How is Obama's "bitter" comment any different or more insulting than Dean's "confederate flag decal"

[EffieBlack]

I distinctly remember Howard Dean saying, on numerous occasions, that he wanted to be the candidate of "those people with confederate flag decals on their pickup trucks" because, according to him, "there are a lot of poor people who fly that flag because the Republicans have been dividing us by race since 1968, with their Southern race strategy . . . {they} keep voting Republican, against their own economic interests."

And I distinctly remember there was no hue and outcry over him "looking down" on white Southerners. John Edwards criticized him for the comment - saying that "the vast majority of people who live in the South . . . don't drive around with Confederate flags on pickup trucks . . . the last thing we need in the South is somebody like you coming down and telling us what we need to do." But he didn't make this part of his stump speech, run around the country attacking Dean personally or go right wing Republican smear machine on him by calling him elitist and out-of-touch.

And the media barely touched it.

In fact, the strongest criticisms came, not from people claiming Dean had SO insulted Southerners, but by black Democrats who questioned the wisdom of trying to bring the confederate flag crowd into the Democratic fold - which they believed could only be done if they kicked black voters to the curb. And, I clearly recall having that point of view dramatically and vigorously trashed right here on DU - by some of the same people who are now wringing their hands and whining about how mean old Obama INSULTED those poor small-towners by even SUGGESTING that they're voting on issues other than their own economic self-interest.

I call bullshit on this fake outrage. Obama is being attacked the way he is for two reasons. 1) Political desperation; and 2) An assumption that, by appealing to voters worst instincts, reason #1 may be alleviated.

"You? Felt sorry for a WHITE woman?" Prosecutor Horace Gilmer to defendant Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird

[NashVegas]

1. Dean Wasn't Dismissing Those Rednecks

BO was explaining away the reasons he thought they were not voting for him.

Dean was explaining why he wanted their vote and didn't use any sort of judgmental language.

And you must have had your head buried in the sand not to hear the outcry from both the left and the right.

[EffieBlack]

2. Dean was doing EXACTLY what Obama was doing - he was explaining why they weren't voting Democratic

and saying how he was going to get them to switch.

Simple as that. YOU have decided it's "judgmental language" because it was used by Obama. When other people say the same thing, you and the other fake defenders of "small town America" are strangely silent.

I hear the outcry. I think it's manufactured bullshit.

[NashVegas]

3. Generally Speaking

Referring to someone as "bitter" is more or less calling them a lost cause.

[leftofcool]

4. Nope

I lived for 35 years in one of those small towns. My outrage is not fake I assure you. But you keep trying

[EFerrari]

5. I do seem to remember that the DLC made hay out of that

just as they are doing now.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

21. Aka "Pounding the table."

When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. And when you don't have either the law or the facts on your side, pound on the table.

[bigtree]

6. I protested up and down about the Dean thing, right here at DU.

You are the one with the fake outrage, trying to stir up charges of racism by applying your OWN demagoguery to words which have nothing at all to do with race.

[ruggerson]

7. So put your analysis (which I'm not saying is off base)

in the context of Obama appealing to the worsts instincts in some (SOME) of the AA churchgoing population by holding a gospel concert with headliners who regularly demean gays and lesbians.

A lot of the folks that yelp about racism at every turn (and again, much of the time they're right) were the same folks who viciously criticized gays and their allies for objecting to Obama's tactics.

[cali]

8. You don't remember accurately.

First of all, Dean didn't say it repeatedly. He said it once or twice, and he got tons of shit for it. I often enjoy your posts but you're flat wrong on this and your contention that calling Obama an elitest is something new.

[EffieBlack]

12. Cali - I remember correctly

He DID say it several times (I looked it up to confirm it before I posted). And while, as I said, he was criticized for it, he was not attacked by the other candidates in anything close to the way that Hillary is going after Obama. Compare John Edwards' "Southerners don't need to be told what to do" to Hillary's "America doesn't need a president who . . ." Very different responses.

And the media did not make this a multi-day front page story or question whether the comment would "undo" Dean's candidacy or make him unelectable.

We may see this one differently, but my facts are dead on.

And I really enjoy your posts, too, even this one. :-)

[Tom Rinaldo]

9. He didn't seemingly challenge the core legitimacy of the red neck life style

Rather Dean argued that there was room to find agreement on core issues even where lifestyles seemed to differ. Although some listeners chose to take Dean's words as either 1) sucking up to racists or 2) playing on old unflattering stereotypes of Southerners, what Dean didn't do was follow that up with words that directly implied a red neck life style was a defensive reaction to life's frustrations involving a need to "cling" to crutches like God and Guns in order to manage their own bitterness. That is the spin that is most damaging to Obama right now.

[virtualobserver]

11. this proves that it doesn't matter how you approach it

any attempt to address this reality will be whipped up into a scandal for one reason or another by one branch or another of the "dividers, not uniters" crowd.

