I watched the debate last night. I even TiVo'd it and a segment of commentary following it. But I did not watch Howard Dean and his wife being smarmed up to by Diane Sawyer. I resist the Sawyer nuzzle-fest. So I just read about it in the NYT.

"Look, I'm not a perfect person, I've got plenty of warts," Dr. Dean said between coughing spasms and sips from a mug of hot water at the Lebanon forum, where he received numerous ovations. "I say things that get me in trouble. I wear suits that are cheap. But I say what I think, and I believe what I say, and I'm willing to say things that are not popular, but that ordinary people know are right.

"In other words," he added, "I lead with my heart and not my head."

Is that a good explanation? I know he's sick. (He looked pretty ill or very tired at the debate.) But if the concern is that we think he's angry, why would we be reassured to hear that he's going to act from emotion, without thinking it through?

"He just doesn't get that angry," Mrs. Dean, 50, told Ms. Sawyer ... "I mean, he doesn't. You know, he just, he's very kind, very considerate, and, it just doesn't happen."....

And Mrs. Dean, who skipped an afternoon of house calls and paperwork to film the "Primetime" interview Thursday, may come to New Hampshire this weekend — despite Dr. Dean's repeated assurances that he would not use his politically uninterested wife as a prop on the trail.

"Do you feel like a prop, dear?"

I love that question! It's a brainteaser. Is yes more like no or is no more like yes?