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March 12, 2008

Rush Hour

CBS's The Early Show just had Geraldine Ferraro on, where they gave her, maybe, a minute to talk about her recent statements re: Barack Obama. Look, I don’t know enough about Ferraro's statement to have an opinion whether they were racist or not, but the CBS hack job was blue journalism at it's worst. I mean, they should have bumped something to make room for her--the issue is way too divisive and complex to be compressed into 60 seconds, the interviewer stepping all over Ferraro as she tried to form a coherent statement.

A win for Ferraro, I think, because the interview (conducted by a black reporter) seemed terribly biased. One of the reasons I don’t watch morning coffee clatch shows: they try and shove too much in. The constant rushing of Ferraro made ME nervous and anxious.

Now they've moved on to Elliot Spitzer and why his wife stands by him. They have all the time in the world. It's a relaxes, drawn-out conversation.

Morons...

14 Comments

Tom:

I don't know how much there is to say. Her statement was…

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) 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."

Does anyone really disagree with this?

Obama rose to the top WAY too quickly for race to have not played some factor. He's a brilliant orator, there's no doubt, but he's no JFK and even John F Kennedy had to spend 6 years in the House and 8 years in the Senate before running.

Obama is a first term senator who was only in the Senate for half his term before running for President.

Before that he'd never held a position higher than State Senator. He's never been a Governor, never run a company, never even made partner in a law firm (he never got higher than associate because he went into politics). The man has virtually no credentials.

Expect the only one that counts: the gift of gab.

I think Obama's got a lot of credentials the press and therefore the public easily dismiss. as he said, "my opponent apparently believes experience only begins in Washington."

Not completely disagreeing with you. Actually, to be perfectly honest, I think the country's got a real meager selection this time 'round. And, of the three, Hillary is indeed probably the better idea (if only because of McCa's age. If John was 10 years younger, I'd be working for his campaign).

Isaac Lawrence:

On Geraldine Ferraro:

As a black male I don't really feel her comments were necessarily racist. Racially charged I've seen batted about, and I can maybe go with that... Ultimately though they were just weird to me, and wrong.

And weird and wrong in the sense, and I saw a pundit say this on 'Hardball' last night (I love Chris Matthews, to me he's the straightest shooter out of all the cable political show hosts). Anyway, one of the pundits said that if Barrack Obama were white (and added if he came from a well-to-do family), then he would be John F. Kennedy.

And I totally agree with that. And Barack Obama is of course extremely popular and engaging, and charismatic and everything else. But if he were white, I don't think he'd be out in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania or wherever campaigning against Hillary Clinton right now. No, he'd be at home picking out which tie he's going to wear at his inauguration in January. (This would have been wrapped up on Super Tuesday and they wouldn't even need to hold a general election in the fall.)

Anyway, one thing I hope doesn't come out of this is Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson getting into it. I hope and pray that doesn't happen.

(Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton do not speak for all black people, America!)

Barack Obama shut it down perfectly though, I felt, this morning on the 'Today Show.'

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23590166/

That should be the final word on it. Of course it probably won't be, but it should be.

Oh, and Priest: I've lurked here for a little over a year and I think I've seen you say that you were a 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' fan. I've also seen you say that you cancelled your cable subscription, so I imagine you may not be aware of this.

Anyway, yeah, Keith Olbermann is kind of in the tank for Obama. I of course have no problem with it, but I just thought I'd put it out there...

On Eliot Spitzer:

Pity for him, I guess. More for his family obviously than him.

He did bring it on himself though. And he made lots of enemies, so very few people are going to be there for him when he needs them.

It might be interesting to see what Hillary says. Eliot Spitzer did endorse her and was a super-delegates for her. David Paterson (the Lt. Gov, and also endorses Hillary, I believe) will probably just take his place as a super-delegate for her, but we shall see.

Isaac Lawrence:

On Geraldine Ferraro:

As a black male I don't really feel her comments were necessarily racist. Racially charged I've seen batted about, and I can maybe go with that... Ultimately though they were just weird to me, and wrong.

And weird and wrong in the sense, and I saw a pundit say this on 'Hardball' last night (I love Chris Matthews, to me he's the straightest shooter out of all the cable political show hosts). Anyway, one of the pundits said that if Barrack Obama were white (and added if he came from a well-to-do family), then he would be John F. Kennedy.

