A few points regarding Ferraro(gate)

[Abacus]

As my avatar implies, I'm an Obama supporter. Here are a few things that have bothered me over the past few days:

1) I'm not convinced that Ferraro's comments are necessarily racist. I don't think she dismissed Barack because of his skin color; I think she dismissed him because of his qualifications and went on to attribute his success to his skin color -- in essence, she is calling Obama supporters racists.

2) I do find her comments offensive, inflammatory, and irresponsible. It is either delusional or deception to state explicitly or implicitly that Obama has no attributes that make him a very qualified candidate.

3) Hypocrisy. There have been some very real and troubling sexist comments and actions directed at Senator Clinton. There have also been a few totally benign comments regarding Clinton that have been twisted and extrapolated into terrible offenses. It is laughable that some of the individuals willing to make offenses out of nothing so readily can defend Ferraro's remarks. What if instead the remark had been made by an Obama advisor: "If Clinton was a man, he would not be in this position. And if she was black, she would not be in this position. She happens to be very lucky to be who she is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

4) If I ever had doubts that the Clinton campaign would take advantage of these remarks to create a racial divide leading up to the Pennsylvania primary, those doubts were erased this morning when Ferraro said that the Obama campaign should apologize for calling her a racist. Just like in South Carolina, the Obama campaign did no such thing. Ferraro will continue to inflame this thing as long as possible, to paint herself as the victim, to get sympathy from whites. Just like South Carolina, which was a manufactured controversy by both the Clinton campaign and the media. She accused Obama of playing the race card... How the hell did he do that? SHE was the one making both race and gender oriented comments. Axelrod called her remarks offensive and Obama said: "I don't think Geraldine Ferraro's comments have any place in our politics or in the Democratic Party. They are divisive. I think anybody who understands the history of this country knows they are patently absurd. And I would expect that the same way those comments don't have a place in my campaign, they shouldn't have a place in Senator Clinton's, either." There is no charge of racism whatsoever, simply that they are offensive and I agree with that assessment.

[olkaz]

1. She has nothing to do with anything and is distracting everybody from real issues

Seriously, Mrs. Ferraro, go away.

[DarienComp]

2. Nice post.

I actually do think that her comments are straight-up racist, if only because she said almost exactly the same thing about Jesse Jackson in 1988.

I think it's important to note that Obama himself has never accused anyone of racism, even though some of his supporters have. He called Ferraro's comments "ridiculous" and "absurd", but specifically refused to call them racist. Same thing about the 3am ad. He was asked about it and said he didn't buy that it was racial. Just remember that, the next time you see any Obama haters on this board claim that Obama "constantly cries 'racism'".

While some Clinton supporters are attempting to take words like "periodically" and turn them into sexist slurs, we should take a look at the fact that nobody from the Obama campaign has claimed that "America really might not be ready for a woman president" the way people like Gov. Rendell and others have said "America might not be ready for a black president." We have never seen Obama or any of his supporters claim that a woman would be too emotional for the job, or that foreign leaders wouldn't take Hillary seriously because she's a woman. He hasn't raised the specter of Hillary pushing the red button in a fit of PMS. And no, I'm not saying that we haven't seen any sexism or misogyny in campaign, but it's come from certain media figures and assholes like Roger Stone.

On the flip side, Obama has been accused, among other things, of being a drug-dealer by Clinton surrogates.

[Abacus]

3. 4) cont...

and Ferraro just keeps going:

"I do think this was a mistake on part of the Obama campaign," she said. "They didn't have to do this, and they did it to hurt Hillary. I just think that's bad. I think it's bad business, and I think it's bad politics.

"I was accused of being divisive. I think those tactics are divisive," she added. "And the amazing thing is it's not something I started, its something they did in reaction to this."

Ferraro also implored Obama's campaign to turn "the spigot off the hate mail I am getting."

"I find it very, very upsetting," she said. " I've been called all kinds of names, and the attacks are ageist, they're sexist, they're racist. It's been very, very uncomfortable.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/13/ferraro-obama-camp-did-it-to-hurt-hillary/

For a refresher, this is the extent of Obama's remarks on Tuesday which she has already addressed abundantly:

"I don't think Geraldine Ferraro's comments have any place in our politics or in the Democratic Party. They are divisive. I think anybody who understands the history of this country knows they are patently absurd. And I would expect that the same way those comments don't have a place in my campaign, they shouldn't have a place in Senator Clinton's, either."