Dean Pops Off

Heeeee's back.

After nine months of relative anonymity, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean gave an interview on "Hardball" last night in which he launched a few of the rhetorical rockets that he became infamous for during his unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign.

Asked whether executive privilege should govern President Bush's nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, Dean resorted to a phrase that will ring familiar to any eighth-grade boy.

"I think with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, you can't play, you know, hide the salami, or whatever it's called," Dean explained.

He didn't just leave it at that.

Dean went on to suggest that he did not find it "very credible" that Vice President Dick Cheney was totally unaware of the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to the media in 2003, adding:
"The M.O. of the Bush administration is to discredit your opponents and attack them personally rather than attack them for their position."

Don't take my word for it. Click here to watch Dean yourself or read the transcript.  And if the Republican National Committee has anything to do with it, you can expect to hear a lot more about these comments in the days to come.