Howard Beale @ er, Dean

The other day, Howard Dean took a Fox News interviewer to task for misquoting a New York Magazine story in which Dean described how he "hyperventilated" when he learned in 1991 that Vermont's governor had suddenly died and he would be taking the reins of office. The interviewer referred mistakenly to Dean's "panic attack."

Never mind that hyperventilation is the most prominent symptom of a panic attack, the governor – splitting hairs exquisitely – wanted to make it perfectly clear that "panic" had nothing to do with it.

I wonder how Dr. Dean would characterize (diagnose, really) his startling outburst following the Iowa caucus Monday night – a display that ranged from high-volume hysteria to florid fury.

No doubt with the same kind of euphemistic spin.

To me, it was the perfect Howard Beale moment. Remember Beale? He is the protagonist of the 1976 movie "Network," a prickly, over-the-hill broadcaster in the midst of a nervous breakdown, having just been fired from his job as the lead anchor of his network. But his on-air rantings and threats of suicide boost the ratings, so he keeps his job because, well, it's great "reality" TV! Sound familiar?

Like Beale, Dean was, in a sense, fired by the Iowa public, and he reacted in a similarly strange way.

Veins bulging, eyes flashing, arms waving wildly, he seemed not to "get" the caucus results, literally screeching at the crowd: "We're going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico and California and Texas and New York and South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and then we're going to Washington, D.C., to take back the White House! Yeeeeeeeahhhh!"

How prescient, how amazing, how scary that the writer of "Network," Paddy Chayefsky, created a character 28 years ago that would be reincarnated in the form of Howard Dean, one of three top Democratic contenders for the presidency in 2004.

Beale's tirades were about the hypocrisies and exploitative nature of network TV. Dean's invective is about the Bush administration. But their rhetoric is eerily similar.

Beale: "Well, I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest; I don't want you to riot; I don't want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. …"

Dean: "The country's really headed in a bad direction and this country's the most important country in the world, and for this country to be headed in a bad direction, the world's in serious trouble. …Are you going to do something about it or are you going to complain about it?"

And who can forget Beale's most infamous line: "So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!!'"

Dean, as demonstrated by his post-caucus splenetic outburst, is mad as hell, devolving into downright denial in believing that voters in other states didn't notice and wouldn't care about the qualities he displayed in Iowa: impulsive outbursts, testiness and ill-concealed anger.

Yes, this Howard is indeed very mad – mad at the war in Iraq, at the president, at the tax cuts, at our health care system. And he's especially mad at the caucus results, as if anyone watching and listening to him couldn't tell.

One reviewer of "Network" said: "I'm not sure when exactly Howard crosses the line from cool to creepy." He was talking about Howard Beale, But his words fit the Dean picture perfectly!

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