Every generation or so, our great Republic manages to give birth to a political figure so obnoxiously certain of his moral and intellectual superiority over the “booboisie” that we lowly, simple folk eventually begin to heave with nausea.  The insufferable Governor Dean is the latest incarnation. Born deep in the heartland of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, schooled at only the best of New York’s private preparatory institutions before entering the real world of the Ivy League, young Howard spent his summers in the Hamptons. Certainly these early life experiences prepared Mr. Dean to empathize with the average, middle-class American.

One might assume that this upbringing, while not disqualifying one to represent the great expanse of America, would insulate Howard from the common man. This is not to say that Howard was not nice to the family’s “domestics.” In fact, I would gainsay that Howard was very polite with the “help” and probably engaged in conversation from time to time. At Yale we learn over and over and over again that Master Howard actually had not one, but two black roommates!! Ultimately Howard received a medical degree and chose the life of a country doctor in Vermont. Vermont is a place where “real people” live.  Of course this was no longer the Vermont of old Yankees, but ex-hippies and the counterculture. The spoiled little snots of the Sixties had found their little haven in Vermont. As an illustration, look at Vermont’s only Congressman, Bernie Sanders. He’s yet another ex-New Yorker who ran and won to become the only openly socialist congressman in the US House of Representatives. Indeed Vermont is as American as…well, crepes.

We know little of Dean’s homespun, country doctoring -- except for one story about a young girl who came to the good Dr. and reported she was raped by her father. Dr. Dean’s memory fades as to whether he reported this to the authorities as required by law or not. It turns out the girl was not raped by her father, but it makes for a whopper of a story if you want to make a point in favor of abortion and against parental notification. Too bad it’s all a fabrication. I guess Dean figures it COULD have happened.  We know little of Dean’s governorship and Dean would like to keep it that way. He’s had his records sealed for ten years. We do know that he championed and signed into law the nation’s first “civil unions” (read: gay marriage) law. Dean likes to mention his executive experience he had as a Governor in Vermont. Just to maintain some perspective, let’s recall that Vermont would be no more than a rural county in many states of the Union.

Howard Dean’s Manhattan-prep school-Hampton-Ivy-Vermont frame of mind is, in fact, a little island of democratic socialist Europe within America. Howard Dean may justly be called the Jacques Chirac of America. Like the slightly overweight Chirac, Dean nearly bursts out of his suit and ties with indignation and outrage over the small mindedness of anyone who can not see the secular, multicultural worldview of himself and fellow “progressive-minded intelligentsia.” His worldview reminds me of a professor I had at Harvard who would begin each pronouncement of opinion by stating, “As we all know…” The problem was that the rest of the sentence was almost never an obvious fact or “given,” but rather the ideological assumptions of the Left which were to be taken as unassailable to them as the Nicene Creed to orthodox Christians.

This last point is important. To Dean, the Far Left and the other various Bush-haters, secular Leftist (democratic socialist) ideology IS a religion. Indeed this is the religion which they wish to establish once and for all in the United States.  Those who disagree with them are either ignorant hicks or downright evil war profiteers and hate-mongers. It is this feature of Dean’s religious viewpoint that explains his manifest smugness. He makes no attempt to hide his contempt not only for Bush and conservatives who exist “beyond the Pale” but also for his fellow intellectually stunted Democrats. One can see him get flushed with exasperation and notice his pupils dilate with disdain.

Drunk with ideological intoxication, Dean is coming perilously close to the secular equivalent of “speaking in tongues.” He rants with abandon about the possibility of Bush’s prior knowledge of 9/11 from the President’s “Saudi buddies.” He feels it’s just about time that he gave the President’s foreign policy and defense team a few lessons about the intricacies of international world terrorism, strategic and tactical moves in the Middle Eastern region and how the President might learn some manners if he intends to get along with other “civilized” states like France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Lichtenstein. While we’re at it, Dean will make sure the yahoos and cowboys (like, say, Colin Powell) don’t get control of the State Department so we can work constructively with the world community as constituted at the United Nations.  Governor Dean also apparently has the power of prophecy.  He would never have gotten us involved in Iraq and “as we all know” the Iraqis never really had weapons of mass destruction. The socialist Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair was also apparently snookered just by British intelligence just like our “simpleminded” President.  Governor Dean would have us believe that American arrogance in the world is the real culprit and the cause of 9/11 and hatred of America.  Welcome to Howard Dean in Wonderland!

Dean’s domestic policy can be summed up as simply “Farther Left.” Forget tax relief. We should be damn happy with whatever government allows us to keep.  We must all get over the decades of greed! Just take Western Europe’s cradle-to-grave socialism and moral nihilism and paint that on an American canvas and you have Dean’s “vision” for the New America.

The interesting thing about Howard Dean is that he is, in a sense, the mirror image of Bush hatred. Howard Dean’s elitist Archangel stance has made him far more of a perfect figure one loves to hate than George Bush. Howard Dean joins the ranks of other humorless, self-righteous prigs like Woodrow Wilson or Jimmy Carter.  Unlike the aforementioned, Governor Dean is unlikely to occupy the White House. He does appear increasingly likely to become the leader of the Democratic Party and, by all accounts, lead it to a defeat unseen since George McGovern or Alf Landon.  Circling like vultures around the carrion of the Democratic party are the Clintons and their merry band of Soft Money Marxists of the George Soros variety. Unlike the pompous and preposterous Dean, the Clintons are more dangerous because they are more cunning. Like chameleons they blend with political landscape until they can show their true colors.  Unfortunately for the Democrats and the rest of us, the Clintons have the same real agenda as Howard Dean sans the ridiculous persona. That is the real danger to the future of the Republic.

Scott Shore is a political commentator and management consultant in Providence, Rhode Island.