Moments of clarity

Rewind to the last election.........................the fatal sound bite. Howard Dean screeching and gesticulating to the crowd. I had a moment of clarity. At that moment, I knew that he was a political nonentity. I understood the implications of that out-of-context snippet of video. I mourned the loss. I liked Howard Dean. Would have voted for him without the reservation I harbored for John Kerry.
Fast forward to today. I was watching Charlie Rose interviewing Mike Nichols, the director. Very interesting guy, even when he was talking about stuff that really didn't interest me. Then suddenly, he provided me with another moment of clarity. He was discussing Howard Dean's fall, and in a couple of devastatingly simple sentences, he made me understand why that snippet of video was so damning. What he said was, "the audience wasn't miked". Dean was trying to project over, and was reacting to a raucous crowd. But because the audience's reaction to him wasn't provided(or was deleted), an (all) important piece of contextual information was omitted, and allowed those who wished him ill to effectively neutralize his message and appeal to the voters. Nichols said, "this is a serious thing." Perhaps one of the greatest understatements I've heard in some time. A real life "Wag the Dog", perpetrated on the American public in ths space of about five seconds. In my estimation, perhaps the most pivotal five seconds of the entire campaign.
This scares me,
Hank