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Who Is Playing The Race Card Now?

By NancyA on August 18, 2008 at 6:57 AM in Barack Obama, Bush/Cheney, Colin Powell, Current Affairs, Democratic Party, Harry Reid, Howard Dean, Media, Media Bias, Media Handling of Story, Nancy Pelosi, Obama Attack Ads, Race, Race Card, Racism, Sexism, Talking Points Memo, Typical white person, White People, Women

webelephant-cartoon_edited.jpgWho is playing the race card now? None other than Howard Dean. He plays the race card in an National Public Radio (NPR) interview on Friday. And then quickly reversed himself with an “ahem, I didn’t mean to say that”! He had essentially called the Republican Party “a white elephant” .

Dean had this to say, “Our party has been a no-majority party for a long time. The fact is that the Democratic Party is made up of lots of different people” and “If you look at folks of color, even women, they’re more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white — excuse me — in the Republican Party.”

And here are Dean’s words recorded for posterity’s sake:

Newsbusters takes it a step further, it is revealed that this is not the first time Dean has used the race card. Here are his words again, not too far in the past either. (And we wonder why Obama uses the “race card and often, his learned this at the knee of his mentor, Dean!)

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.

Warner Todd Huston did a comparison of the Democratic Party leadership and Bush’s White House gang. This is what he found.

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.

The Republicans hit back though, appropriately it seems. First a statement by John McCain’s adviser, Carly Fiorina, condemning the comment.

“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,” she said.

And Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan added:

“Howard Dean’s comments on race and gender today are disappointing and wrong. His efforts to divide Americans are an insult to all our nations citizens and have absolutely no place in the national dialogue.”

Huston said this as well:

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.

Fortunately for the citizens of this country Huston’s assertions are incorrect. The Dean “race card” was covered more than adequately. Read more on this here, here and here.