On MSNBC's "Hardball" Wednesday, Dean sounded like the presidential candidate of yore, as he lashed an alleged "culture of corruption" in the Republican Party, said GOP leaders are putting money "in their own pockets," and added that "I don't think it's very credible" that Vice President Cheney was not aware of the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. During his broadside, he bemoaned how Bush's "MO" is to "discredit your opponents and attack them personally."

In one eyebrow-raising moment, Dean invoked a crude phrase usually reserved for the locker room when urging Bush to make public Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' White House records. "I think with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, you can't play, you know, hide the salami, or whatever it's called," he said.