Reply #22: Aw, what a GREAT post!!

[calimary]

That's SO true.

He gave us a sense of the possible, and back in 2003 when I discovered him myself, the pro-war juggernaut was in high gear and we who were against it were trampled all over, burned at the stake (not literally, of course but sometimes it just damned FELT LIKE IT!!!) and demonized and laughed at. We were so wrong, weren't we? That's what everybody said. We were shits and traitors and unAmerican and horrible excuses for human beings. We were bombarded with that from every side, WHILE those who should be standing up and defending us and taking up our cause were silent and intimidated and running for cover, themselves. Into that nightmare stepped Howard Dean.

I will never be the same, politically, again. He reached out to those of us in the underdog contingent and gave voice from a prominent podium to what we felt, saying what needed desperately to be said. He carried our message when nobody else will. I will NEVER forget that, and I will appreciate him, forever, because of that. And I will always look at pretty much everybody else in our party (except for a few - like the Feingolds and Kuciniches and McKinneys) and wonder - "where were YOU at that time???" And the mainstreamers all laughed at him and tried to demonize him, too. And he kept on, anyway, in spite of them. And he showed us that WE could - and SHOULD - do so, too.

And look where we are, now!!!

THANK YOU, HOWARD!!! You will ALWAYS have my heart on your keyring. May you and Judith live long AND PROSPER!!!