politics: Sometimes I wish a completely accidental electrical fire ...

... or something would wipe out the office wherein work the writers who vomit all over the Arizona Republic's opinion pages, and that they'd be unable for some time.

From today's unsigned editorial about Howard Dean:

Howard Dean, the man nobody in Washington wanted as national chairman, simply outhustled all his rivals in the weeks before the vote of the 447-member Democratic National Committee. He was not the choice of the party insiders. So Dean went straight to the delegates themselves for his support.

So I'm unclear. Is this supposed to be a bad thing?

But there's more:

Dean comes into the fray with plenty of baggage. Plenty of folks, especially Republicans, dismiss him as the angry voice of the latte left: virulently anti-war, pro-abortion, morally ambivalent, barely patriotic.

Inflammatory, half-true and, frankly, doublespeak worthy of Novak.

Excuse me, Mr. or Ms. Crap-For-Brains, but I'm sick of people repackaging RNC talking points as editorials. Buy a brain and try thinking for a change.

Latte left my ass. And I've come to the conclusion that the most unpatriotic thing you can do in a country that claims to take its strength from the free exercise of freedoms of conscience and expression, is question the patriotism of those who take advantage of those freedoms.

And way to borrow Fox News's tactics (e.g., 'Plenty of folks ... dismiss him blah blah blah').