Despite Dean's assertion - Hitchcock wasn't doing his job - the DNC has yet to produce any records indicating internal discussions regarding Hitchcock's future. More damning, perhaps, is the fact Chief of Staff Leah Daughtry that when she and McMahon approached Hitchcock about resigning, which he refused to do, leading to his firing, McMahon told Hitchcock, "We haven't been planning [your firing] for weeks." One would think such a decision - firing the organization's ranking gay - would have required considerable planning, but we could be mistaken.
Dean's hazy recollection of Yandura's letter isn't the only example of the Chairman's convenient amnesia. Take, for example, his "understanding" of the American Majority Partnership, the initiative he spearheaded to consolidate the DNC's constituency outreach desks. Dean explains the AMP as an effort to "do unified outreach to all our constituency groups." Former DNC leader Chris Owens, who acted as the AMP's founding director, remembers things a little differently.
In a confidential exit memo obtained by Queerty, Owens offers Daughtry and McMahon this definition:
The original plan had been for the AMP to focus on outreach to three communities only: Women, African Americans and Hispanics. However, for a variety of reasons, we decided to add a stafer to handle AAPI outreach and later, we created a dotted line relationship between the GLLC Executive Director and AMP, in order to house LGBT political outreach within our larger constituency outreach effort.
That "dotted line" relationship became quite contentious for Hitchcock, who wanted a closer relationship with the AMP. DNC officials justify keeping him housed in the Finance Department because he - unlike other constituency leaders - had a staff. That definitely makes sense - as does Daughtry's explanation that there simply wasn't enough physical space in the AMP's office - but the fact that his request was not granted only reinforced Hitchcock’s theories: the DNC would rather “use the gays as an ATM” than give them a place at the political table.
Howard Dean was pressed on the matter of Hitchcock’s role in the DNC, but repeatedly testified that he didn’t personally know the margins of Hitchcock’s duties, which is quite queer considering that Dean not only acts as Chairman, but, again, implemented the AMP. If Dean's to be believed and the AMP was meant to include all the constituencies, we would at least hope he could remember the purview of his staff's positions. Or be slightly in touch, at least. It seems to us that much of the resultant lavender anger stems directly from Dean's apparent ineptitude.
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Howard's HOT!!
OMG! Politicians lying under oath? I'm shocked!
"That dotted line' relationship became quite contentious for Hitchcock, who wanted a closer relationship with the AMP…but the fact that his request was not granted only reinforced Hitchcock’s theories"
In other words, the little boy was hired to do one job, but he wanted to do a different job and he cried and stomped his feet until Uncle Howard said he could help out a little bit with the AMP. But the temper tantrums kept coming and the little boy would barge into other people's staff meetings. You see, he wasn't an employee with a job to do. He was DONALD — the precious little child.
Behavior like that wouldn't be tolerated for a day with any other employer. Dean's biggest wrong was that he pampered this infant for far too long.
KONRAD = DNC shill. H'Mo = bad taste in politics and in men.
Bill,
The DNC can't just come out for gay rights. We have leprosy and are the untouchables. When we die, they just step over us, like on the streets of Calcutta.
Charley, I find your comment tasteless.
As a South Asian-American, I resent your casual use of "the exotic" to try to make a point, and find your reference misinformed and tacky.
And as an openly gay DNC employee, I can assure you that my GLBT co-workers and I have always been treated as family and part of the team.
Desi Dem,
Sometimes people in the party let us gays fall to the wayside so that they can keep their jobs.
great posting on DNC and Donna Brazille at CitizenCrain.com.
http://citizenchris.typepad.co.....appoi.html
The deposition given last month by Democratic Party chair Howard Dean shed some ugly light on longtime operative Donna Brazile, who headed up Al Gore's 2000 election and is a regular political analyst on CNN.
Dean admitted it was Brazile who objected most strenuously to a proposal put forward by gay Democrats to add GLBT delegates to affirmative action guidelines states follow when selecting those who attend the party's national convention:
Dean said some “influential individuals” within the DNC Black Caucus, such as Donna Brazile, opposed the plan because it was seen as “an affront to the civil rights movement.”
Brazile, who chairs the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute, declined to comment for this article.
Well what I want to no is why the Democratic Party Embraces Black Homphobic Churches and Pastors for there Votes and Condem The Republicans for doing the same thing with White Evangelical Christians and there Pastors and why is it Ok? Hate and Homophobia is wrong no matter which race uses it and should not be tolerated but it seems as if its Ok and acceptable in the Democratic Party or am I wrong?