Very disturbing comments by the DLC's Marshall Wittmann, who operates the "Bull Moose" blog under the DLC's aegis, in
this Newsweek column written by Eleanor Clift.
Eleanor Clift's column is about Democratic and union efforts to appeal to workers and shoppers at the union-hating Wal-Marts of the suburbs and exurbs. She notes that, in an effort at sprucing up its image, the SEIU recently adopted a new logo with purple as its primary color:
Everybody's rebranding these days, and the labor movement is no exception. Fifty years ago, one in three workers belonged to a union; today, it's one in 10. No other institution except maybe the Vatican is in more need of an overhaul.
With the theory you have to start somewhere, Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, recently adopted the color purple as SEIU's signature logo.
Let's take the jump here.
So far, so good, until the DLC's Wittmann chimes in with his opinion that unions should keep their hands off of Wal-Mart:
"If they target Wal-Mart, they could turn off a lot of people they want to organize," says Marshall Wittmann, a spokesman for the centrist Democratic Leadership Council.
Wittmann's "solution" -- Forget about unionizing, and start pandering to fundamentalists:
He recalls his boyhood hero, populist Democrat Ralph Yarborough, who in 1958 had on the back of his campaign flier his favorite Christian prayer. . . . Wittmann cautions that attempts to unionize in these conservative pockets of America will be portrayed as an anti-religious, pro-abortion, East Coast movement.
As if that were not bad enough, Wittmann crosses the line with his wink-and-a-nod, Trent Lott-style, "I'm not gonna say exactly what I mean but you know what I'm talkin' about" gay-bashing code:
Still, it will take more than the color purple to reclaim American workers. "Where I'm from, men don't wear purple," says Wittmann. "What's wrong with red, white and blue?"
Hey, Wittmann: We get it. We're not stupid. Everyone knows what you mean when you say "men don't wear purple." We know you're trying to score points with the anti-gay bigots. You should be ashamed of yourself. And you should publicly apologize, because there should be no place for that kind of bigotry in any wing of the Democratic Party.
The DLC ought to swiftly take action against Wittmann unless he publicly apologizes.