Confederacy of Dunces...WSJ blasts Kerry, Gephardt's 'gotcha politics'

[farmbo]

Sorry...link requires registration

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/subscribers.html

Confederacy of Dunces
Credit Howard Dean for running a shrewd campaign, but one reason he's leading the Democratic Presidential sweepstakes is because his opponents don't seem to understand his appeal. Look no further than this weekend's flap over Dr. Dean's alleged embrace of the Confederate flag.

The former Vermont Governor was quoted in Saturday's Des Moines Register as saying that "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks" and appeal to "a broad cross-section of Democrats." His rivals immediately jumped on the remark as a sign that Dr. Dean was somehow soft on civil rights. "It is simply unconscionable for Howard Dean to embrace the most racially divisive symbol in America," said John Kerry.

Democrats usually smear Republicans with this kind of race-baiting politics, but it isn't any more justified when Democrats use it against on of their own. Dr. Dean is hardly sympathetic to the Confederacy, or Jim Crow, or apartheid or any other kind of racial discrimination. he was merely saying he'd like to win the support of Southerners who over the years have fled the Democratic Party represented by the Kerrys and the Dick Gephardts.

One reason those and so may other voters have left is precisely because of the kind of litmus-test, interest-group gotcha! politics that this racial pandering represents. Yet Dr. Dean's opponents continue to attack him for violating liberal taboos on guns, Medicare, trade and now civil rights. No wonder Democratic voters find him refreshing.
<snip>

Political correctness, which we abhor when practiced in the Republican media spin-cycle, is alive and well among the Olde Democrats in our own primary. To avoid universal scorn, candidates must sanitize their speeches, eliminating any reference to prohibited terminology, and replace it with focus-grouped, poll-tested pablum.

[billbuckhead]

1. WOOO! The Wall Street Journal!

Who's next? NewsMax?

[Khephra]

5. Gee, don't let the fact that the other DLC Democrats actually

Vote with Bush get in your way. I wouldn't want life to become too difficult for you.

I think I'd rather have the WSJ telling the truth about what the DLCers are doing than actually supporting DLC candidates who'll go along with Bush on just about anything.

[eileen_d]

2. Dean's "opponents don't seem to understand his appeal"

Hell, I don't understand it either.

Dean's remark about the Confederate flag was unappealing to me, frankly. This doesn't make me want to destroy him, but I'll just keep supporting Kerry, thanks.

[fabius]

3. The only time in this century...

...that I will agree with anything in the WSJ.

[belle]

8. They actually do come out with some interesting stuff, once in a while

A blue moon, even. But when they're on, they're on. They're old-school, after all, or a lot of them are; and I'm sure at least some of their staff is as appalled by the neocons as we are, even if for (mostly) different reasons. Also, they're at least literate, which is more than you can say for most of Rupert Murdoch's Evil Empire, for example.

Not that I'll be subscribing anytime soon. But fair is fair.

[billbuckhead]

10. What should that tell you?

Aren't any alarm bells going off when the Wall street Journal and Rove's buddy Novak are so pro Dean?

[PartyPooper]

4. Howard Dean is correct on this issue.

I don't 'endorse' Confederate flags...and, neither does Dean! He is simply encouraging the 'inclusion' of those voters for his campaign. (Many of these flag-toting individuals are not traditional bigots...rather, they are historical 'preservationists'.) Personally, I have ancestors who fought with the South in the Civil War. But, they were not bigots. They died for states rights. They did not own slaves. They were uneducated. They were poor.

Get the picture?

:-)

[Aidoneus]

6. I'm marking my calendar, because this may never happen again

this troubles me, as I cannot recall saying this before, but here goes:--I agree with a Wall St. Journal editorial.

[Khephra]

7. Let's see...anyone want to bash Dean because he's written

an editorial for the WSJ? Come on now! I'm disappointed no one has jumped on that one in this thread yet.

