I'm sure the Diane Sawyer interview was a net positive for Dean, but it was nonetheless a truly horrible
moment in campaign journalism.
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Dean's natural response should have been, at some point, to have cut Sawyer off: "Excuse me, I'm tired of answering these superficial questions. Can't we talk about issues that matter to the American people?" Had he done so, however, it would have appeared to confirm the rap on him as a hothead. So the Deans were forced into the frame supplied by Sawyer — a father who gets excited at his son's hockey game can't be trusted; a woman doctor who doesn't watch much TV isn't really a normal American.
