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Dean's Iowa Scream: Not What It Seemed

Dean's Scream

At least one media writer has tried to create a context for the shouts that Dean uttered to his followers after the results of the caucases were in. Just as the media had created a false context for the fall of Saddam's statue, so too the media failed to provide a true context by not recording both a wide-view shot of the room and a true sense of the acoustic bedlam over which Dean had to make himself heard.

What you might not know, because it doesn't play 30 times a day on the cable news channels, is what was happening in the rest of the room. You don't see the visual and you don't hear the audio. The television crews recording the event plug into an audio source picking up Dean's microphone, not the sound of the room. The cameras focus in to a tight shot of the candidate, not the rest of the room.

What you are not hearing is a room with thousands of people screaming and cheering.

What you are not seeing are hundreds upon hundreds of American flags waving.

What you are not hearing are members of the audience shouting out state names urging Dean to list more.

What you are not seeing is the way Dean's supporters were lifted out of their slump by the speech.

In a nutshell, you are not seeing that Dean's speech fit the tone of the room.

Not that the speech was a good idea; clearly it has created problems for Dean, but not because he's a loose cannon or a little off kilter. Dean is actually a rather straight-laced, staid person. The Iowa speech has become a problem because Dean's aides either failed to recognize or failed to convince their candidate that when he speaks to a roomful of people, he is not speaking to a roomful of people: he is speaking to a television camera.

Having said that, author Eric Saltzman concludes the piece slamming the Dean campaign for their treatment of the media, messiness of events on the campaign trail and "what you get is a press corps ready to pounce on anything the governor offers." Moreover, I'm missing something in the statement: "Dean was throwing a bone to his supporters. He was lifting them up after a devastating and unexpected loss. This is not the campaign's spin – it is their flaw." What flaw? To be downcast at an unanticipated defeat? Hhhhhhhmmmm.