What is Howard Dean talking about?

This is not only offensive, but wrong. Howard Dean talking to students at Northwestern:

Though Dean, a Democrat, complimented President Bush, saying he "ran a great campaign" and was "very disciplined," he compared the president to former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, at least in one regard.

"The truth is the president of the United States used the same device that Slobodan Milosevic used in Serbia. When you appeal to homophobia, when you appeal to sexism, when you appeal to racism, that is extraordinarily damaging to the country," Dean charged. "I know George Bush. I served with him for six years [as a fellow governor]. He's not a homophobe. He's not a racist. He's not a sexist. In some ways, what he did was worse … because he knew better."

Reasonable people can disagree about appealing to homophobia, but when did Bush play on sexism and racism? What evidence is there for either charge? And how does what Bush did compare in any way to Milosevic, who is on trial at the Hague for war crimes? In fact, if you compare the President to his father, who exploited the "Willie Horton" issue, W's campaign was far more restrained in its discussion of racial matters.

(PS My posts titled "What is ___ talking about?" are a homage to Noam Scheiber of The New Republic," who uses them to great effect on his &c. blog on TNR's website.)

Comments

[Mike Donohoe]

I agree to the extent that I don't see any racial propaganda by Bush. Perhaps Dean was referring to the innate xenophobic appeal of bombing Iraq on that one. As for sexism, a lot of people are very concerned about Roe v. Wade these days. Bush may have claimed that he's not out to overturn Roe v. Wade, but he also claimed that Iraq was an imminent threat to the U.S. on the basis of weapons of mass destruction, and, as I understand it, when Arlin Specter promised to block the appointment of any Supremes opposed to abortion the Pennsylvania Republican lost a pound of flesh to the Neo-Con party.

[mhw]

Milosevic's career was based on appealing to ethnic solidarity and nationalism. The analogy used by Dean is completely incoherent.

[John]

This is the same guy that said that Democrats should try to appeal to the rednecks with pickup trucks and Confederate flags? Anyway, I never knew GWB was racist and sexist, especially with the diversity in his staff. He sure fooled me!!

[Random Thoughts]

Yeeaaaarrrgghhhh!

Back in 1995, that -- and a lot of the other Lefty ravings about W. -- would have been considered the type of hate speech which motivated Timothy McVeigh.

Since the war against Milosevic met the Democrats' standard for just and moral war -- whereas Iraq did not -- does this mean that Dean would approve the bombing of the White House (and the Chinese embassy in Washington DC)?

Did Clinton ever find weapons of mass destruction in Serbia, or send Chelsea to fight there?

[Dean Esmay]

In a United States where a majority--a very slight but real majority--of women consider themselves pro-life and where a majority of them favor further legal restrictions on abortion, Bush's stance on aboriton can hardly be considered "sexist."

But in a world where people lie and claim that Bush sent us into war based entirely on WMDs (when in fact he gave over a dozen other reasons besides that) and where they won't acknowledge that Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and Edwards all said exactly the same things about WMDs as Bush did, you can't expect much rationality on such things, can you? Sure, sure, Bush = Slobodon. Why not?

[Rob Crocker]

Bush obviously preys on sexist and racist ideas. I mean just look at his National Security Advisor. Err, I mean his Secretary of State, whoops again, uhhh, HUD director? I know, White House council. Dang, are there ANY white people in his administration? :-D

[Gary E. Hill]

Bush 41 and the utilization of the Willie Horton ad is not a proper analogy. Ignoring the fact that the Democrats first raised Willie Horton as a campaign issue, the issue of early release of convicted killers was not a racist smear by the Bush campaign. A racist smear would be the James Byrd pull my father through the mud behind a Texas pickup truck ad used by the Democrats in a later campaign. More importantly, early release of killers was a legitimate issue in that campaign, and was an issue in many states at the time; witness the federal mandatory sentencing guidelines which evolved out of this issue. Bush 41 should not be faulted for a campaign ad that hit the mark.

[Jerry]

Howard Dean has contributed more to the coarsening of the language and political discourse in this country than anyone except Michael Moore. His casual use of such loaded terms bleeds them of meaning. If Bush is a racist, what is a David Duke or an Al Sharpton? Is it OK to refer to Dean as a socialist/pacifist? Thanks to screamin' Howard, people are developing such callouses about political invective they hardly listen anymore to what is said by people in the other party. That'll put the democracy in a nice fix.

[Edward]

Bush I and his campaign were not responsible for the Horton ad. An outside group produced and aired it after they picked up the idea from the democrat primary.

[Billy Rawl]

Re: Mike Donohoe November 14, 2004 03:05 PM:

Whenever someone asserts that Bush "claimed that Iraq was an imminent threat to the U.S. on the basis of weapons of mass destruction," everything he says after that may be safely ignored. Bush actually said that it would be far too dangerous to wait until Iraq became an imminent threat. Those who assert that Bush said that are either ignorant of the facts or intentionally trying to mislead.

[Bill Woods]

Actually, I don't think Dean was accusing Bush of pandering to racists or sexists, just homophobes. Racist/sexist/homophobe are all lumped together by liberals. I think that, having mentioned one, Dean just listed the others by reflex.

[dick]

Bill Woods,

If it is such a reflex action and it is patently false, does that mean that the democrats are so used to lying that it is a reflex action? Should we therefore give them a pass on telling the truth - ever? I think it should be looked on by Howard Dean as a reason to watch what he says and to hold him to a standard of at least being reasonably truthful. Seems the least one can do with a person who wants to become chairman of the democratic party.

[Barbara Skolaut]

Dick said:

I think it should be looked on by Howard Dean as a reason to watch what he says and to hold him to a standard of at least being reasonably truthful. Seems the least one can do with a person who wants to become chairman of the democratic party.

Nobody holds Terry McAwful to that standard. Why start now?

[JorgXMcKie]

Look at Dean's claim to have "served with him for six years". Was Dean in Bush's boat (oops, I mean state)? How can he claim to have "served with him" if he wasn't in the same boat/state? Didn't he and others argue during the campaign that only those who were in the same boat with Kerry (and those whose convenient memories more or less put them in, near, or at least around Kerry's boat) could claim to have "served with" John F'n Kerry?

Next, I suppose Dean will claim that Bush wasn't in Cambodia that Christmas at all, and/or that he didn't run through 5000 yards fo withering fire from both banks to rescue a hamster. Boy, the nerve of some people.

[Jack Okie]

You guys have got it all wrong. Bush said the Plastic Turkey was an imminent threat.

[SDN]

Please, Donks, pretty please with sugar on make this moron your chairman!

[Siergen]

You guys have got it all wrong. Bush said the Plastic Turkey was an imminent threat.

Sigh. The turkey Bush served to the troops was real http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/images/2003/11/27/image585903x.jpg

So was the centerpiece prepared by the Army cooks in the Iraq chow hall that Bush posed with at the request of the press photographers.