Having majored in communications, I generally just snort when someone suggests a vast liberal media conspiracy. As if we journalists have time to get together every day and say, "So, BobLindaMikeMitchFitchBobthesecondGeraldandGeraldine, whom shall we crucify today?" And we go through the video clips and sound bites and decide to make someone sound and look stupid. --Oh, wait, no. Sorry. No time. Doesn't happen, though I'll grant that people attracted to journalism tend to have similarities. That's for another post.

Having been born female, I watched The View this morning for about five minutes. Now I believe in the media conspiracy. Here's why.

The day after Dean's defeat in Iowa, all the networks broadcast what they outright called his "bizarre" behaviour. On The View, the five femmes continually broadcast his scream: once to show it to the audience, once going to commercial, and once when Ashton Kucher or whoever he is walked out, and probably showed the clip thereafter, though I had to shower and get to work and, alas, did not see what'shisname who's dating what'shername who's apparently old but still has a great body.

Anyway. What's the big deal about that scream? (And, by the way, I am neither Republican nor Democrat; I lean toward libtertarianism or environmentalism, but without the polarization or tree-hugging or moving to Vermont hysteria. I probably wouldn't vote for Dean at this point, if ever, though I like his wife--she's smart. She stays out of politics. And I definitely won't vote for Bush unless he promises to put a cap on malpractice jury awards and get us the hell out of Iraq and the hell into Afghanistan.)

Here's the (former) democratic front-runner who's been beat into the ground since Sadaam Hussein was caught and Dean said the world still isn't safer. (Dean had a point: we went to orange alert shortly thereafter, and it's not like the soldiers have stopped dying in Iraq.) But the American Sheep--er, the American Masses, I mean--suddenly found new comfort in Bush thanks to Hussein's capture, don't ask me why. So Dean fell in the polls. Then the media jumped on Dean's fall and ... a few weeks later, Dean loses in a surprise to Kerry and Edwards. What Dean does, then, is let his supporters--who aren't the blue- and grey-hairs reporting the news; who are the younger, web-savvy generation--know that he still has energy, he's still in this election, he's still a fighter, and he's not giving in. He says he's going on to (not a quote) Texas, New York, California, etc. and then to Washington D.C.....! By this point there's a huge amount of hype. His supporters are saying, yeah, we're not giving up! Hooray that we're not taking this as a setback and we're going to keep going. Dean was performing, if you will, for them. And then he let out that yell.

Not so much for the media, though. The blue- and grey-haired media said, "Hmm. Not only is there a stunning upset, but Dean could be made to look like an ass if we take this out of context. It's a sign of the way his whole campaign is going these days...." and they show a brief clip over and over. John Roberts, I believe, on NBC, called it "bizarre," but THAT's not media bias.... Anyway. The scream was on all the networks, ergo all the talk shows and morning shows like the esteemed View. Even Barbara deigned to come to the show for that one.

This is what I saw from that clip: a guy who isn't giving up. Someone who's excited, good or bad, about his platform. I hear Dean's going on 20/20 or some such TV show to talk about it. What's there to talk about? We've finally got someone running for president who doesn't look like he walked out of Madame Toussad's Wax Museum. And maybe that's a good thing. I still probably won't vote for him, but at least he's alive. Isn't Bush the one with the extraordinarily low resting heart rate? Hmm. Hmmm.