What Dean is doing is disgusting, but brilliant.
Dean is applying that old propaganda trick: If you repeat something often enough, people will start to believe it.
Now add to that a media made up of Soviet-style stooges. Now add to that a clueless GOP that refuses to push back.
End result: GOP goes the way of the Whig party.
What you see here is the next phase of the Progressive agenda, in the form of an effort to delegitimize the opposition, so that no return to the status quo ante is possible.
It's all over the left-wing media and blogosphere: Progressive secular liberalism is being redefined as "moderate" or "the center", while small-government, faith- and personal responsibility-based conservatism (the former American center) is routinely assaulted as "extreme" and radical". Soon it will be "dangerous". Watch.