I think Shannen makes a good point. As he notes there are two cliches that Dean is buying into, the first is that the Republicans are lilly-white, the second is that waiters and busboys are automatically black and Hispanic. There’s obviously truth to both, at least in Washington DC where hotel staffs are generally black and Hispanic. But they aren’t everywhere. As for who should be outraged and why, I’ll leave that up to people who can muster outrage over such things.

However, I do think that once again Dean is demonstrating how much of a blue-state limousine liberal he is. This strikes me as the sort of comment Democrats routinely mocked Republicans for.

Indeed, he is essentially a country club Republican who simply believes in taxing the rich, affirmative action and state-run healthcare. He even comes from a wealthy Park Avenue Republican family. And remember how he talked about the South during the primaries — prompting John Edwards’ most effective moment of his entire campaign when he smacked Dean for his northeastern liberal arrogance. Culturally, Dean is a Democratic version of what Democrats most derided about Poppa Bush (actually, so was John Kerry). That’s not what the Democratic Party needs to change its image. He may learn as he goes, but he’s got a lot of learning to do.