July 27, 2004, 10:56 p.m.
Dean Without the Scream
The former primary frontrunner checked his personality at the Fleet Center door.

Boston, Mass — They love Howard. The waves of applause just kept coming as Dean took the podium and made a few of his trademark pointing gestures. For many delegates here, no doubt, their hearts say "Howard," even as their heads say "Kerry," just as they did in the primaries. But the Democratic superego is supposed to prevail this week, and in this case, it crushed what had the makings of a good old-fashioned Dean rant.

Dean hit some of his usual notes. He said Republicans hide behind "false patriotism." Imagine if a Republican said the same thing about Democrats. Dean accused — slightly obliquely — Bush of "not telling the truth to the American people" before going into Iraq. Translation: He lied. (And, logically, Kerry and Edwards lied at various times about Iraq, too.) He regurgitated his strange claim (rebutted by Kerry in the primaries) that middle class and working people "got a tax increase, not a tax cut." He repeated one of his favorite deceptive lines from his campaign: that Bush has been cutting hardship pay and veteran's benefits. Finally, there was the investment of messianic meaning in the acts of a few left-wing activists, such as the college student who sent him a $100 check with a note, "I sold my bicycle for democracy." Not for Dean, for "democracy."

So you would have expected the veins to be popping and his pointing gestures to be truly manic. It didn't happen. But before getting into that, a side point: Dean said he wanted "to see America restored as the moral leader of the world." What exactly does that mean? I thought the Democrats consider Bush foreign policy to be too moralistic. Now they want it to be more moral? I can understand saying Bush policy should be more prudent, but more moral? This, with a few exceptions (Abu Ghraib), is a meaningless critique unless the morality of U.S. foreign policy is taken entirely to depend on whether it has the support of France or not. Which is a morally neutral standard for judging morality.

In any case, Dean stayed uncharacteristically, bizarrely restrained (his conduct elsewhere this week is another matter). He said at one point, "Never again will we be ashamed to call ourselves Democrats. Never. Never. Never." But that's a line that just doesn't work without Dean-like shouting. He ended his speech with his usual urging to "take our country back" and his vintage rallying cry, "You have the power, you have the power." Accurately rendering that rallying cry usually requires exclamation points, but not tonight. Instead of getting louder, he got quieter with every repetition of the phrase, until his empowering rant trailed out into a kind of whimper.

Some speakers have had their speeches vetted and adjusted by the Kerry team here. Dean is the first speaker to have his personality vetted and adjusted. So much of his appeal in the primaries, at least initially, was temperamental — his shouting so perfectly captured the Democratic mood. For him to calm down now, in front of such a huge audience, at such an important moment, is disappointing — a kind of sell-out. Oh, well. Maybe he was yelling on the inside.