Neither the Washington Post nor the New York Times bothered to cover the May 14 news conference of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, Illinois U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin and six Democrat city mayors.
My first question of Vermont’s former Gov. Dean evoked what surely sounded to me as Dean’s monumental annoyance – if not his rage:
Q: Given your background here in this room, of not one but four United States flags, do you support or oppose the proposed constitutional amendment to stop public burning or other desecrations of Old Glory?
Dean: Let me just answer that in the most direct way I can. The majority leader of the United States Senate wants to spend time on flag-burning, gay marriage and getting rid of a tax that affects a half percent of the people.
We want to spend time on what to do about Iraq, how to reduce gas prices for people, what to do about health care, which 46 million people don’t have. I’m not going to even dignify that question with an answer right now. We want – these mayors want us to spend our time in Washington on things that affect 100 percent of the American people.
We are not going to get into socially divisive amendments of any kind. These kind of amendments, which the majority leader – who ought to be ashamed of himself – is putting on the Senate calendar for the next few weeks, while Americans continue to pay $3 a gallon for gas, are simply done for one reason: that’s to divide Americans. And what I have learned from these mayors, in the last two days, is we need to start bringing Americans back together again and stop having these socially divisive arguments, and focus on what we all agree on: which is dealing with $3 gas, which is dealing with health care, which is keeping American jobs in America, and which is having a strong national defense which display intelligence and listening to the military before we send our troops abroad.
How very notable that this leader of the Democratic Party describes the protection of Old Glory as, in his words, “a socially divisive amendment” that “divides Americans.”
And the next time you see or read about hoodlums who publicly burn or soil what Francis Scott Key so strongly wrote about from an enemy prison ship in Baltimore Harbor – please remember Democrat leader Howard Dean’s statement that trying to protect Old Glory is, in his words, “socially divisive.”
At the end of this news conference, Chairman Dean recognized me for a second question, concerning 27-year-old Sayed Ramatullah Hashemi, a member of the Taliban in Afghanistan, who was present when CNN interviewed Osama bin Laden.
Hashemi not only belonged to the Taliban. He also spoke against preaching of Christianity, which in Taliban Afghanistan could be punished by death.
In 2005, Hashemi was admitted to Yale University as a non-degree student, where he is currently studying. On March 8 of this year, Yale alumnus Clinton Taylor launched a campaign to discourage alumni donations until Hashemi’s presence at this Ivy League university is better explained. (Taylor’s campaign has been nicknamed “Nail Yale,” an allusion to the reported Taliban practice of pulling the fingernails from women with painted nails.)
How did Democratic National Chairman Dean react to my question about Yale admitting a member of the Taliban?
Q: There have been a number of news reports of which I’m sure you must be aware, that a veteran Mideast terrorist has just been enrolled in the Yale student body. As a Yale alumnus, do you believe this is an illustration of “For God, for country and for Yale” as the greatest anti-climax ever written?
Dean: I’ll tell you a great story about that. Anderson Cooper gave the address – my daughter just graduated – Anderson Cooper gave the address. He was fantastic, and opening of the address is:
“Mr. President of the University, dean, honorable faculty, honorable students – and members of the Taliban.”
It brought down the house.
And speaking of “bringing down the house,” one wonders if any relatives of the more than 2,000 who died when Arab terrorists brought down the house called the World Trade Center – do any of these survivors believe that the Taliban at Yale is as amusing as Howard Dean and fellow Yalies at that graduation?
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