If you haven't seen it yet, check out Elisabeth Bumiller's ode to Ed Gillespie in today's NY Times.   This says it all in terms of why Dean is the right guy for now for leading the DNC.  The context is that the White House has chosen Gillespie to lead the public process for the SCOTUS nomination both for his fierce partisan loyalty and his links to the democrats.  We are helpfully told that Terry McAuliffe and Gillespie were good buddies once the cameras wehnt off and that McAuliffe spent more time with Gillespie than his wife during the last campaign.  The article closes with a relatively glowing quote from Donna Brazile about Big Ed, who is noted, to my surprise, as a business partner of Gillespie's!!!

View this as a companion piece to the lengthy NYT screed about Abramoff's restaurant Signatures (mostly a den of Republican iniquity but occasionally beloved by dems like Moynihan and Breaux) and you immediately understand how Matalin and Carville are soulmates, how so many entrenched Dems in Washington cave to the repubs, why Dean irritates the DC Dems, and why it is oh so clear he is a great choice to lead the party to something new.