Samantha, thanks for stepping back. Gerry, thanks for nothing.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been having some fights lately. But mostly fair fights. She is questioning his credentials to be commander-in-chief; He is questioning her on tax returns. Not pleasant discussions in either case. But they are clearly real issues and most importantly, they are between the candidates themselves.
That is what we want in this race -- for Clinton and Obama to make their own case.
When folks try, on their behalf, to make a case through personal attacks, they aren't just hurting their own candidates, they are hurting all of us.
Samantha Power made a big mistake. She said something mean and personal and hurtful. And then she had the grace to apologize and step back.
Unfortunately Gerry Ferraro said something mean and personal and hurtful and she has been graceless and offensive in her own persistent defense. Not to mention tarring Hillary Clinton with a comment that the senator doesn't and shouldn't ascribe to reality.
Yet, Ferraro is bewilderingly insistent on staying in this fight. Even resigning from her support for Hillary so she can keep making a mess that Hillary is blamed for. As they say, with friends like these...
Have I said yet how heartbreaking it is for me to write this about Gerry Ferraro? I was 24-years-old at my first Democratic Convention serving with honor as a podium assistant when she stood up to receive the nomination to be vice president. I couldn't have been more proud.
Her formulation that Barack Obama wouldn't have the success he's experiencing if he were a white man is frightening. That somehow, his accomplishments in life and his standing before us as a presidential contender is a form of affirmative action isn't just offensive, it is bizarre. Fatherless at two, and dragged around the world. He made his own life. He is in this race because he is a touchstone politician. And I said that with admiration. In Obama we have a candidate who doesn't just understand that politics is about each of us, he actually has the talent and natural gifts to make us believe it, too. Hillary Clinton offers us a commitment to new policies we've been hungry for these last eight years. Her forward thinking on solutions, her determination on our behalf and her endurance as a leader get my support. Both offerings are worthy. Both of their offerings are also shaped by their experiences as a black man and a white woman only in the best way, NOT the easy way.
Dr. Imani Perry, a professor at Rutgers University wrote yesterday:
"...we can look at this another way: If Barack Obama were a white man, these gifts he possesses might not have developed in the way they did. Each person comes into the world with a unique spirit. The interface of that spirit with the body into which he or she is born and the society and family in which he or she lives and grows, creates the human personality. Perhaps Obama's encounters with bigotry and the diversity of his experiences shaped many of the qualities we admire in him. Perhaps being born on American soil as Barack Hussein Obama, a biracial second generation American in a body that is always perceived as a 'Black man', gifted him with a second sight that voters are looking to in troubled times."
Robin Morgan, the accomplished feminist writer said of Hillary's Clinton's value as a female president:
"...Women have endured hatred, rape and battery, being the majority of the poor, of refugees, of caregivers, and the powerless. We know that at this historical moment women experience the world differently from men -- though not all the same as one another -- and can govern differently..."
If either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is in this race because of their race or their gender, then it is only because it is an inexorable part of them pushing internally to succeed. They weren't given any extra breaks.
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Geraldine Ferraro was a career hack who brings no achievements to mind.....unless being appointed (rather than elected) to a national ticket was an achievement....she is an embarrasment.....cannot see where she added any value to Hillary except calling on her rich cronies for more $$....no great loss....let's give her credit for lowering the level of discourse to prejudice and division....
Ferraro is speaking to those people who suffer economically, working-class people who worry day-to-day, especially here in Michigan where their next paycheck is coming from. And they are easily swayed to believe that they suffer economically because someone else, namely a person of color, “took” their job away.
This is reminiscent of Jesse Helms’ ad created by Dick Morris [later advisor to the Clinton’s] scapegoating the black candidate, Harvey Gantt by suggesting that blacks were stealing whites’ jobs because of affirmative action.
This kind of pandering will play well in Pennsylvania, unfortunately. I am not sure if Ferraro believed what she said or was merely playing politics. But in either case, she has hurt the Democratic Party and race relations in our nation. A sad commentary on a woman who was a pioneer in the cause of human rights and dignity.
Ferraro's remarks fit into a Clinton campaign of belittlement and condescension that is stomach-churning.
Unless Barack, Hillary of John make the comment let it go and let's address more important issues.
Her comments just added confusion and insult.
Mrs. Ferraro should consider herself lucky.
I also got to thinking about the fortune that Geraldine Ferraro's husband,
John Zaccoro made in pornography.
For Geraldine Ferraro to be able to live a lavish
lifestyle with wealth made her lucky.
Not very sensitive or empathetic or full of integrity.
But lucky.
And then Geraldine Ferraro, calls herself
a victim!
"Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?" --Geraldine Ferraro
Geraldine Ferrarro was right that him being black is why he is where he is and also backed it up by saying she was picked for VP in 1994 because she was a woman. Big deal. You can debate the fine points of this, how much of Obama's rise is race, and how much is his oratory skills and political savvy. But it certainly isn't the content of his vision for America, because so far there is nothing there.
Meanwhile the revelations of the pastor at Obama's church seem to be ignored by everyone here. The vile, un-American, and looney audio clips from his recent sermon were played yesterday. Obama has attended this church for 20 years. Rev Wright married him and MIchelle, baptized their kids, and is Obama's spiritual leader. I assume he will try distance himself from the pastor, but he should have walked out years ago if he doesn't agree with the things Rev. Wright says.
That "nothing" certainly inspired plenty of voters, both white and black, to vote for Obama as opposed to a cheerless, dreary political pointillist with an overbearing sense of entitlement. The proof is in the pudding and the ingredients are more delegates, more states and more of a popular vote.