BTW, I can't look up the author of this piece because of the WSJ's poicies, but WSJ haters like myself who are also Dean supporters should take faith in this:

IN TODAY'S EDITON THEY PUBLISH A PIECE ABOUT HOW MUCH ZELL MILLER HATES THE DEMOCRATS, ESPECIALLY DEAN.

But you Dean haters didn't know that one either?

A Democrat Who Dissents
Zell Miller on his party: "Have we lost our minds?"

BY JONATHAN KARL
Tuesday, November 4, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST

When Bill Clinton captured the Democratic nomination in 1992, he tapped his friend Zell Miller to give a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. And why not? Mr. Miller was a popular governor of an important state (Georgia) and a Democratic loyalist who encouraged Mr. Clinton to hire a "brilliant team" of consultants named James Carville and Paul Begala. In the speech, Mr. Miller proclaimed: "Bill Clinton is the only candidate for president who feels our pain, shares our hopes and will work his heart out to fulfill our dreams." The speech brought down the house, solidifying Mr. Miller's status as a major Democratic star.

You can be sure that he won't be invited to speak at next year's Democratic convention. Since coming to the Senate in 2000, Mr. Miller has proved to be one of the most reliable votes in favor of the Bush agenda--more reliable than many in the president's own party. He was the first Democratic sponsor of both Bush tax cuts; he has stood with the president on all his controversial judicial nominees; and he has unflinchingly supported the Iraq war.


In a "National Party No More," Mr. Miller sets out to take his party to the woodshed with colorful and caustic attacks on fellow Democrats for steering the party too far to the left and in the process abandoning conservative Democrats in the South. His harshest criticism is of the current field of Democratic presidential candidates, whom he compares to "streetwalkers in skimpy halters and hot pants plying their age-old trade for the fat wallets on 'K' Street." He doesn't like any of them but detests Howard Dean the most. "Clever and glib, but deep this Vermont pond is not," Mr. Miller writes.

more......

http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110004254

[patrice]

9. One of the reasons I am working for Dean . . .

is that he is smart enough to see that "the guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks" aren't going to just up and die or go away as a convenience to the rest of us. They aren't going to just suddenly change into something more acceptable either.

It is so stupid to characterize those one disagrees with as someone who loves bad things, the way Republicans have for so long "Oh so you want society to provide a minimum of economic security to its members, well then you are a person who wants to take everything away from anyone who has anything and give it to everyone who doesn't deserve it." "Oh so you're against capital punishment, well then you support child molestation and murder."

You can't deal critically with a "straw man" while you build your own.

I understand Howard Dean's statement completely, and I think he can stand against racism and for the guys in the pick-ups at the same time. I'm going to send him some more money as soon as I can just for saying he wants to be their president too.

[billbuckhead]

11. What if the white guys in pickup truck aren't racist and resent

some smartass from Vermont telling them they're supposed to have a Confederate flag on their truck. Less than 5% of pickup trucks in Georgia have Confederate flags on them. Far, far more have American flags on them.

[tlb]

12. And nobody thinks it's odd the WSJ is building up Dean

at the expense of Gephardt et al ? Rove previously said Dean is the opponent they hope for. For the conspiratorialy minded these fit together vey nicely.

The editorial is of course correct, but when everything else the WSJ says is automatically considered suspect, why give this one a pass other then because it's what you want to hear. Note how many are saying the Journal is never right , except this time.

This illustrates one of my bigger complaints about DU, the cherrypicking of items from sources that are ALWAYS considered liars ( Drudge, WSJ, Gallup, etc ) except when the story fits the agenda.

Seems to me the news items themselves should be the focus pro and con. Not so much the news source.

[w4rma]

13. Notice that the WSJ seems to have quoted Dean out of context. (n/t)

[realFedUp]

14. loving the sinner but not the sin.....

Seems that Dr. Dean has just followed the Conservative
Christian's line...loving the voter and not his flag.