Posted on 01/08/2004 9:21:13 AM PST by The Rant
Not too long ago the soft, somber undertones of the smallest fiddle in the world could be heard playing in the background to Bill Clinton’s depictions of the hardships of his upbringing. Today we are being serenaded by the mellow and solemn tones of the smallest Stradivarius in the world playing as background to a peek into Howard Dean’s upbringing courtesy of his mother’s interview with the New York Times. The interview illustrates the hardships this poor little rich boy experienced during the days of his youth. From having to accept entitlements from his parents via manipulation of tax loopholes to being subjected to the hostility of racism at the East Hampton Maidstone Club, this exclusive glimpse into the childhood of this Democratic presidential candidate is quite remarkable.
Andree Maitland Dean, Howard’s mother, goes to great lengths to validate her son’s contention that his roots are “practically working class.” In fact, it would seem that he was brought up with the same burden that most working class people have to contend with, not treating the servants like servants (Read as Mr. Howell from Gilligan’s Island: Oh Lovie! Get Gilligan. The ugliness of all of it is driving me mad!). The fact that he even had servants sets him apart from the vast majority of Americans. It would be incredibly naïve to consider Howard Dean as being familiar with the issues of the working class simply because he worked a construction job while on medical deferment from duty in Vietnam. After all, there weren’t too many blue-collar workers transversing the slopes in Aspen back then.
Neither were many of the members of the working class burdened with their parents funneling massive amounts of money to them, especially long after they had left the fold. While Dean’s parents were channeling nearly a million dollars to him, some in increments as large as $200,000 at a time, over the past two decades, decades that saw him trained and working as a physician and some suggest a politician, those of the working class were making sure to set up their 401(k) accounts correctly (if they could afford to have one), going without all through the year so they could perhaps take a family vacation and always fighting the worry that existed in the back of their minds about tax time. The last thing most working class people were doing during the time Dean was receiving his unearned stipends was trying to manipulate tax loopholes so they could add huge sums of fortune to their portfolios while they raked in a physician’s salary. With this type of financial upbringing it is easy to see why Dean is so eager to raise the taxes on the middle class by repealing the Bush tax cuts.
But probably the biggest hardship for Dean, the modern day version of the poor little match girl from the early 20th Century, was having to summer at the “whites only” Maidstone Club in the Hamptons. It must have been a brutal experience, a humiliating experience, to be waited on by those who weren’t even of the religion or race that would allow them to be members. I would imagine that is were young Howard developed his sense of need for diversity. It is quite obvious through the multi-cultural atmosphere that exists in the post-Dean Vermont that this gross inequity weighed on his mind quite heavily.
And then there was the traumatic experience of having to endure the horror of racism at the Maidstone Club. As if the exclusion of people for membership consideration based on their religion and/or the color of their skin wasn’t startling enough, he had to endure the occasional racial epithet from his own parents although he proclaims, "Yes, there was sort of this casual racism, in terms of the racist expressions that were used by that generation," he told the Times. "But in all, I think my family was pretty open-minded about different kinds of people." I suppose when one summers in the confines of the exclusive Maidstone Club one learns to be tolerant of others, even if they are committing acts of racism, if only casually.
For Howard Dean to stand in front of his supporters and the people of the United States, grinning the grin of the snake oil salesman better than Bill Clinton ever did, proclaiming that he “feels the pain” of the working class people would be laughable if it weren’t so infuriating. The fact of the matter, and it is quite apparent, is that Dean lived a life of privilege equal to, if not more so than, anyone who is elected to office today. His parents afforded him an upper-class college education, an education that left him a physician. He was deferred from military service because of a “medical problem” so debilitating that he was able to ski in Aspen instead of fighting in Danang. He suffered the lavish brutality of the exclusive and obviously racist Maidstone Club as he toiled his youthful summers away and he learned that his brand of tolerance included an acceptable level of racism.
If Howard Dean didn’t have the spin machine working overtime to quell those who would point out these youthful “experiences”, one could argue he was brought up a child of privilege, far from knowing the hardships of the working class and whose values were akin to those of the Gatsby’s, the Vanderbilt’s and the Rockefellers. And it doesn’t take a psychologist, an economist or even the talking heads of the mainstream media who insist on ignoring these faux pas to explain to the people of the United States that the Gatsby’s, the Vanderbilt’s and the Rockefellers, and evidently the Dean’s, were not working class.
The only question that remains to be answered about Howard Dean’s knowledge of the working class is whether or not he has to remove the platinum spoon before he engages the lavatory. Something tells me that's a problem for him.
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Frank Salvato is a political media consultant, a freelance writer from the Midwest and the Managing Editor for TheRant.us. He is a contributing writer to The Washington Dispatch, and various other sites. He has appeared as a guest on The O’Reilly Factor, The Kevin Matthews Radio Show (Chicago) and The Brad Messer Radio Show (San Antonio). His pieces have been recognized by the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention and are occasionally featured in The Washington Times and The London Morning Paper as well as other national and international publications.
Then, there's the newsmax.com and iconoclast.ca parodies of that interview. You can read the newsmax.com interview here. I can't find the iconoclast.ca itnerivew anymore.
That's the one I read! Hard to belief it's for real.
Are you kidding?? Dean always looks to me like he needs an extra-large dose of Metamucil....
Maybe it's just that he "injured" his mouth eating at some gourmet restaurant.
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