"Let me tell you, the last thing we need in the South is somebody like you
coming down and telling us what we need to do."
Who said this?
Was it a Civil War-era white Southerner speaking to Lincoln?
Was it a Civil-Rights-era white Southerner speaking to LBJ?
Was it Zell Miller speaking to Tom Daschle?
Most curiously, no.
It was Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards speaking to Howard Dean.
Why?
Because Howard Dean wishes to include all Americans under the "big tent"...proclaiming that those
with Confederate flags were welcome.
I think this one line may prove to be the biggest mistake John Edwards ever could have made..
for his own candidacy and for the self-destructing Democratic party.
If you are truly American, it's all our Heritage..whether you live in Bangor, Maine or Biloxi, Mississippi
I walked through a Confederate cemetary in Fredericksburg, Virginia last Spring.
I understood that the young men laid under that ground in their beloved and beautiful Virginia
didn't fight for that flag because they hated blacks. It wasn't as simple as that. I wish we could say it was.
There is still a civil war going on. It's a war of ideologies.
Howard Dean could be our Uniter.
God and Nature know we need a Uniter.
Our united nation is withering before our very eyes.
John Edwards sounded more like Zell Miller...or a rebel secessionist..or a resentful 1960s-Selma white... last night than sounding like a 21st-century enlightened, inclusive Presidential candidate.
He made a mistake far more revealing than anything Howard Dean could have said on the subject.
By simply separating Southerners from Americans and feigning offense at Dean's supposed Northern arrogance and
intervention, Edwards is showing America that he's a throwback to 1850s-America.
My God, we don't need that kind of thought anymore.
I suspect there is still strong Southern separatist thought within the GOP, but I did not suspect
that those who claimed to be progressive still harbored such territorial suspicion.
This isn't North vs. South..it shouldn't be.
THIS IS AMERICA.
We cry "United We Stand" and in the next breath betray animosty toward our
fellow party-member because of his geographical origin.
If this is still North vs. South, even among our most progressive politicians,
then we've made no progress since the end of the dreadful Civil War.
It only leads me to believe what I have believed for a long time.
The Civil War was never competely resolved.
War rarely provides a true healing or a true resolution.
When the North "won" the Civil War, they applied a really good band-aid, but I think it had a "TO BE CONTINUED" sign stashed under the bandage.
The GOP is slick and savvy enough to know not to air their filthy laundry in front of all America.
They are the worst of all in all their white hegemony.
We know it. It speaks for itself.
The Democratic party shows weakness by letting themselves fall all over each other in all these debates when they know the GOP Wolf and all the drooling right-partisan pundits are on their heels.
Howard Dean is a maverick who refreshingly spills the truth..he's the blatantly honest child in the
"Emporer's New Clothes" tale. He is intelligent enough to spill the truth and let all other candidates
betray themselves for the people they truly are.
Win or lose in 2004, he is the face of the future of America.
John Edwards made a grave error for himself and for his party last night.
Howard Dean is holding a hand out to the South.
(It's amazing-the lengths to which our politicians go to pander to them)
Howard Dean: "I am not going to take a back seat to anybody in terms of fighting bigotry.”
"We [Democrats] are not going to make progress if we don’t broaden the tent.”
John Edwards: "Let me tell you, the last thing we need in the South is somebody like you
coming down and telling us what we need to do."
WHO IS THE REAL SEPARATIST?
~~~~~~
see William Saletan's commentary about the bum rap that was laid on Howard Dean by his fellow Democratic candidates.
I heard James Carville on NPR saying that the Democrats lost a crucial opportunity to turn the whole issue around
to Bush's hypocrisy-through-silence on the Confederate flag issue in South Carolina.
They should have known better than to trash one another. As Anonymoses eloquently wrote recently,
"Democrats, Use Your Time Wisely".
~~~~~~
"Howard Dean is a maverick who refreshingly spills the truth..he's the blatantly honest child in the
"Emporer's New Clothes" tale. He is intelligent enough to spill the truth and let all other candidates
betray themselves for the people they truly are."................
"But he has nothing on!" cried a child.
"The child tells the truth," said his father quietly.
And the people began to whisper to one another what the child had said.
"He has nothing on ! The child says he has nothing on!"
And the Emporer, hearing what they had said, shivered. For he knew their words were TRUE.
But it would never DO to stop the procession...so he held himself stiffer than ever.