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I GUESS "HISPANIC" IS SPANISH FOR "POOR" [Jonah Goldberg]
From the Hotline:-
Making An Ass-umption? In answering a question from Spanish-speaking Ernestina Escobar, who was introduced as "someone in our audience who has experienced the American dream." Dean responded: "You would have prescription benefits if you moved to Vermont, because a third of all our people, especially at your income level, are eligible for prescription benefits without help from the federal government." She never mentioned her financial situation.
Imagine if a white, preppy Park Avenue Republican had made this gaffe? -
But, Jonah and the hotline have reading comprehension problems. Either that or they're liars. Here's how the question went:
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QUESTION (through translator): As a Latin woman, one of my concerns is what's going to happen with the Spanish economy, and that's my worry right now. Because most of the businesses, Spanish businesses, are having a very slow economy right now, and that's causing a lot of problems.
WOODRUFF: Governor Dean?
DEAN: That gives me actually an opportunity to answer two questions. One was the prescription question as well.
We have got to stop in this country trying to stimulate the economy by giving help to enormous corporations, which then move their jobs to other countries. The way to help this country's economy is to invest in small businesses, allow them to have health insurance and help them pay for health insurance, and get them capital.
Banks will lend small businesses capital as soon as they don't need it, and we need to get capital in when businesses want to grow. Small businesses create more jobs than big businesses do, and they do not move their jobs to other countries.
In my state, everybody has health insurance under 18. You would have prescription benefits if you moved to Vermont, because a third of all our people, especially at your income level, are eligible for prescription benefits without help from the federal government.
What I want is a country that will start valuing ordinary human beings again, whether they're Latino, African-American, Asian American, Native American. No matter who they are, we are all in this together.
It was the dream of Martin Luther King when I was 21 years old at the end of the civil rights movement that if one of us was left behind, then this country was not as good as it could be or as it should be.
And what my campaign is about, something else that Martin Luther King said, which is that, "our lives begin to end when we stop speaking up for the things that matter." That's how we are going to change America.
We're going to invest in small businesses, not just in the Latino community, but in every community. We're going to invest in people who need help. We're the only industrialized world -- country in the world that doesn't have a universal health care system that includes every single person. We can do that and we can do all these things if we're all in this together...
You see, Dean was talking to a prior questioner, who had asked:
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QUESTION: Yes. Forgive me for having to read this.
I am a stroke survivor, I am disabled and on a fixed income. For seven months I went without prescription medication because we cannot afford supplemental insurance to my Medicare.
I chose food over medicine. How can you assure me and the many other voters -- there's millions like me -- that you empathize with my hardship and as president you will make certain this won't happen to any other American? Thank you.
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QUESTION: I went on a Pfizer program, and that's why I can do it, I can afford it now. And they're $51 that I pay. Before that it was 400 and some dollars a month.
EDWARDS: Which is just crippling, crippling for you, isn't it?
QUESTION: I get $800 -- and I don't care who knows it -- I get $830 a month from my Social Security because I had to take it at such a young age.
EDWARDS: And you and your family are in the same situation that millions of families are...
QUESTION: Millions.
So, Jonah, if a white preppy Republican had made the gaffe he'd be off the hook, too. Unlike you for your "three-fer" fun.
(thanks to reader gr)