Timothy Noah argues that Howard Dean has nothing to apologize for. She's right. Well, there's plenty for him to apologize for - but getting worked up isn't it. Was yelling in the way he did a poor tactical move in that it was inevitable to be interpreted by some not as a rallying cry he learned from the Farmworkers but as a the cry of blood-thirsty banshee? Sure. But the odds that you'll turn on TV news and see Howard Dean yelling as supposed to the odds that the 30-second clip will be, say, George Bush flirting in the State of the Union with writing bigotry into the US Constitution are disgraceful. As Garance Franke-Rutka observes: I -- and others -- could scarcely hear what Dean was saying on the stage from the press section in the back of the room because several thousand Deaniacs were making so much noise (Dean wasn't the only one screaming) and the acoustics in the room weren't very good. From inside the room, it seemed that he was feeding off the energy of a crowd that was cheering him on, and that they got louder and louder in concert with each other. There's a great deal going on in this country about which we should be hollering bloody murder right now, and the more time spent fixating on whether getting worked up is "presidential," the farther we are from doing something about it. As Russ Baker writes: Basically, at a pep rally, he yelled like a football coach. This is described as being “unpresidential.” But says who? Besides, what’s the definition of ‘presidential?’ Isn’t giving insulting nicknames to world leaders unpresidential? Isn't sending hundreds of American soldiers to die for uncertain and misrepresented ends in Iraq unpresidential – or worth considering as such? Isn’t having an incredibly poor grasp of essential world facts and an aversion to detail and active decision-making unpresidential?