Awakenings?

Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza didn't know what he was in for. On his "The Fix" blog on the Post website, Mr. Cillizza had an item, "Dean Pops Off," trashing Howard Dean's appearance on "Hardball."

Cillizza's 2 excerpts from that interview chose to stereotype and marginalize Dean. The first reference was to Dean's use of the term "hide the salami," in referring to White House tactics over the Miers nomination. Cillizza also seemed to be amazed that Dean would dare infer that Cheney had prior knowledge of the Plame outing, and also cited this Dean remark, "The M.O. of the Bush administration is to discredit your opponents and attack them personally rather than attack them for their position."

I was one of those who commented on the scape-goating of Dean. Many accused Cillizza of being a tool of the RNC. But, what amazed me, was the unanimity of the comments against Cillizza. I realize that the Post will more likely than not garner a liberal readership, but the comments were extremely critical, with hardly anybody coming to his defense. And the tone was especially harsh.

So harsh, in fact, that Cillizza followed it up with an assertion that the reaction against Dean was something he had heard from unnamed Democratic strategists.

That, of course, brought in yet another assault. As I pointed out in my comments, the Democratic strategists were one of the main reasons that the party sometimes appears to be 'GOP lite' and why we lose elections. We need politicians with a spine, who are willing to speak out.

At any rate, Cillizza's choice to hide behind unnamed sources, in the current, post-Judy Miller, Plamegate climate, was rather unfortunate. And, judging by the comments, it seemed to backfire on him.

Maybe we really are mad as hell and aren't gonna take it anymore.

One would only hope.