Wall Street Journal in Defense of Dean

You know Governor Dean can attract the support of moderate Republicans if the editorial board at The Wall St. Journal can give him a boost like this from today's issue:

Confederacy of Dunces
Credit Howard Dean for running a shrewd campaign, but one reason he's leading the Democratic Presidential sweepstakes is because his opponents don't seem to understand his appeal. Look no further than this weekend's flap over Dr. Dean's alleged embrace of the Confederate flag.

The former Vermont Governor was quoted in Saturday's Des Moines Register as saying that "I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks" and appeal to "a broad cross-section of Democrats." His rivals immediately jumped on the remark as a sign that Dr. Dean was somehow soft on civil rights. "It is simply unconscionable for Howard Dean to embrace the most racially divisive symbol in America," said John Kerry.

Democrats usually smear Republicans with this kind of race-baiting politics, but it isn't any more justified when Democrats use it against on of their own. Dr. Dean is hardly sympathetic to the Confederacy, or Jim Crow, or apartheid or any other kind of racial discrimination. he was merely saying he'd like to win the support of Southerners who over the years have fled the Democratic Party represented by the Kerrys and the Dick Gephardts.

One reason those and so may other voters have left is precisely because of the kind of litmus-test, interest-group gotcha! politics that this racial pandering represents. Yet Dr. Dean's opponents continue to attack him for violating liberal taboos on guns, Medicare, trade and now civil rights. No wonder Democratic voters find him refreshing.

PS: The title of the editorial comes from a great, funny book by John Kennedy Toole (Thanks to David Krewinghaus of Minneapolis, MN for the scoop. Crossposted at DeanTV.org)