Howard Dean Plays Race Card, Media Folds

Little coverage of Dean's newest "whitey" comment

by: warner todd huston | published: 08 16, 2008

Barack Obama has been fond of playing the race card in this campaign telling his enraptured audiences that Republicans will attack him because he's black, even though no GOP candidate or campaign has done so to date. But, Obama is a newcomer to the racemongering game when compared to Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. True to form, in a recent interview Dean has once again called the GOP a "white party" attempting to make this campaign about race issues instead of candidates and platforms.

This is the sort of cynical, hate-filled garbage that Democrats have universally parlayed as campaign rhetoric since the 1960s. As recently as the August election in Tennessee's 9th District, for instance, a black challenger to a white, Jewish incumbent featured both racial and religious epithets thrown at the Congressman by the black, Democrat challenger. That obscene campaign barely rated a mention in the Old Media. The response by the Old Media to the ease with which Democrats resort to race baiting, though, also shows the impunity that Democrats enjoy on the issue. That Dean knows he can say such a thing and not feel he'd be taken to task for it proves not only that the Democrats are dividers and not uniters, but that the Old Media can be relied on to give them a complete pass on their divisiveness.

As an aside, it is such hypocrisy of Howard Dean to use race and his claim of "inclusivity" as a bat with which to hit at the GOP. Before becoming a candidate for president in 2004 and then the DNC Chairman, Howard Dean was the Governor of Vermont, a state with a .7% black population -- a whopping 3,500 black citizens. So, yeah, he ought to know all about working with minorities, why he's been up to his nose in them for decades.

Also, it should be noted that this isn't the only time Dean sought to divisively use race in his rhetoric by calling the GOP a "white" party. In 2005, Dean made a similar comment about the GOP when in San Francisco saying, "They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party."

Back in 2004, Dean also said that the only way to solve racism is to "educate" whites. "Dealing with race is about educating white folks," Dean was reported as having said as he attempted to "call out the white population" during the 2004 Primaries. Also in 2004, Dean told a crowd that he intended to tell the "white boys who run the Republican Party" to stay out of people's bedrooms.

Now, let's take a closer look at the Democratic Party itself. Let's see how diverse it might be?

On a page of the Democratic Party website there is a page called "Democratic Leaders" and there one can see many faces. There's Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), DNC Chairman Howard "Whitey" Dean himself, along with several other officers of the Party. These are the Party movers and shakers. Of the 16 people mentioned 15 are white and one, Vice Chair Lottie Shackelford, is black.

I, for one, am bowled over by the "diversity."

By comparison, need we remind everyone about the racial diversity of George W. Bush's cabinet? Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Elaine Chao, and several other representatives of America's minorities have made their mark there. Heck, even as far back as 1928 the Republicans put a man of American Indian lineage into the vice presidency. Charles Curtis, who's mother was a Kaw Indian and who grew up with his maternal grandparents, was the VP under Herbert Hoover.

Now, this incident happened in the afternoon of Friday, August 15 and thus far there has been little coverage of Dean's newest "whitey" comment. The Old Media seems to have taken a pass on Dean's latest effort at race baiting.

Of course, if it were a Republican that had brought up race in any way whatsoever, it would be leading every telecast and be emblazoned on the front page of every paper in the country.

In response to Dean, McCain campaign co-chairwoman Carly Fiorina said: “It is disappointing to see Howard Dean trying to use gender and race to divide voters. His comments are insulting, inappropriate and have no place in this election.”

No doubt. But the Old Media will fold their hand at this race card being played and will excuse themselves from the table, to be sure.

(Photo Image: FortHardKnox.com)

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