My goodness, a lot of people are coming to Dean’s defense, to one degree or another. Let me just speak generally to all of you. Basically the argument boils down to “Dean was merely pandering to a Jewish audience.” If your defense of Dean amounts to saying that I exaggerated when I said his statement was “the dumbest, weirdest, goofies” explanation of political differences ever, fine. That was a bit of rhetorical excess. However, his statement is still goofy, weird and dumb. First of all, he said that someone asked him the other day, and that had been his answer. Second, he didn’t say he was speaking to the biggest difference between the parties when it comes to American Jews. At least as the AP has it, he said this was the fundamental difference between the parties, period. Perhaps, in full context, he wasn’t as goofy-sounding. Oh, then there’s the little thing of substance. In no way is this the fundamental difference between the two parties, generally or even on the issue of the Jews. Rather, Dean — who, recall, wanted to reach out to white guys with Confederate flags on their trucks — is insinuating that the GOP is intolerant of Jewish Americans.