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. The real dividers not uniters crowd for twenty years

has been the National Republican Party. We can't stop them from trying but we can do our best to avoid handing them a sword to use for that dividing. It's politics, like in Chess you have to think both offense and defense in making every move.

[virtualobserver]

15. but it does not comfort me to know that Hillary has joined that crowd

and it is a double edged sword because speaking the truth is always dangerous when it is "unacceptable" truth. This is an opportunity for Obama. The advantage that Obama has is that he was being honest when the "gaffe" occurred and he will be honest when he explains it.

Ultimately, this election will be about trust.

[virtualobserver]

10. It is so sad to see Hillary run a campaign run on the lowest Republican style tactics......

Hillary does not underststand the damage that she has done to herself or the backlash that will occur. I'm beyond anger in terms of her behavior. It is more like I am mourning the loss of a loved one, and finding out after the fact that they were really not the person that I thought they were.

[seaglass]

13. You have a bad memory. n/t

[dsc]

16. I was a Dean supporter here back then

and you are, to be charitable, totally, utterly wrong. If you were here and read posts you either have a severe memory problem or are out and out lying.

[QC]

17. I was here for the last primary, and I remember Dean being eviscerated for that comment.

Interestingly, it was the more-liberal-than-thou faction that attacked him--yes, racebaited him--for it. "I will not be a part of any party that embraces the KKK!" they tearfully announced in one vanity thread after another, while others slapped them on the back and told them how brave they were to speak truth to power like that and affirmed that they, too, would leave the party before hugging a Kluxer.

Talk about dramatic phony outrage--Dean's remarks inspired plenty of it then.

[dsc]

18. BTW here is how bad it actually got

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=636191

I am aware that my title breaks the GD rules. I am making the title very prominent because it is the only GD thread about this topic.

Apparently things got pretty ugly around here last night. I have temporarily decided to lock all of the Dean/Confederate flag threads that get started in the General Discussion forum, in an effort to get people to chill out. If you wish to discuss the issue in the General Discussion Forum, you must do so in this thread. I expect anyone who wishes to discuss this to do so in an adult manner. This restriction is for the General Discussion Forum only.

Late today, if and only if the behavior improves, I will remove this temporary restriction.

This is a continuation of Thread #1 and #2 on this issue, which now each have more than 170 posts and have been locked.

Skinner
DU Admin


end of quote

It got so bad Skinner had to lock all threads about the subject for a day. Again, to be charitable your memory isn't all that vivid.

[QC]

19. I remember that thread.

What's especially interesting is that it's pretty much the same crowd who was so FUCKING OUTRAGED!!!!! over Dean's remarks that is now telling us that L'Affaire Bitter doesn't matter.

[NashVegas]

23. Some Not All

There are some prominent DU Obama supporters who wanted to thrash him, and there are also a few Obama supporters who were just fine with it.

[EFerrari]

20. Is there some reason you didn't chose to see that Effie wasn't here yet?

[QC]

22. Apparently she was here then--read the OP again.

And, I clearly recall having that point of view dramatically and vigorously trashed right here on DU - by some of the same people who are now wringing their hands and whining about how mean old Obama INSULTED those poor small-towners by even SUGGESTING that they're voting on issues other than their own economic self-interest.

[lastliberalintexas]

24. You couldn't have been here in 2004

"And I distinctly remember there was no hue and outcry over him "looking down" on white Southerners."

If you were, you would remember (among many, many others) a certain femme francais and posts about this very issue. Funny, I wonder whose camp she's in this time... :)

[rucky]

25. Yep. It's the first thing I thought of since this came out.

and it pissed off alot of DU-ers back then, IIRC. Not because it was "elitist" though, but because they didn't want the redneck vote.

[EffieBlack]

29. Exactly. The issue for many then was not that Dean was supposedly being "elitist"

but that his desire to attract the bigot vote was insensitive, at the least, to minorities who were already loyal Democrats - and were the reason that many bigots vote Republican even when it goes against their economic interests.

[GoesTo11]

26. No difference. Why do progressive democrats hate America?

[PurityOfEssence]

27. Cling to religion

With this, he seems cynical and dismissive of religion, and that'll be hard to overcome.

The "free trade" comment calls into question his stance on trade, and makes him seem like an opportunist: appeasing the left while tacitly supporting the removal of trade barriers.

Dismissing a broad group of the disenfranchised doesn't play well with the American posturing of fairplay; it's a stereotyping little bit of bigotry.

He's auditioning for a job, and it's a job that requires diplomacy, tact and the awareness of taboos. For someone who's so damned adept at avoiding any controversial stands, literally claiming that he's on every side of every issue depending on which audience he's addressing and an unabashed enlisting of religion to sway the voters, it was a truly stupid display.

This is a disaster, and if you don't see it, you're either deluded or whistling in the woods. You've been very fairminded and astute in the past; I find it hard to believe that you don't see this as a real botching of the moment. Whether it's accurate or not is beside the point; some things you just don't say in the public forum, and recklessness like this is hard to erase.

[anonymous171]

28. What an elitist!