the wrong door when I first got here," Dean said. "I came in the back, and everybody was talking about praising the Lord, and I thought, 'I am home. Finally, a group of people who want to praise the Lord and help their fellow man just like Jesus did and just like Jesus taught.' Thank you so much for doing that for me." >>>
Dean did acknowledge that some aspects of the War on Poverty were misbegotten, and said "we have to make sure that we don't make the same mistakes."
But there's something bizarre about the head of the Democratic Party yearning for a return to the 1960s. After all, 1968 marked the beginning of the Republican ascendancy in American politics. Richard Nixon's narrow victory in that year's presidential election began an impressive 7-for-10 GOP streak, and of course the Republicans eventually broke the Democrats' congressional majority too. For a Democrat to long for a return to the '60s is the equivalent of a Republican looking back wistfully on the glory days of the Hoover administration.
But there is an obvious explanation for this seeming perversity. Like many liberal baby boomers, Dean (born Nov. 17, 1948) has never gotten over his own youthful narcissism. The Democrats' political resurgence may have to wait until they find a leader who is younger and more mature.
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