A while back I made a half-assed blog style argument that Howard Dean should have been the Democratic nominee. Now Peter Beinart makes the carefully written, full-assed version of the case.
Were Dean the nominee, the Bush campaign would probably be going after him not as a flip-flopper but as a lefty. Lefty isn't exactly a term of endearment. But at least it evokes issues rather than character. Character debates sank Al Gore and threaten to sink John Kerry now. A debate about issues, on the other hand � especially the biggest issue of all, Iraq � is something Democrats could win.
Via Tapped, where Yglesias pulls at the flip-flop thread in an effective but not completely persuasive way, and Eschaton, where Atrios wryly notes that Beinart wasn't exactly backing Dean's position on Iraq when he had the chance.
