Dean is done. Of course, Dean was done after he got his butt kicked in both Iowa and New Hampshire -- he just didn't know it.

The Dean campaign's biggest problem all along wasn't anything they could do anything about -- you can't fire the candidate.

Today's New York Times reports that one of Howard Dean's biggest backers -- the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Union -- has concluded that Dean suffers from mental problems.

"I have to vent," Mr. (Gerald W.) McEntee, the often blunt leader of the nation's largest public service union, said in a leisurely interview in his office here. "I think he's nuts."

Now he tells us.

Dean has had one lasting effect on the Democrat Party for this election cycle -- he's pulled it far to the left.

Both John Kerry and John Edwards voted against the $87 billion in supplemental funding for the troops and the rebuilding of Iraq -- largely because Dean's attacks on them for supporting the war in the first place were propelling him into the lead.

Of course, their flip-flops to assuage their base will give President Bush even more ammunition when the general election fight comes.