BY DAN
KENNEDY
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Friday, January 16, 2004
More stuff reporters could learn
if they would read Howard Dean's book. Today's Boston
Herald has a news
flash:
Howard Dean, in a
revealing new magazine interview, candidly recalled suffering an
anxiety attack and "hyperventilating" when he unexpectedly learned
he was to become governor of Vermont in 1991.
"To suddenly get told that you
have responsibility for 600,000 people - it provokes a little
anxiety," Dean told People magazine.
The sudden death of then-Gov.
Richard Snelling came as a bolt from the blue for Dean, who was
thrust into the governorship literally overnight after having
served as lieutenant governor under Snelling.
The right-wing website NewsMax.com
is extremely excited about this development. Here's the top of the
"story
behind the story" that it
posted yesterday:
Democratic presidential
front-runner Howard Dean offered more details this week on
psychological counseling he underwent for anxiety attacks suffered
in the 1980s - and revealed that he had a panic attack the day he
took over as governor of Vermont 13 years ago.
Reacting to news of Gov. Richard
Snelling's death in August 1991, Dean told People magazine,
"I hyperventilated and I started hyperventilating and I thought,
You better stop that or you won't be much good to
anybody."
And here's an excerpt from pages
55-56 of Dean's book, Winning Back America, which has been
available for a good month and a half:
The call was from Bruce
Yost, one of Governor Snelling's staffers. "I'm terribly sorry to
inform you the governor's passed away," Bruce said. My first
split-second reaction was that he was kidding, but I knew
immediately by his tone of voice he wasn't. I then started to
hyperventilate, which was something I'd never done in my entire
life. I told myself to breathe normally because I wouldn't be of
use to anyone if I kept that up.
Here
is the entire People interview with Dean and his wife, Judith
Steinberg.
There are some interesting new
details in here about the anxiety attacks he suffered in the 1980s,
when his brother, Charles, was being held captive in Laos, and was
later killed.
You should read it now, so you'll
have the context when the right-wingers begin attacking Dean for
being psychologically unstable or some damn thing. In fact, as you
will see from the NewsMax.com piece, it's already started.
posted at 11:10 AM |
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MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
