Josh Marshall has noted the unsavory tendency of Howard Dean backers to tear into fellow Democrats who aren't Clean for Dean, or whatever. Kevin Drum, reviewing Dean's reaction to the Wesley Clark boomlet, picks up the same theme, and frets that Dean himself is showing signs of confusing himself with the greater good of the Democratic Party.

I've been saying this for a while now: Dean's campaign and personality have so much in common with John McCain's, that the real test of whether he's got what it takes to win the nomination will be his ability to avoid McCain's fatal mistake, which was turning his guns away from the opposing party and on to his own party's troops. Dean's followers have been escalating the friendly fire already, but things will unravel for Dean very badly if he responds to the Clark phenomenon by opening a second front against the Clintonites who control the party machinery and who have been none-too-subtly pushing Clark precisely as an alternative to Dean.