Category: Politics

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Geraldine Ferraro Is A Racist

Last week Clinton supporter and former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro said this about Barack Obama:

“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.”

Of course, there is outrage in the Obama camp and with many others. I was struck my how remarkably close her remarks were to something Isiah Thomas‘ said in 1987:

”Larry Bird is a very, very good basketball player,” he said. ”But if he was black he’d be just another guy.”

It’s clear that Ferraro was echoing the Clinton campaign’s recent criticism of Obama, namely that he doesn’t have enough experience to be President. If you read her Wikipedia entry, you’ll see that she started serving in the House of Representatives in 1978. By my math, that means that she served less than six years in what is generally considered to be the lesser House in Washington when she accepted the nomination to be Vice President of the United States. In other words, her experience then was comparable to Obama’s experience now, making her a hypocrite. Or a liar.

Today, instead of apologizing or attempting to clarify her statements, 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.”

Again her logic reminded me of another “great” thinker, Ann Coulter. After slandering a group of 9/11 widows for being vocal activists, Coulter said:

“To speak out using the fact that they’re widows. This is the Left’s doctrine of infallibility. If they have a point to make about the 9-11 Commission, about how to fight the war on terrorism, how about sending in somebody we’re allowed to respond to? No, no, no, we always have to respond to someone who just had a family member die.”

Of course, Coulter was essentially saying that she can’t feel free to slander and sling mud because she will appear heartless. Ferraro is making a similar argument, claiming that she will be called a racist for merely criticizing. She’s missing the point. She brought race into the argument and used it negatively against Mr. Obama. Just like Isiah Thomas, it was a racist statement, even if she doesn’t know or acknowledge it. In the process, she has put herself into the company of Thomas and Coulter. She should be ashamed.

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Henry Hyde died

I rejoiced when I saw this story on CNN about the recent passing of Henry Hyde. Back when the House voted to impeach President Clinton, I noted the names of all those that led the fiasco: Bob Barr, Trent Lott and, more than anyone else, Henry Hyde. However, when I perused the Wikipedia article about Hyde, the Lewinski scandal was not the only misdeed in his political career. He also:

  • Said that the Constitution’s demands concerning the declaration of war were “anachronistic” and “inappropriate.”
  • Attributed his extramarital affair with a married woman to “youthful indiscretion.” He was 41 at the time of the affair.

Republicans are supposed to be “strict constructionists” and “family values”, right?

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Bill O’Reilly is all about the money

If there was ever any doubt, there should be none now. Bill O’Reilly has lately been vociferously criticizing Mark Cuban for financing Redacted, a movie about American soldiers in Iraq. O’Reilly hasn’t seen the movie but he believes that it is anti-American and “will incite anti-American hatred around the world.” He called for a boycott of the movie and encouraged people to picket theaters that show it. That’s a good idea if you really believe that something is bad – cut off the money.

But Mark Cuban called his bluff. Cuban paid Fox News to show ads for Redacted and specifically asked that they be shown on The O’Reilly Factor. Cuban expected that the sales department would accept his request but Fox would later call back with a refusal to show the ad. That never happened. The movie ads ran on both the live broadcast and the subsequent rerun.

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This American Life coming to Portland

A couple of days ago I read this post at Metroblogging Portland which described an impending controversy over the venue that our local public radio station, OPB, chose for an upcoming episode of This American Life. You can read more about the show here, but This American Life is an NPR radio show hosted by Ira Glass. Each episode has a theme that is illustrated via the telling of several real-life stories. I’ve long been a fan and, judging from the content of the show, it would not be a stretch to imagine that Mr. Glass is sympathetic to gay/lesbian political issues.

Thus, many were surprised that OPB chose New Hope Church as the venue for Mr. Glass’ visit to Portland. You see New Hope actively supported the campaign to pass Ballot Measure 36 which outlawed gay marriage in Oregon. New Hope not only donated $5000 to the campaign, their pastor actively preached from the pulpit in support of Measure 36. Therefore, it is not hard to imagine that those of us who support equal rights for gays and lesbians might consider New Hope to be “the enemy”, as it were.

So many were surprised, in fact, that the news was posted all over the local “progressive” blogs including the influential BlueOregon. Local newspapers also picked up the story including The Oregonian, who reported that OPB had no intention of changing the venue. Now their actions had moved from “unwitting” to “intentionally unreasonable” and the blogosphere reacted accordingly. Many people emailed Mr. Glass’ management and one weekly newspaper, the Portland Mercury, successfully contacted his management and informed them of the situation. Undoubtedly, Mr. Glass was completely oblivious to the situation prior to this because he simply trusts the local NPR affiliates to do the right thing. Unfortunately, OPB had not done the right thing this time.

It did not take long after that for OPB to post this on their blog explaining that OPB and and Mr. Glass had jointly decided to dump New Hope in favor of the Oregon Convention Center. Putting aside the question of whether this was an actual joint decision, OPB further antagonized the blogosphere by accusing them of “spreading the usual blogosphere load of rumors, misinformation and hype.” Since I wanted to judge for myself whether their accusation had merit, I followed their link to the original blog post that first brought the controversy to public attention. What a surprise to find that the blogger in question was a woman that I met this summer at a very small blogger BBQ hosted by PAgent. Tina and I had a tremendous time at that BBQ and really enjoyed Lelo and her partner’s company. They also had their delightful dog, Wink, with them as well as his litter mate, whom they were dogsitting.

The fact that I knew this person made the controversy personal for me but I had not yet become involved, preferring to just read about it but abstaining from commenting either here or on the other blogs. That came to an end when my favorite conservative blogger, Rob Kremer, decided to take the opportunity to blast the left for being “intolerant” because of their actions in the matter. I read Rob’s blog whenever he updates it (I have an RSS feed for it) and have long considered him a reasoned conservative voice. I personally dislike the unconstructive tone that most of the right and left take in the blogosphere. Ultimately, my goal is to seek the truth although I won’t deny that I will often try to sway others to my side during the search. The point is that the goal must be the seeking, not the swaying. Too often both sides are too concerned with “winning” the argument and resort to all sorts of logical fallacies in order to succeed. Mostly I try to ignore that aspect and pay attention to the meat of the argument. And that’s also why I try to find reasoned arguments on both sides so that I can make an intelligent choice. Rob’s blog has often been the reasoned argument on the right for me and that is frankly why I was so disappointed that he chose to depart from his normally constructive approach.

So I left him a comment on how I felt on the matter and expressed my extreme disappointment in him. He responded respectfully enough and again referenced the argument he was getting over at BlueOregon. I’m not a big fan of BlueOregon, particularly for their treatment of Oregon Senator Smith, but I didn’t really see anything approaching intolerance. I did, however, agree with the point Rob made there about calling someone a bigot who disagrees about this issue and posted a comment on BlueOregon indicating so. I continued on with the conversation on both blogs before deciding that I had enough to say that I should just post it here.

Related links:

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You have to let that raga drop

As we hid from the rain in my sister’s giant RV this morning, somebody switched on the TV and we watched George Bush arrive at the new ground zero in Minneapolis. It occurred to me that if I lived in the middle of a disaster area, I would shudder if George Bush showed up. Nothing says “incompetence” quite like the Bush administration.

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Wonkette on David Vitter

Most of the time, Wonkette is snarky without being very funny. Today is the exception. Hilarious!

Note: David Vitter is the Senator who was outed by Larry Flynt in the DC Madame scandal. During the Clinton impeachment, Vitter’s wife swore that she would never stand “take it” like Hillary Clinton did.

Another note: Article contains lots of swearing.