Since it appears to be the case that Dean wouldn’t appear side-by-side with Ken Mehlman on Meet the Press, I’m trying to figure out why.

One answer is that he’s simply afraid of Mehlman and thinks he’d lose in an environment where he got called on his b.s. This could be based in Dean’s own personality or it could be a carefully thought-out examination of the pros and cons. After all, Dean’s M.O. these days has been heavy on the name-calling and whining, so he might have thought he wouldn’t be able to get away with his party’s “message” if Mehlman was right there.

I doubt it was a personality thing since Dean strikes me as the kind of guy who’d like to fight with someone he dislikes if he thought he could win.

Regardless, if it was a calculation, it seems like a bad one. It gives Republicans a good talking poing against Dean and the Democrats and doesn’t buy him much. Moreover, his whole schtick has been how he’s going to fight the GOP and stand-up to them. But the message from the Meet The Press appearance everyone takes away is that he was unwilling to do so. Most people aren’t going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out his motives. They’re just going to think it was lame.