Again with the Fact-Checking

Hugh Hewitt:

The CNN commentators called him [i.e. Rush Limbaugh] "angry," --did that description ever attach to Howard Dean or any of the leading Democrats in opposition to President Bush?

Well, let's just stick with Howard Dean for the time being:

From Salon, 1/13/04:

When the Washington Post introduced readers to Howard Dean in a long Page 1 feature July 6, part of a series of "meet the Democrats" candidate profiles, the paper went for the jugular, literally, with a cartoonish, unflattering description to open the article: "Howard Dean was angry. Ropy veins popped out of his neck, blood rushed to his cheeks, and his eyes, normally blue-gray, flashed black, all dilated pupils."

A title from a New York Press Article, 1/13/04:

"The making of an angry candidate."

Business Week, 12/1/03:

Howard Dean is testy. Doesn't play well with others. Has a chip of Vermont granite on the shoulder of his buttoned-down shirt. Is too negative. Acts like an angry short guy. Doesn't have the temperament to be President.

That's the rap that Republicans and, more viciously, Stop-Dean Democrats want to pin on Dr. Populist.

Peggy Noonan, 1/8/04:

He is not a happy warrior but an angry one. In the past I have thought of him as an angry little teapot, but that is perhaps too merry an image. His eyes are cold marbles, in repose his face falls into lines of mere calculation, and he holds himself with a kind of no-neck pugnacity that is fine in a wrestling coach or a tax lawyer but not in a president. We like our presidents sunny, easygoing and optimistic. They have access to the nuclear launch code, and we don't want them losing their tempers easily. Mr. Dean's supporters no doubt see him as optimistic, but optimists aren't angry.

USA Today, 11/11/03:

Dean is continuing to feed the perception among some voters, campaign strategists and academics that he is angry, edgy and — a cardinal sin in politics — not cheerful. They question whether he can defeat Bush. Some go even further: They wonder what his performance says about his suitability for the presidency.

I can go on, but just Googling "Howard Dean angry" yields over 350,000 hits, so, yeah, I guess Howard Dean was called "angry" once or twice back in the day.