Come on, everybody. Ease up on my boy Howard Dean.

I've heard the primal scream. I've even heard it set to music. But I fail to see why the media considers it to be such a monumental screw-up. Sure, it was a little raucous for a concession speech. Okay, more than a little, but did anybody really expect him to lay down and die after the disappointment of Iowa? This is Howard we're talking about. Good old grass-roots Howard. He was trying to re-energize his supporters, and how was he supposed to do that without getting excited himself? Yeah, it was kind of cheesy, but it was genuine. Besides, doesn't anyone remember when Mr. Keating explained about the cathartic value of Walt Whitman's "barbaric yawp"?

Over the past few days, I've heard pundits of every flavor talk about how damaging this single incident will be to Dean's candidacy. Come on, people. All he did was scream—it's not like he smeared himself with war paint and tried to scalp Bill Frist. I know it's unfamiliar, but what you're seeing here is a politician with passion—passion about his campaign, passion about his stance on the war, passion about social justice, etc. Compared with Dean, most of the other candidates just seem like robots (not even the nifty Rock 'em Sock 'em kind), spouting prefabricated sound bytes that are supposed to appeal to the broadest number of people while offending the fewest. For example, we've got Nice Southern Robot, Connecticut Weasel Robot, Vietnam Vet Robot, and Senior Officer Vietnam Vet Robot. (Kucinich and Sharpton are not robots, of course, but neither do they have a reasonable chance to win. Sorry, guys.) Don't get me wrong, I would be perfectly happy with Kerry, Clark, or Edwards as president. They seem truly concerned about the country, and I like what they have to say. But the thing is, these guys never get really animated about stuff the way Dean does. For an even more glaring contrast, think about Dean's enthusiasm during the Iowa speech, and then compare it with our current president, whose voice never rises above a bland, Orwellian drone.

Shudder.

Look, I heard the scream, and I wasn't the slightest bit alarmed by it. In fact, I thought it was great. Dean may not know karate, but he knows ka-razy! And that's a welcome change from the kind of mealy-mouthed, "Cheney-may-I" subservience we've been getting from the Democratic party in recent years. This edginess may be just the infusion of life we need to convince the country we mean business.

My advice to everyone besides Howard: Give the guy a break.

My advice to Howard: Don't let them bully you around. Don't tone down the rhetoric one iota. Some of us love you just the way you are.