Rebel Without a Cause
By Alston B. Ramsay
It’s a politician’s worst nightmare: He delivers a major policy
speech, but a small group of protestors steals all the media
attention. For former Vermont governor and Democratic front-runner
Howard Dean, this nightmare came true on Thursday when a group of
Dartmouth students appeared at his education initiative
announcement with at least eight Confederate Battle Flags.
“For
several months, Governor Dean has been talking about how he wants
to be an inclusive candidate and reach out to everybody. But then
he used one of the most divisive symbols in the nation’s history
to reach a certain demographic,” said Daniel Linsalata, a freshman
at Dartmouth and a staff writer for The Dartmouth Review.
The incident stems from a long-standing Dean talking point in
which he claimed he wanted to “be the candidate for guys with
Confederate flags in their pickup trucks.” Although Dr. Dean has
repeatedly referenced the Confederate Battle Flag since February,
it was only after recent, widespread media attention that his
opponents reacted. In Hanover, the students took Dr. Dean’s words
at face value, much to the campaign’s chagrin.
When Dean came striding into Alumni Hall, he greeted the crowd
and shook hands, realizing too late that one of the individuals
with hand extended also had a battle flag around his shoulders.
Then, as he took the stage, eight more Confederate flags unfurled
around the room, leading to gasps from some corners, and raucous
laughter from others. Dr. Dean ignored the protestors while
announcing his education initiative, but he stumbled at various
points throughout the speech. The protestors remained draped in
the flags, watching silently, but not unnoticed. “He kept giving
me a death glare,” said one protestor seated in the second row. As
he stepped down from the rostrum Dean was again confronted by a
Confederate flag held by Nathaniel Ward ‘05, another writer for
the Review. Dean looked him in the eyes and said, “We don’t do
that anymore.” Mr. Ward was perplexed: “I had no idea what he
meant, but he seemed visibly upset.”
Campus liberals and Dean supporters first became nervous when
fliers with the Battle Flag appeared all over campus early
Wednesday morning. Young Democrats President and Dean campus
co-chair Paul Heintz told the Daily Dartmouth that it was “the
most awful sort of prank” and he later told the Associated Press
that “socially conservative” students probably staged the protest.
Campus Democrats were enraged that the Battle Flag posters
included a “Generation Dean” logo and said, “Sponsored by Young
Democrats.” Stefan Beck, Executive Editor of the Review,
responded, “There have been some complaints about attributing the
poster to a real student group. But I don’t think many Dartmouth
students were confused about whether a liberal campaign would
really advertise with a Confederate battle flag. It was quite
clearly a joke.”
After the event, many more reporters flocked to the students
with flags than to Dr. Dean. Xi Huang, a sophomore, told the crowd
around him that Dean’s previous remarks had castigated an entire
region of the country: “What’s the difference between stereotyping
Southerners and stereotyping Asians or other minorities? We’re all
people.”
When confronted by the press at his next stop, Dean said only,
“Things happen on college campuses. They wouldn’t identify who
they were or who they represented, so I’m not going to respond to
that.” Indeed, rumors immediately flew that The Dartmouth Review
had staged the event. Dr. Dean, after moving to another location
on campus, wryly asked—in response to a brief power failure—”You
still have that right-wing newspaper over here, huh?” The
connection between the power outage and the presence of
right-wingers was not immediately clear.
Senior staff members at the paper admitted that they had given
advice and suggestions to students who had solicited their
opinions. While The Dartmouth Review has denied organizing the
event, a few of the protesters are staff writers for the
conservative publication. “Some students wanted to protest against
what they felt were demeaning comments about Southerners and
African Americans,” said political editor Rollo Begley, “and I
think it’s a very legitimate cause.” Editor in Chief Ryan Gorsche
added, “People asked me how to communicate a message effectively,
and I told them that they should be peaceful, respectful, and
honest if the press asked them why they were carrying Battle
Flags.”
This was not the first time Dr. Dean dodged the Confederate
flag issue. In a recent Democratic debate, Reverend Al Sharpton
and North Carolina Senator John Edwards excoriated Dean. The
former governor hedged on an answer from an audience member asking
about the flag, and Edwards forcefully told him, “The last thing
we need in the South is somebody like you coming down and telling
us what we need to do.” When Edwards specifically asked Dean if he
was wrong to make comments embracing the divisive symbol, Dean
sharply retorted, “No I wasn’t, John Edwards.” Dr. Dean refused to
back down even when Sharpton passionately exclaimed that,
regardless of the desire to court Southern voters, “You can’t
bring a Confederate flag to the table of brotherhood.” A few days
later, after widespread media condemnation, Dean said he regretted
the “pain” he had caused, but still refused to apologize for the
remarks themselves. Candidate John Kerry rebuked Dean for this
quasi-apology: “Howard Dean has finally admitted that his words
have caused pain, but I am puzzled as to why he does not seem to
regret the words that caused the pain.”
Campus activists also have not expressed remorse for their
candidate’s comments. Following the event, a number of operatives
for the Dean campaign candidly attacked the protestors and
others—for using Dean’s own message. According to a reporter from
the Concord Monitor, one veteran on the campaign appeared near
tears and “really got in the face” of a protestor. Deaniac ingenue
Graham Roth—Editor in Chief of the Dartmouth Free Press,
Dartmouth’s liberal publication—said to Review President Harry
Camp, “That was not funny.” Mr. Camp, who was covering the event
for the Review, later responded, “The incident with the Rebel
Battle flags certainly was ‘not funny.’ It is never humorous when
a serious candidate for the Presidency demeans and stereotypes an
entire region of the country.” Mr. Heintz even interrupted Mr.
Camp’s lunch following the event, demanding to know the names of
students involved—even as Mr. Camp interviewed them for the
Review.
“They should all lighten up,” Mr. Camp mused later in the day.
“It was a brave, clever way to draw attention to a serious issue
that Dean has inadequately addressed.”
The fiasco did not go unnoticed outside of Hanover; it was
reported in print or on the web in the local Valley News, the
Boston Globe, the New York Times, the New York Post, USA Today,
FoxNews, CNN, the New Criterion, the Drudge Report, and Hotline,
just to name a few.
http://www.dartreview.com/
Spread the word, recommend this page to a friend
massive economic collapse; large handouts to freeloaders resulting in a
large increase in their population; open acceptance of homosexuals as
being beneficial to society resulting in an AIDs epidemic. Yep, the media
and politically correct reported continuously about how California was
leading the country in all of their little pet agenda items.
Anyway,
they have totally missed giving credit to the new recreational trend that
was started right here in good ole Georgia. Flagging corrupt, dishonest
and lying politicians who have sold our government to special interests
has become the best entertainment value in the country.
