WEEKEND MEMOS

'Weekend memos' give our editorial writers a chance to express their own opinions, comment on topics they have been writing about, or take a lighter approach. The opinions in 'Memos' do not always follow the Enquirer's editorial positions.

Ever had a gaffe?

Like the one offered by Dan Quayle when he mangled the United Negro College Fund's slogan: "What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is," he said. Or Al Gore saying to a reporter, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean had a gaffe the other day, on which he is now backtracking, labeling it a clumsy statement.

The former governor of Vermont wants to attract voters of the poor, rural South whom he believes have been leaning Republican, but he went about it the wrong way.

"I still want to be the candidate for the guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks," Dean said, in remarks published in the Des Moines Register. "We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad section of Democrats." At an earlier campaign event, he said white people in the South who drive pickup trucks with Confederate flag decals ought to be voting for Democrats "because their kids don't have health insurance either and their kids need better schools too."

Clumsy, indeed. And wrongheaded. Amid criticism, he now says he regrets any pain he may have caused.

As a native Southerner who is black, I forgive him his ignorance. But a smart guy like Dean should have known better. Sure, there are plenty of poor knuckleheads in the South (and some even as far north as Vermont) with Confederate flags on their F-150s, who support the conservative line by default, but Dean's statement seems to come from his own blue-blooded, elitist assumptions about the South, which, as my Southern brethren might say, "just ain't right."

His first mistake, if he really wants to attract a cross-section of voters, was to bring up the Confederate flag, the racially divisive symbol of the Old South. Many folks - particularly blacks who see it as relic of bad times, when it was the banner under which slavery flourished - were offended.

Second, Dean obviously has not paid much attention to the South lately, which is economically outpacing the rest of the country, and teeming with a diverse, educated citizenry.

I have two friends whom I believe more typically represent the Southern voter. On the surface they might appear to fall into the white, pick-up truck-driving category of Dean's imagination. But one of them, like Dean, is an Ivy League-educated doctor. The other is a successful independent businessman. Both are proud of their Southern heritage, make intelligent voting decisions, and are not tied to a particular political party. They'd probably like to hear Dean out.

But if Dean wants their support and the support of the average Southerner, he'd do well to get to know them better, not insult their intelligence. And he should ditch the flag example altogether.

Byron McCauley