Posted 10:24 AM by Floyd

There are nine candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination. Intelligence adds, but stupidity multiplies. Excerpts from a Washington Post article on yesterday's debate in Boston:

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean was harshly rebuked by several of his Democratic rivals here Tuesday night for offending whites and blacks alike by recently saying he wanted "to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks."

...

Dean, saying "I'm no bigot," refused to apologize and told his rivals the Democrats will never recapture the White House until they find a way to appeal to working-class white voters in the South. "I make no apologies for reaching out to poor whites," he said.

But:

Dean got the last word, calling the Confederate flag "a loathsome symbol," and said he had proved he is without bigotry by signing a bill authorizing civil unions as governor of Vermont.

"Hi. I'm Howard Dean and I'm here to reach out to you. You have a loathsome symbol on your pickup truck. Any questions?"

After the Democrats dealt with substantive issues, such as whether South Carolina, Georgia, et al should be allowed to secede from the union and enslave negros, it was time to remind voters of the donkeys' Arkansas albatross:

Every candidate was asked a techie version of the famous boxers-or-briefs question posed to Bill Clinton in 1992: "PC or Macintosh?" Most chose the personal computer. And Kerry was asked if he would have pulled Red Sox starting pitcher Pedro Martinez in Game 7 of the American League championship, which Boston lost; he would have.

Second-guessing Grady Little is appropriate for an anonymous nobody calling into a radio sports talk show. For a presidential candidate to do so shows a complete lack of gravitas and class. Kerry's opinion of himself is no better than mine.