Ferraro's foolish remarks contribute nothing to campaign
With an African-American male and a white female competing for the Democratic presidential nomination, we were sure to discuss affirmative action.
And not in the conventional sense. Few people seem interested in what Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama think about ballot initiatives this year that would ban racial preferences in government projects and public schools in five states. What people want to know is whether Clinton or Obama themselves benefited from some gender or racial preference. They include the reader who sent this tacky missive: "Whoever wins the Democrat nomination, affirmative action wins."
Speaking of tacky. Before becoming the 1984 Democratic vice presidential nominee, Geraldine Ferraro served three terms in Congress representing a blue-collar enclave in Queens -- the Archie Bunker district. Last week, Ferraro sounded like him.
She told the Daily Breeze in Torrance, Calif., that "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."
Obama called the comments "patently absurd."
I was still caught up in the notion that being a self-described "skinny kid with a funny name" and a black man running for president was akin to hitting the lottery when Ferraro decided the hole she was in wasn't deep enough.
Again in the Daily Breeze, she said: "Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up. Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?"
Remember all those years when Ferrarro was fighting for women's rights and men said they were being victimized by "reverse discrimination?" Remember how silly those big crybabies sounded to her and other feminists?
That's how she sounds. She's being attacked because she said something that sounded bitter, envious, foolish and hypocritical. As GOP strategist and CNN contributor Leslie Sanchez noted, it takes chutzpah for someone who benefited from the politics of gender to accuse someone else of benefiting from politics of race.
No one says you can't criticize Obama. But you have to fight fair. Want to critique his health care plan? No one will accuse you of racism. Yet, if you accuse him of being an ex-drug dealing Muslim who attended a madrassa in Indonesia and then try to diminish his appeal by comparing him to Jesse Jackson in order to court southern white voters, that might do it.
As pressure mounted, a defiant Ferraro sent Hillary Clinton a letter saying that she was leaving the campaign's national finance committee "so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself." She accused the Obama campaign of attacking her to hurt Hillary.
What happened to: "they're attacking me because I'm white?"
You could argue that our country is a victim of its own success. Americans were so successful in dismantling Jim Crow they've raised a couple of generations that believe being black or Latino in our society gives you a golden ticket -- to college, a well-paying job, a nice house in the suburbs. These people live in a fantasy world. They tell themselves their kids could have become editor of the Harvard Law Review if some skinny black kid with a funny name hadn't taken their spot.
Our political leaders are supposed to douse those fires with perspective and common sense.
Geraldine Ferraro opted for gasoline.
© 2008, Washington Post Writers Group