"...Meanwhile the revelations of the pastor at Obama's church seem to be ignored by everyone here. The vile, un-American, and looney audio clips from his recent sermon were played yesterday. Obama has attended this church for 20 years. Rev Wright married him and MIchelle, baptized their kids, and is Obama's spiritual leader. I assume he will try distance himself from the pastor, but he should have walked out years ago if he doesn't agree with the things Rev. Wright says. ..."
This is a problem. Obama has partial insulation, should he get to the general election and John McCain [he of the Hagee and Parsley close encounters] but he has to get there, first. You can argue til the cows come home about the validity of the Reverend's observations but if you're trying to run for President of a nation comprised mainly of willing delusionists re certain unpleasantries about that nation, you can't do anything but cut ties with the man and his statements. Completely. And, that will be a sticky wicket given, as you've pointed out, the man's closeness to Obama [marrying him and Michelle and baptising his kids]
Comparing the unprofessional and unkind remarks by Samantha Powers to the ignorant and bigoted comments by Geraldine Ferraro, and the brazen defense of the bigotry when called on it, is quite a stretch of logic.
I fully appreciate and respect attemps at deescalating the negative rhetoric, and raising the level of conversation. However, this should not be done at the cost of common sense, common fairness, and common logic.
As to your assertion that "they weren't given any extra breaks",...perhaps you could ask your readers to consider all we honestly know of the country and world we live in, which would you rather have/be; the white daughter of a political connected family named Hillary Rhodam Clinton, or the black son of a Kenyan, named Barack Hussein Obama. Honestly.
This attack clearly benefitted Obama.
Gerry attacked back and said she will not take his attack quietly. He owes her an apology. He started the fight by picking on her words. Which were very complimentary of him.
Obama started the fight. People need to see it for what it was. Obama needs to apologize for starting the fight.
The press can document all the times Obama has picked on words that Hillary or Bill have said. It is nothing more than Obama picking on and trying to bully Hillary and her supporters. Bill has put up with the most. Bill is a real man. He is the spouse I trust. He is the one doing the right thing. He is not fighting back even when Obama keeps trying to stir up racial divide.
Obama is getting a free pass every time he calls someone a racist. Then people sympathize with him and do not recognize the fact that Obama has started the fight.
Someone really needs to stop Obama. Bullies need to be stopped.
I can't believe that anyone would suggest Obama should apologize - I'm offended! Obama a bully, geesh! That is so far off, you must not ever watch the news. Obama is a bully and Ferrara needs an apology...wow!
They HAVE been playing the race/Muslim card whenever possible. Who do you think created and sent out the notorious anti-Obama email in the first place.
You can say it a thousand times, but the fact is Obama didn't bring up race, Ferraro did. And her painfully ridiculous spin that she meant it in a positive way makes it even worse. Reminds me of Bob Kerrey's madrassa comments of a few months ago. Subtle.
Bill Clinton made an offhand remark in SC that cost the campaign dearly.
Now, the Obama folks think that was an intent to "marginalize" him. Hm? Ok.
If that was the case, do you REALLY think they would do that again.
Why do people think this was a "tactic", when the campaing clearly would know that it is not a good one.
And dont say her voters are "racist" or that folks in PA respond to that. Its insulting....to them and yourselves
Now, the Obama folks think that was an intent to "marginalize" him. Hm? Ok.
If that was the case, do you REALLY think they would do that again
Yes, I do REALLY think they would do that again. The clinton campaign has been so poorly run that yes, I do believe they would make the same stupid move over and over again.
He plainly miscalculated. And dearly.
This isn't about racism, per se; although, the issue of race lurks behind Clinton's S.C. motivation and his wife's efforts to pulverise Obama's candidacy. This is about a lack of faith and an overabundance of cynicism. Clinton, his wife, the black and white political figures in and around Hillary's campaign have lost the sense of possibility and idealism [if they ever had it] of their respective youths. Concomitantly, they've also lost the sense of right and wrong, particularly where it applies to race [I'm not talking about the likes of a Mark Penn, he's a slug on the order of NY's Liberal Party guru, Ray Harding but the Clintons, Charley Rangel et al]. In short, this is about a sense of not believing that America could elect a black man President and Commander in Chief.
Once Obama became a very real threat to Hillary's aspirations for Higher Office, the gloves came off and she and her surrogates began hefting the ol kitchen sink....and, they did it knowing that, unlke S.C., they could score in the type of state represented by the likes of Ohio and Pennsylvania and hold down the score in a Mississippi.
So, yes, in S.C. it was about marginalisation; now, of course, it's about full-bore annihilation and, insulting or not, the Clinton campaign has a pretty good shot at doing it in Pennsylvania..
Hillary Clinton knew Ferraro's background. Anyone who was an adult and a political junkie back then [and double down on this observation if that anyone was a woman] knew about Gerry Ferraro, her nomination and the storm of press scrutiny which ensued.
Ferraro wouldn't have been opening her mouth to a California Penny Saver if she hadn't had some signal that she could do so and the Clinton campaign wouldn't have sat on this, as Lewis Black would put it, big, stinking pile sitting in the middle of the national discourse for ten plus days.
Pennsylvania, with its particular demographics, was looming in the foreground and it was full steam ahead.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2008/03/14/ferraro_clinton/
Any native New Yorker, and Joe Conason, a Clinton backer and, while at the Voice, a long time resident of New York City, spells it out--and, it's all accurate.
Both Ferraro and Power upset us because there is a kernel of truth in what each says. Obama would not have come so far so fast if it were not for his race. And yes, Hillary is a monster. She is a grotesque, divisive creature whose selfish ambition may place a permanent fissure in the Democratic Party and ensure Republican victory this fall.
Out