Sorry, Sister: Howard Dean’s No Sexist

I get a little annoyed with people who don’t know what they’re talking about but don’t have a clue that’s even a possibility, so proceed with abandon to mischaracterize something, thereby spreading ignorance around.

Here’s Marcia Pappas, apparently of New York NOW, and egalia of Tennessee Guerilla Women agreeing with her:

Okay, I am a serious fan of Marcia Pappas, president of New York State NOW http://www.nownys.org/ . Pasted below is her latest press release. Did she forget anything?

1) Four or five Supreme Court Justices should be pro-choice women and all appointments to all courts should be pro-choice.

2) Howard Dean (the mute DNC Chair) must be replaced with a woman, who will not sit back quietly while sexist attacks are levied against women candidates.

And it goes on from there. Her list is pretty demanding, which is good — reminds me of how far we haven’t come, and what it’s like to be a truly PASSIONATE (and probably young, idealistic) feminist. If we demanded half what Pappas proposes, who knows where we’d end up? Our problem right now is we’re not demanding enough. But I digress.

What I wanted to discuss was what I see as the wrong-headed, ill-informed attack on Howard Dean, who most certainly doesn’t deserve that.

I’m a long-standing, fervent Deaniac, and always will be. One of the things that shocked the livin’ daylights out of me about Dean was his very clear, unambiguous, decidedly pro-woman FEMINIST positions. I remember so clearly seeing him field questions in Town Hall settings early on, and out of his mouth in response to certain questions would tumble responses that showed him clearly a feminist. Clearly.

Now these weren’t studied, scripted responses. (And I sure wish I remembered some of the questions and answers, or had the presence of mind to write them down, or something. I only remember my delighted astonishment at what I was hearing.) Nor did he have to stop and think about any of them, nor was the rhetoric careful, studied or tortuous as it would be for some men.

Nope. It was spontaneous, sincere, totally Dean.

That’s only ONE reason I adore him still, but it’s a big part of it.

Now, fast forward to the present era. The Democratic “establishment,” by which I mean the Clinton dynasty and all its toadies, tried like crazy to keep Dean from becoming the Chair or the DNC. They hate him and Pelosi and Reid weren’t any too friendly with him either. Dean’s thing: return political power to The People; don’t allow Washingtonians to think it’s theirs (and theirs alone) to do with it what they please. The power brokers don’t LIKE that, and it’s why Dean had to be “taken out” (well, at least they didn’t kill him — that line was from Ted Rall shortly after Dean exited the 2004 race).

So he was out of the race, but then they saw — with horror — that he stood a very good chance of becoming DNC head. It was too late, though, by the time they woke up. He’d endeared himself to the people who really mattered: the people who got to vote, the foot soldiers of the party, the delegates themselves. He’d called every one of them. Many of them already knew him — and loved him. And they voted for him instead of yet another useless figurehead who would do nothing for the party but everything for the powermongers.

So Dean beat the Establishment, and set about creating the landslide win for Democrats up and down the ticket that we’re about to witness this November (depending on how effective more election-stealing and vote fraud will be this year!).

Early on Reid and Pelosi made sure he knew, and followed, their one cardinal rule, which was: Mind your own business. Do NOT imagine, or pretend, that you speak for the Party. You do not; WE do. So don’t even try.

And they meant it.

But Dean had plenty to keep him busy: a party to rebuild from the ground up in most of the 50 states. Things were so bad that in a few of the states he couldn’t even find out who the contact was — for the whole state party!

He spends his time mostly on the road. He fundraises, he organizes, he gets things done. But he doesn’t probably get to spend a lot of time watching TV or keeping up to the minute-by-minute goings’ on. So he probably missed a lot of the sexism leveled against Hillary.

But would it have been his role to defend her? Or to defend Obama? His job was to remain neutral between ALL the candidates, so let’s assume he did hear some of it — was it really his role to intervene, especially given Reid and Pelosi’s strict pronouncements for him to stay silent on most things for the most part?

Of course, the right answer is it’s everyone’s role to defend against sexism (and racism, and homophobia, and all the other isms). So yes, he should have. I just don’t think he was aware of it. After all, it’s not as if the mainstream media were reporting on it.