The One Bad Rap -

The One Bad Rap - Howard Dean deserved most of his bad raps.

He was a flip-flopper of Kerryesque dimension - and had he remained the front-runner, that would have come out the way Kerry's past is coming out today. He was every bit the empty suit that Kerry is on foreign policy and national security, with a bit of delusion thrown in for good measure (the infamous "135,000 moderate moslem troops" canard that played so well to the militarily-illiterate MoveOn crowd, as long as no nations with six digits worth of troops to spare were actually mentioned). And he was a moonbat, oh, yes indeed.

But he got a lot of flak from the right about, of all things, rolling up his sleeves.

In this, as nothing else, Howard Dean was spot on.
I've rolled my sleeves up as long as I can remember, and unless I'm wearing an interview suit, I still do. Always - unless I'm in the job interview itself. I'll wear a suit on the first day of any job - but once the jacket's off, the sleeves roll up.

For my entire life, I've hated, Hated, HATED the feeling of shirt cuffs on my wrists. I can sit and listen to fingernails on chalkboards all day without batting an eye, and there are very few of life's petty irritations that really faze me (indeed, with two kids at home, very few I even notice anymore).

But that feeling of having shirt cuffs on my wrists drives me crazy. No matter what you do, they itch and rub and flap uselessly about, and get in the way, and inevitably wind up getting dirty or catching in something or other.

So I roll 'em up. Always have, always will, and damn the fella who gives me any guff about it.

So many reasons to rip on Howard Dean (back when he mattered, sorta). But not this one.