Ferraro Fiasco: the Ex-VP Nominee Claims "They're Attacking Me Because I'm White"

Posted by Pachacutec , Firedoglake at 9:12 AM on March 12, 2008.

"Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?" -Geraldine Ferraro

There's really not much more to say about this that has not already been said elsewhere, but I just wanted to pile on a bit, as it's gotten beyond disgusting. Ferraro's unrepentant comments are beyond the pale and the Clinton campaign should take serious, serious crap for keeping her on the campaign finance committee. This kind of unreconstructed, race blind idiocy (at best, blatantly ignorant racism at worst) needs to be called out by Senator Clinton, personally, in my view.

• Shakesville has some thoughts (h/t Atrios).
• Speaking of Atrios, "The Unbearable Whiteness of Being" gets my vote for snarky blog headline of the day.
• Markos digs up a prior quote of Ferraro's about Jesse Jackson and lowers the boom.
• Mother Jones offers some video blog commentary on the matter.
• I'll leave you all with Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow from Countdown last night (UPDATE: C&L has the video):
  
  

OLBERMANN: I can't then, without having you here, let you have an opportunity to vocalize your thoughts on what Howard Fineman was reporting about the comments today, the second set of comments today from Geraldine Ferraro, implying that the Clinton campaign is repudiating her and firing her from its finance committee because it doesn't mind this idea of Barack Obama being an equal opportunity hire being out there, you know, without Senator Clinton's name directly on it.

MADDOW: For anybody to be saying that Barack Obama is only where he is because he is black, that black men are so privileged in America, that that's the only thing that explains his success, because he's otherwise unqualified, which is the implication of her comment, would be absolutely offensive, more than regrettable, from anybody commenting seriously on the campaigning. Honestly, you know it would be.

But for this to come from somebody who's an official part of the campaign, and for the campaign to not disavow that person and distance themselves is--it's an incredible decision and it therefore does make us question whether they are doing it on purpose for some reason.

OLBERMANN: Yes, if we heard this from Robert Novak, if we heard this from Glen Beck, if we heard this from Bill O'Reilly, we'd be appalled. I don't think we'd necessarily hear it from some of them. I'm damming them with faint praise.

Yup.

UPDATE: The Ferraro story has continued on the morning news shows. Ferraro has said she is "absolutely not" sorry for her comments:

"I am sorry that people think this was a racist comment," Ferraro said in an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America."

She continued:

"David Axelrod, his campaign manager, has chose to spin this as a racist comment because everytime anybody makes a comment about race who is white _ he did it with Bill Clinton, he was successful; he did it with (Pennsylvania governor and Clinton supporter) Ed Rendell, he was less successful; and he is certainly not going to be successful with me," Ferraro told CBS' "The Early Show." "He should have called me up ... He knows I'm not racist."

Obama referred to Ferraro's comments as "slice and dice politics" on the Today Show:

"Part of what I think Geraldine Ferraro is doing, and I respect the fact that she was a trailblazer, is to participate in the kind of slice and dice politics that's about race and about gender and about this and that, and that's what Americans are tired of because they recognize that when we divide ourselves in that way we can't solve problems," Obama said on NBC's "Today" show.

Tagged as: race, racism, olbermann, clinton, obama, maddow, jackson, ferraro

Pachacutec is a regular contributing blogger for FireDogLake