Yesterday the Washington Post did a big profile of Howard Dean in which he defended his (awful) performance on “Meet the Press” a couple weeks ago. Here’s the relevant graf:

So far, Dean, who agrees that he is blunt, is brushing off the critics. “I didn’t like how I did in the first debate, because I was nervous and cranky,” he said. “But I disagree about the ‘Meet the Press’ interview. I thought I did great. Tim Russert asked really hard questions. No other candidate would take that kind of questioning for a full hour.”

This raises, yet again, one of the most consistently asked questions of the Democratic presidential contest, “What the Hell is Howard Dean talking about?” Surely he doesn’t mean that Joe Lieberman or John Kerry would have walked off the set. Surely he doesn’t mean that Dick Gephardt would have simply refused to answer the questions or would have melted under Russert’s withering interrogation. And, since most of the questions which tripped Dean up were about his policies and his experience it’s a mystery as to why he thinks his more seasoned competitors would do worse explaining their policies and record. These were hardly trick questions.