In a story which purportedly addresses the homage paid by DNC Chairman Howard Dean to a conference being held in Chicago by Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH concerning amendments being sought to the Voting Rights Act.  The amendments sought would take the extraordinary step of wresting from the states the right to conduct their own elections, under the pretense that African Americans and minorities will lose the right to vote if the feds are not in charge.  Included in the debate is the question of whether to extend the life of the legislation itself.  Democrats say, in keeping with the desire to entirely federalize voting across the nation, that without the Act, minorities and African-Americans are doomed to see their Constitutional right to vote disappear.  Not everyone agrees with this prognostication of doom.  Not everyone agrees that minorities are helpless without the omnipresent teat of mother government to suckle for their ability to engage in just about any daily activity.  But be all that as it may.

Lynn Sweet's report only touches upon the Voting Rights Act debate very generally, as a pretext for slamming Vice President Cheney, and to get in a couple of gratuitous race-baiting shots at Republicans.

Sweet takes aim at Cheney for a comment he made in an interview with Sean Hannity (Hannity & Colmes) which, as of press time, had yet to be aired.  Mr. Cheney and Hannity were discussing several weeks' worth of nasty comments made by Howard Dean, about Republicans (62 million or so who voted for George W. Bush in 2004), including the now-infamous assertion that the Republican Party is a largely white male Christian organization.  Let us review Dean's last several weeks.

Last Monday, DNC Chair Dean said of Republicans: "Pretty much, they all behave the same, and they all look the same. ... It's pretty much a white Christian party."  On June 2nd, Dean was discussing why, according to he, so many Democrats had difficulty voting in the last Presidential election and Republicans did not.

You think people can work all day and then pick up their kids at child care or wherever and get home and still manage to sandwich in an eight-hour vote? . . . Well Republicans, I guess can do that.  Because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives.

Previously, Dean started his most recent ball rolling by assuring the Party faithful that "I hate Republicans and everything they stand for."

Sweet begins her attack on Cheney with a third-paragraph teaser, promising that she would soon discuss "the insult Vice President Dick Cheney lobbed at Dean -- suggesting only his mother loved him."  Without a beat, and having engaged in no inquiry concerning the circumstances surrounding the comments--both as to Cheney and as to Dean--Sweet concludes: "Why a vice president would throw out juvenile taunts that are so beneath him could take up a whole column."

To Ms. Sweet, "juvenile taunts" refers to a relatively tame, off-the-cuff remark made by Cheney, as a net response to Dean's weeks of hostile slurs upon Republicans and conservatives.  Cheney said that Dean was "not the kind of individual you want to have representing your political party."  Fair commentary, given the nature of Dean's ongoing attacks, and the distancing which has taken place with numerous high-ranking members of his own party.

Cheney concluded his line of commentary with the "juvenile taunt" which has so raised Ms. Sweets hackles: "I've never been able to understand his [Dean's] appeal.  Maybe his mother loved him, but I've never met anybody who does."  It's hard to imagine a more laid back, innocuous "insult", coming at the heals of a rhetorical viciousness presently unexcelled in the Democratic Party, for which the psycho wing desperately clamors.  Is it juvenile to observe that he [Cheney] doesn't understand Dean's "appeal"?  What would be truly disturbing is if Cheney did understand.  Is it a taunt to conclude that, with the possible exception of Dean's own mother--whom we can assume would love him come what may, Cheney is hard-pressed to conceive of someone else?

Perhaps Sweet's sensibilities have been rankled by Cheney's political assessment that Dean has "so far...probably helped us more than he has them," and that he believes that his conclusion that Dean is "over the top" is shared by "many of his fellow Democrats..."  If Ms. Sweet believes that it is Cheney who is "over the top" by crediting at least Dean's mother with the nasty task of loving him, then this Chi-Sun Deaniac must have missed the past few weeks of her guy's performance.

Ms. Sweet's report is a dishonest one on several levels.  First, it purports to be a straight news account of Dean's appearance at a Rainbow/PUSH conference, but quickly slides into a free advert for another Dean attack on the Republican Party as a whole, on an issue that is not an issue, about legislation (renewal and amendments to the Voting Rights Act) that has not--and will not for quite some time--come to a vote.  The story's true objective, however, is at least the partial rehabilitation of Howard Dean.  

Ms. Sweet steps in--as many other journalists before her, and after her no doubt--to help try and pull Dean's foot out of his mouth.  She does this in the same manner that Dean himself has tried the past few days: Make the problem of Dean's uncontrollable mouth someone else's problem.  Dean is not held to account for his outrageous conduct as DNC head in slandering tens of millions of Americans, who believe in conservative values, who vote Republican, and/or who are Christians.  She finds no fault with any of what Dean has said; she challenges none of it, except to note that it might be responsible for Deans "self-inflicted wounds" of late.  Cheney, on the other hand, is deserving of her condemnation, because, I suppose, as Sweet put it, he mentioned Dean's "mama."  Clearly, feels Sweet, Dean's invocation of hatred for 62 million voters, his condemnation of millions of American Christians as evangelical maniacs, and his conclusion that most of his hated Republicans have never worked a day in their lives, pales in comparison to a passing, almost jovial reference to a man only a mother could love.

What would Ms. Sweet's assessment have been had Republican Cheney (or RNC Chairman Mehlman) said "I hate those Democrats"?  What if Cheney had accused Democrats (as he might credibly) of being the anti-religion party?  Or what if the Democratic Party was branded as being a bunch of black Baptists?  Could she have possible stood on a high-enough mountain, with a big-enough megaphone, and loud-enough tonsils to decry such intolerance?  I doubt it.

But as Howard Dean carries the colors for her party, Ms. Sweet seems comfortable enough with his screaming, screeching rhetoric.  Keep up the good word, Mr. Dean.  And keep up the good work, Ms. Sweet.  Your efforts are appreciated by the as-yet-unknown 2008 Republican Presidential candidate.