“Hate speech is not protected by the first amendment,” so said Howard Dean in a tweet posted Thursday night.

That, from a former governor, DNC chairman, and presidential candidate, is a baffling statement. Dean is patently incorrect and has not since corrected his claim. It is the type of misinformed legal analysis one might expect to hear during a high school debate tournament, or on Salon.com, but not from a prominent politician with a political science degree from Yale.

Recommended Stories

Another failed argument for campus censorship

If ‘face-lift’ tweet about ‘Morning Joe’ and Mika Brzezinski tweet doesn’t cross the line, does Trump have one at all?

On #MeToo, Jodie Foster says ‘Justice by Twitter is not the right way to go’