A Democratic Donnybrook

A "donnybrook." I like that.

The cause of this little flare-up? Howard Dean's comments that he would like to "be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks..."

OK, so he's pandering to the last group that is still officially allowed to be oppressed: poor Southern white males. Being a member of that group (sans the flag or the pickup) I really have no problem with his pandering. I think it's transparent, but hey - he's a politician trying to get elected. I don't really expect any different.

Dick Gephardt and John Kerry could not resist an opportunity to destroy their credibility with a fairly large potential voting block.

Gephardt:

...accused Dean of making a blatant move to win the votes of people "who disagree with us on bedrock Democratic values like civil rights."

"I don't want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks," Gephardt said in a statement. "I will win the Democratic nomination because I will be the candidate for guys with American flags in their pickup trucks."

It's a good thing that Dick doesn't want to represent the poor Southern white male.

From Merriam Webster OnLine: Racist: 2 : racial prejudice or discrimination (emphasis mine)

Dicky boy is assuming that all owners of pickups with Confederate flags are against civil rights. Given that this group will be comprised almost exclusively of white Southerners, it would seem that Dick is exactly what he is accusing the pickup truck crowd of being: racist. The only difference is that unlike Dean, he is pandering to a politically correct crowd: blacks.

Most every person that I've met who owns a pickup with a Confederate flag in the back window has no problem with civil rights or equality of opportunity. What they don't like (and neither do I) is the argument that civil rights justifies an imposition of equality of outcome or reverse racism in the name of "correcting past wrongs." Both are nothing more than rhetorically elevated hypocrisy, the kind that only a person without conviction - like Gephardt - could love.

Of course, as I said before, Gephardt wasn't the only one to make an ass out of himself with Dean's comments. John Kerry jumped in on the public self-immolation:

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts contended that Dean's "pandering" to the National Rifle Association gave him an inroad to "pander to lovers of the Confederate flag."

Dean's comment was reported in story about Kerry's criticism of Dean's record on guns. The senator claimed that Dean was an NRA favorite who opposed a 1994 law that banned assault weapons to civilians.

"I would rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA," Kerry said in a statement.

As did Gephardt, Kerry uses racism as his springboard for jumping on the anti-racism bandwagon. He makes the same assumption about the flag/pickup crowd as does Gephardt. I'd put dollars to doughnuts that neither man has ever bothered to come out of their ivory towers long enough to actually meet real people. For being members of the "party of inclusion" they seem to be awfully exclusionary of those who might have grease under their nails or those whom taking the time to meet might involve getting dust on their neatly pressed pants.

Kerry and Gephardt are nothing more than racists with a different focus. Instead of Jim Crow, they support a racism of quotas, "affirmative action," and of cultural relativism - except when that culture happens to involve white men, particularly from the South. Our culture is evil and deserves to be stamped out, while the Wahabbi Islam of Bin Laden is to be embraced and understood.

Dean had a wonderful opportunity here to actually gain some ground with reaching out the most politically ignored (and one of the potentially more potent) voting blocs. But Dean, being a Democrat, found a way to blow it:

"I want people with Confederate flags on their trucks to put down those flags and vote Democratic — because the need for quality health care, jobs and a good education knows no racial boundaries.

"We have working white families in the south voting for tax cuts for the richest 1 percent while their children remain with no health care," Dean said. "The dividing of working people by race has been a cornerstone of Republican politics for the last three decades - starting with Richard Nixon. ...

The last thing the good ol' boys want to be told is that they need to give up their heritage, their flag, in the name of anything. No one asks any other group to set aside their flag in the name of "quality health care, jobs and a good education..." Why the special singling out?

I really love Dean's appeal to the conspiracy theorist in most people: "The dividing of working people by race has been a cornerstone of Republican politics for the last three decades - starting with Richard Nixon..." I love how he conveniently ignores that it has actually been a bi-partisan effort, with the NAACP (which has an incestuous relationship with the Democratic Party, at best), leading the charge for quotas and set asides - a divisive position if there ever was one. It also ignores the basic fact that race relations are quite a bit better than they were before Nixon and the Republicans initiated this divisive policy.

I seem to be getting mixed messages from all three of these guys. Well, actually, from Gephardt and Kerry, it's pretty clear: they want nothing to do with Southern white males who are too poor to make significant campaign contributions. Dean is sending a mixed message: he wants to represent us, as long as we'll give up our culture as a sop to the other interest groups he'll piss off in courting us.

Two racists and a waffle. What a group the Democrats are putting together for us this time.

As Bugs Bunny would say: "What a bunch of maroons."