Consistently consistent?

All those folks that keep telling me that Howard Dean is a straight shooting guy who says what he means and means what he says have never really been able to explain how he can seen to hold so many simultaneous views, since he says so many different things about the same subject.

But some argue that what he says doesn't really matter. It's the way he says it. He fires up the troops, excites the base, empowers the people, right?

Well, he does when he's Mad Howard, anyway. For months we got the red in the face, finger pointing, podium pounding basher of all things Washington, DC, and everything seemed to be going great. It was a terrific story, and the media jumped all over it.

According to the Center for Media and Public affairs, Dean's coverage on the three network evening newscasts alone more than doubled that of his nearest competitor, with 64 reports about the Dean campaign against with 31 for Kerry. Gephardt had 19; Edwards, 17; Clark, 16; Lieberman, 12.

As much as the sheer amount of coverage, the kind of coverage favored Dean, with most of it revolving around the 'gee whiz!' reports about the internet, the fundraising, the dedication of the Deaniacs, and very little about his record of governance or proposals for the future. In contrast, much of the Kerry coverage focused on "What happened to Kerry?" stories, for instance.

Yep, Mad Howard worked.

For awhile.

Then, discovering that the voters in Iowa didn't seem to be as mad as he was, HoHo unveiled Nice Howard. But Nice Howard wasn't, it turned out, Effective Howard. Kerry and Edwards surged, Dean plateaued and a few days ago, back came Mad Howard.

Until a couple days ago. Tom Harkin, it turns out, really liked Nice Howard. Down came the attack TV, out came the crew neck sweaters, and Nice Howard reappeared. (I assume the necktie, at least, will come back tomorrow morning when Nice Howard goes to Sunday school with Extremely Nice Former President Jimmy Carter.)

Mad Howard fans needn't fret though. As HoHo himself says, "We're going to just go with a positive message to get to the polls. And I think that's what people want at the end and that's what we're going to do." So Mad Howard could be back by Tuesday morning.

Now some people might think that four or five personality changes in just a couple of weeks might be something less than straight shooting. Some people might suggest that Howard Dean is being inconsistent, maybe opportunistic, even hypocritical.

Me, I'm starting to think otherwise. I'm thinking we've got now what we've had all along - Bi-Polar Howard.