:eek:
I am not a person of color but I can’t help but think of what happened to Trent Lott after he made his comments back in 2002. Maybe I’m being a knee-jerk member of the offenderati but that comment really doesn’t sit well with me.
Meh… It was a stupid joke.
The fact of the matter is, Bush '04 did better among Blacks than Bush '00, by something like 11% to 9%. Small potatoes still, but not the direction the Democrats are used to seeing. And, IIRC, Bush did considerably better among Hispanics-- ie, a larger gain.
No, he is simply trying to make a case for the immediate implementation of universal healthcare. Ideally, he should have been rushed to a nearby hospital for his acute foot-in-mouth disease.
I can’t imagine why – the statement was offensive to the GOP (as he intended), not to African-Americans.
Now, if he had said that the hotel staff was exclusively (or primarily) staffed by African-Americans, there’d be something to apologize for. But he didn’t, so there isn’t.
I must have missed where Dean remarked (to this Democratic caucus) that the country would have been better off if 54 years earlier the country would have voted in as president a man who bolted the Democratic Party for the express purpose of promoting and maintaining a segregated United States.
Dean’s comment can be criticized as taking the black vote for granted, but even with the gains in the Republican vote among blacks, (and the point that blacks’ attitudes on cultural and religious issues are closer to the attitudes of the religious wing of the Republican Party), Dean’s comment is probably still somewhat accurate, today.
Who’d deliver the censure? Robert Byrd?
What tomndebb said. Comparing this to Trent Lott’s comments is absurd.
Yeah, it seems you must’ve missed the part where I said that too. Oh wait, I didn’t.
Of course, neither did Trent Lott.
It’s not that part that’s offensive. It’s the stereotyping of the low-paid, servile hotel staff as sufficiently overwhelmingly black to recreate such a scene that’s offensive. And yeah, if a Republican said it he’d be excoriated.
The ironic reality, of course, is that the easiest way for President Bush to get a large number of people of color in a single room is to call a Cabinet meeting.
:dubious: Yes, he did. That’s what wishing Strom Thurmond had won the presidency in 1948 amounts to.
And you can believe him as much as you want to. 
And you’re welcome to bring facts to the debate instead of baseless opinions and speculations. Don’t get me wrong, I opine Trent Lott to be a despicable person, but I don’t have any facts of his intentions meaning to retain a segregationist US. And neither do you.
I’m so tired of people looking for reasons to be outraged. You’d think we had a shortage of it or something.
I’m detecting the overtones of a slavery reference here, and I think that’s kind of gross.
In this context, no, I don’t think he would.
In this case a large number of people equals what, four? I’m not knocking the inclusiveness of his Cabinet, I just think you’ve picked a poor example. 
stpauler, your own quote says that “racial segregation… was a centerpiece of the Dixiecrat’s campaign.” That may not be what Lott was thinking, but it sure as hell is what he SAID.
Dean said that right after Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet, and right before Kerry described terrorism as “a nuisance”. Remember?
Yeah. And he also said that’s NOT what he was referring to. Of course, when the whole he made his infamous quote, he did not mention racial segregation either. But if you’re cool with taking it out of context, feel free to bend the words as you see fit.
I think the best way to censure, in all but a few extreme cases, is with publicity. So let the conservatives spread Howard Dean’s words far and wide!
stpauler, regardless what Lott meant, what he said was that the country would have been better off if Thurmond had been elected president. Thurmond’s primary campaign point, the one on which he broke from the Democrats, was the defense of segregation. So Lott was excoriated for his statement, not for his intention.
Nothing in Dean’s statement equates to that. Even manhattan’s attempt to interject “servile” into Dean’s statement fails, because Dean made no mention of servility or class. Is anyone here going to claim that a very large percentage of a hotel staff in Washington is not black?
Did Dean make a statement that implied a certain racism within the Republican demographic? I would say he did. Clearly, the Republicans have a right to challenge his implication. However, while Secretary Rice can certainly point out that she does not bus tables, there is nothing in the observation that Dean made that can currently be challenged on the numbers. The Congressional Black Caucus has had (IIRC) a single black member and the number of “black” membership groups within the Republican party is miniscule.
Dean said that the ([implied] rich white [/implied]) Republicans could not assemble a grass roots support group in the Washington area that could provide 150 attendees at a meeting without drafting the (black members of the) hotel staff to join. That does not imply that the blacks are “servile” or that there is anything wrong with blacks who join the Republicans; it states that the numbers of black Republicans are few.
Actually, the CBC has had three our four black memebers, perhaps more. They have had (I believe) a single Republican member.
yeeesh
Let’s not forget that Lott was not really torn down for what he said. Plenty of other Repubilcans have said far more offensive things and survived unscathed. The fact is that the Powers That Be wanted Lott out for whatever reason, and he gave them an excuse.
As for this? Meh. Probably not the smartest thing Dean ever said, but a silly thing to get whipped up about.