The most entertaining feature of the 2004 campaign season so far has been the slow implosion of the Howard Dean campaign.

* The most entertaining feature of the 2004 campaign season so far has been the slow implosion of the Howard Dean campaign. Implosion, or explosion? It is hard to tell. The whole phenomenon resembles one of those dire episodes of stellar collapse, where the outer layers of a star fall in on the inner ones, blasting superheated matter out into space as they do so, the whole thing ending as a wildly spinning but barely visible neutron star. Combine all this drama with Dean's maladroit attempts to endear himself to groups of citizens (Southerners, Christians, etc.) about whom he is obviously clueless, and the spectacle is riveting. At a town hall-style meeting on the Iowa trail, the candidate was confronted by a mild-mannered 66year-old voter who urged him to heed the Biblical injunction to love thy neighbor and stop speaking so rudely about the president. "George Bush is not my neighbor," snapped Dean. When the voter tried to clarify his point, he was incinerated by a blast of incandescent gas: "You sit down! You've had your say, and now I'm going to have my say." Asked about the exchange later, Dean expostulated that: "It is time not to put up [with] any of this 'love thy neighbor.'" Possibly the Vermont governor just did not recognize the reference, not being familiar with that part of the New Testament. Still, he ought to be able to empathize with the president to some degree. Does not Job complain: "I am as one mocked of his neighbor"?