Geraldine Ferraro Defends Her Racist Remarks on Obama

EDITOR's NOTE: This blog features several posts covering the ongoing controversy surrounding racially insensitive remarks made by Hillary Clinton supporter and fundraiser, former Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro.

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Chris Bowers @ Open Left:

This is sad:

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

At what point, exactly, did Geraldine Ferraro become a Reagan Democrat? when you lose to Republicans that badly, Do you get turned into one in some sort of Borg-like fashion?

Mainly, this response depresses me, since it comes from someone who is otherwise known as a trailblazer fighting the good fight at a time when it was unpopular to do so. I don't want to think of Geraldine Ferraro this way, but this response is crazy.

I guess that Ferraro thinks, as Marc Ambinder wrote, that "running as a black guy named Barack Hussein Obama is soooo easy." Or perhpas she thinks that the only reason Obama is winning the campaign is because so many African-Americans are voting for him. Even if that is true, doesn't it occur to Ferraro that one of the main reasons African-Americans are voting overwhelmingly for Obama is because of statements like this from Clinton surrogates? Here is some love from Ferraro from Jack and Jill politics:

So, being Black is now a CONCEPT.

A CONCEPT, People.

Well, she can CONCEPT this.

Kiss.My.Lucky.Black.Ass.

This is pretty depressing, but it makes me feel even stronger about my Reagan Dem post from Friday, and the implications it has for the campaign. And Ferraro's inability to win Reagan Democrats despite statements like this is a perfect case in point of my central thesis.

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Paddy @ Cliff Schecter's Blog:

Last night I posted this. Now Barack Obama's campaign responds:

A senior adviser to Barack Obama's presidential campaign called on Hillary Clinton to "repudiate" a comment by one of her top fundraisers that Barack Obama would not be a major presidential contender if he were not black.

"I think if Sen. Clinton is serious about putting an end to statements that have racial implications," Susan Rice, an Obama foreign policy adviser, told MSNBC Tuesday, "...then she ought to repudiate this comment."