Howard Dean's Revisonist History

Good Old Howie Dean went down to Georgetown and played the race card for all it was worth. He riddles his speech with nuggets such as "(the Republican party)looks like the 1950s and talks like the 1850s." Get it, we're all racist. That Howie, if he wasn't such an insane jerk-off he'd be an easily ignorable douchebag.

Anyway, the last Great Hope for America (before Obama that is) seems to have missed the day in school when they discussed the Voting Rights Act (emphasis added):

In a nod to the official topic of his talk, Dean emphasized the Democrats’ work on landmark legislation like the Voting Rights Act, and expressed his belief that the racial divide present in earlier generations has diminished in recent years.

And what work would that be, Howie? The work to do everything possible to stop its passage and the passage of other civil rights legislation? How's this for facts, Governor? First with regard to Democrats and the Civil Rights Act:

Congressional Quarterly reported that, in the House of Representatives, 61% of Democrats (152 for, 96 against) voted for the Civil Rights Act as opposed to 80% of Republicans (138 for, 38 against). In the Senate, 69% of Democrats (46 for, 21 against) voted for the Act while 82% of Republicans did (27 for, 6 against). All southern Democrats voted against the Act.

In his remarks upon signing the Civil Rights Act, President Lyndon Johnson praised Republicans for their "overwhelming majority." He did not offer similar praise to his own Democratic Party. Moreover, Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, an Illinois Republican, collaborated with the White House and the Senate leadership of both parties to draft acceptable compromise amendments to end the southern Democrats' filibuster of the Act. It was Dirksen who often took to the Senate floor to declare, "This is an idea whose time has come. It will not be denied." Dirksen's greatest triumph earned him the Leadership Conference of Civil Rights Award, presented by then-NAACP Chairman Roy Wilkins, for his remarkable civil rights leadership.

Next, let's look the tally for the act you mentioned, Howie:

The Senate vote for the Voting Rights Act was 77 to 19, with Democrats voting 47 to 17 in favor and Republicans 30 to 2 in favor. Among those voting against the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were 17 southern Democrats, including President Bill Clinton's political mentor, J. William Fulbright of Arkansas.

Now for the lie, which is definitely implied by Vice President Gore: that Albert Gore, Sr. voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The truth is that the elder Gore was a key player in the 74-day filibuster that delayed and intended to weaken the Act. As a matter of fact, all of the southern Democrats voted against the Act in the Senate, and all but 11 of 103 southern Democrats in the House.

So the former Governor lied to a group of college students when talking about civil rights and his party. Honestly, if I was a democrat, I'd lie to because there's no glossing over the shameful way they treated blacks in the past.