What’s a sensible state doing holding a circus like this?

Kate O’Beirne wonders how much the Iowa caucus matters. She concludes that, given its poor history of picking winners, it probably doesn’t matter very much. I concur. I also share Howard Dean’s disdain for the process (as expressed before he had to subject himself to it), and I’m happy that Clark and Lieberman skipped Iowa. Finally, I suspect that part of Dean’s slippage in Iowa is due to his “disrespectful” views about the process, inasmuch as the Iowans who participate in this farce seem to be more interested in affirming their own self-importance than in making sensible judgments about the candidates.