Here's a brief exchange between Tim Russert and Howard Dean, from yesterday's Meet the Press:

[Mr. Russert:] Do you really hate Republicans? Do you consider them evil?

DR. DEAN: I don't--well, actually that was a little out of context. But I don't hate Republicans as individuals. But I hate what the Republicans are doing to this country. I really do. I hate deficits, as you know. When I was governor, I really was very tough on fiscal responsibility. Deficits in the long run aren't good for the country, and they do lower our standard of living. Every American family knows that you have to pay your bills. I hate the dishonesty, you know, the idea that you'd put a program through Congress without telling people what it costs, I think that's wrong. Some of the things that the president said on our way into Iraq, they just weren't true, and I don't think that's right. So...

MR. RUSSERT: Such as?

DR. DEAN: Such as the weapons of mass destruction, which we have all known about, but the...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, you said there were weapons of mass destruction.

DR. DEAN: I said I wasn't sure, but I said I thought there probably were. But the thing that really bothered me the most, which the 9-11 Commission said also wasn't true, is the insinuation that the president continues to make to this day that Osama bin Laden had something to do with supporting terrorists that attacked the United States. That is false. The 9-11 Commission, chaired by a Republican, said it was false. Is it wrong to send people to war without telling them the truth. And the truth was Osama bin Laden was a very bad person who was doing terrible things, but that Iraq was never a threat to the United States. That was the truth. It was underlined by the 9-11 Commission, headed, again, by a Republican, a well-respected group of people. I don't think you send American men and women to war, first of all without properly equipping them, and secondly without telling the truth to their parents about why it is we're asking them to make that sacrifice. So those are the kinds of things that I think are very bad about the Republicans.

Now, the second that Dean misspoke -- the very instant he opened his mouth to say "Saddam," and "Osama" fell out -- I thought about firing up the browser and offering a prize of some kind to the first O'Toole File reader who caught a conservative blogger ripping that exchange out of context in a puerile effort to score a few cheap points at the good doctor's expense. But then I thought: Nah, the right side of the blogosphere isn't that childish.

Oh, well. Another illusion shattered.

[Via Instapundit, who didn't exactly distinguish himself with his post on this subject, either.]