The Human Gaffe Machine On Maximum Overdrive

Well, the Democrats wanted Dr. Demented as their party leader. They wanted his fire, they wanted his vigor, they wanted his ideological zealotry.

Now they have all the baggage that comes with it.

The fallout is already toxic, and it's only been five days.

Pressure continues to mount on Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean to apologize for racially tinged remarks he made last Friday while addressing the Congressional Black Caucus, where he joked that minorities tend to be employed as bellboys and hotel maids.

In a joint statement issued late Tuesday, former Representative J.C. Watts and Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele said:

"We are simply outraged over recent racially insensitive remarks made by Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean. In his comments to the Democratic Black Caucus, Dean equates African-Americans who support Republicans to hired help.

"This kind of backward thinking reminds us of a horrible time in history when blacks were only seen as servants," Watts and Steele noted.

The focus of the growing outrage was an awkward joke Dean told to the CBC: "You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? Only if they had the hotel staff in here."

On Monday, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman told ABC Radio Network host Sean Hannity that Dean's remark was "pretty offensive. It's pretty racist, if you ask me."

In an interview Tuesday with Baltimore's WBAL-TV, Steele called Dean's remarks "racially insensitive and intolerable."

An online poll taken by the TV station showed that 72% of those responding thought Dean needed to apologize.

It isn't just Republicans who think Howie should say he's sorry, either:

The most powerful African American member of the House of Representatives is calling on Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean to apologize for a racially insensitive joke he told Friday during an address to the Congressional Black Caucus.

Asked on Tuesday if Dean should apologize for suggesting during his address that minorities usually work as servants, Representative Charles Rangel told ABC Radio's Sean Hannity: "If he offended anybody, he certainly should."

"If he offended anybody"; now there's a rhetorical qualifier that would never have escaped from Rangel's lips had any Republican uttered Dean's remark.

Rangel tried desperately to spin it in Dean's defense, to no avail:

Addressing the comment directly, the Harlem Democrat said, "I think Dean may not have used the right language, which he has had problems with before."

No, Congressman, "not using the right language" would be Dean speaking in Portugeuse. Which, come to think of it, might have obfuscated the racial disdain of his comment if he'd been speaking in Brazil at the time.

Rangel went on to explain that what the DNC chief meant to say was "that the Republican Party finds it very, very difficult to attract blacks to become public officials."

Yeah. Tell that to the aforementioned J.C. Watts and Michael Steele, Gary Franks, Kenneth Blackwell, Rod Paige, Colin Powell, etc. And let's not leave out Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whom Senate Democrats did their level best to smear as a liar and Big Media attempted to brand as George Bush's Aunt Jemimah.

No, the Dems wanted Dr. Demented as their party leader, and they got what they asked for. Which apparently includes total media blackouts of his public debates at his discretion:

"DNC Chair Howard Dean has declared a news blackout of his appearance [debating Pentagon advisor Richard Perle] and requested the media not quote, record, and/or paraphrase his remarks," event coordinator Gabrielle Williams wrote in an e-mail sent to news agencies Wednesday morning. "We apologize for the late notice, but we were just informed of this request."

Less than two hours later, Williams called to say: "We were told just a few minutes ago that it is now open" for media coverage. The decision to open Thursday's debate came roughly 30 minutes after an inquiry by The Associated Press.

Perle said that he was surprised to learn that the press had been barred from covering the debate.

"It seems quite extraordinary that the chairman of the Democratic National Committee would not want the public coverage of this debate," said Perle, a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Don Walker, president of the Harry Walker Agency, which represents Dean on the lecture circuit, said that many of the talks it is associated with are closed to the press — and it's up to the individual speaker to decide whether he or she wants them to be open. "We default to a closed press policy," he said. [my emphasis]

Imagine that - a titular major party head who, as a matter of standard operating procedure, intends to hide from public scrutiny of what he says on its behalf.

I guess it kind of makes sense, in a grotesquely perverse sort of way.

One thing can be said, though, and I'm happy to state it on-the-record: the Donks have a chairman that truly represents them.

And I, for one, wouldn't have it any other way.