And I totally agree with that. And Barack Obama is of course extremely popular and engaging, and charismatic and everything else. But if he were white, I don't think he'd be out in Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania or wherever campaigning against Hillary Clinton right now. No, he'd be at home picking out which tie he's going to wear at his inauguration in January. (This would have been wrapped up on Super Tuesday and they wouldn't even need to hold a general election in the fall.)

Anyway, one thing I hope doesn't come out of this is Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson getting into it. I hope and pray that doesn't happen.

(Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton do not speak for all black people, America!)

Barack Obama shut it down perfectly though, I felt, this morning on the 'Today Show.'

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23590166/

That should be the final word on it. Of course it probably won't be, but it should be.

Oh, and Priest: I've lurked here for a little over a year and I think I've seen you say that you were a 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' fan. I've also seen you say that you cancelled your cable subscription, so I imagine you may not be aware of this.

Anyway, yeah, Keith Olbermann is kind of in the tank for Obama. I of course have no problem with it, but I just thought I'd put it out there...

On Eliot Spitzer:

Pity for him, I guess. More for his family obviously than him.

He did bring it on himself though. And he made lots of enemies, so very few people are going to be there for him when he needs them.

It might be interesting to see what Hillary says. Eliot Spitzer did endorse her and was a super-delegates for her. David Paterson (the Lt. Gov, and also endorses Hillary, I believe) will probably just take his place as a super-delegate for her, but we shall see.

Tom:

I don’t know that I agree with “got a lot of credentials the press and therefore the public easily dismiss”

I mean, doing anything worthwhile is admirable but it doesn’t qualify you to be President. Essentially, from what I understand, the Barack Obama timeline goes like this…

1983 – Graduates College (as near as I can tell he did nothing of note in that time)

1985 – Becomes director of Developing Communities (see website: http://www.dcpincorp.org/About_us.html)

1988 – Enters Law School (where he becomes president of the Harvard Law Review)

1991 – Graduates and becomes director of a voter registration drive

1993 – Becomes a low level associate at a law firm

1996 – Runs for State Senate

2005 – Runs for U.S. Senate

Now, I’m not saying the above isn’t impressive but at the same time…it isn’t much. I mean, I respect people who run church programs and voting drives about as much as you can but I also understand the difference between that and being the CEO of a large corporation or the Governor of a State.

Had he distinguished himself in either the Illinois state house or the Senate that might be another story but in both cases he essentially has no major legislation to his name. In fact, he lost when he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000 largely because he couldn’t point to anything he’d accomplished.

I mean, MY resume is more impressive than his at my age for God’s sakes.

nd yet he's beating Hillary. :-)

What's really worrisome: everything you said there has doubtless already been worked into McCain ads which will rip and shred this guy.

No, there's more to his resume in terms of community work and so forth. I could look it up, but I've been trying to eat breakfast all day and now it's five o'clock...

Hysan:

I don't disagree with anything she's saying. It just seemed like another ill-timed jab from the Clinton camp...it's a non-issue.

I really, REALLY wish Hillary was doing better because Barack is gonna get his lungs handed to him.

Craig:

Yeah, but... Hillary Clinton wouldn't be where she is without having been a president's wife. George Bush wouldn't have been where he is without the family name. Bill Clinton wouldn't be where he is without the Southern accent. And John McCain wouldn't be where he is if he was a black man, a president's wife or a member of the Bush family. (The Southern accent would probably be a plus, though.)

Every presidential candidate has portions of their biographies that gives them a leg up, a boost others don't get. That Ferraro is only bothered by Obama's race and none of the rest, is a pretty dumb position to take. I'll leave it to others to decide if it was racist.

Tom:

@Craig - I don't think your comparisons are fair (except maybe in Hilary's case). The difference is in prior experience. George W. Bush wouldn't be President if not for his Family but he was a successful Governor and a reasonably successful businessman before he became President. Obama has no such record.

So, as an example, imagine the owner of a huge company who has a son. I think it’s fine for that person to put his son in the company as a low level executive and have him work his way up to the CEO position (obviously getting preferential treatment along the way). In the same scenario it would be horribly irresponsible for that person to put his Son in charge of the company right out of college.

That said, for me, I think there’s a bigger issue here. My main problem with Obama is that he seems to take every bit of criticism sent his way and pivot to racism. I think Ferraro’s comments were factual but I can’t see how they were at all racist. Does anyone really believe that she (or Bill Clinton before her) is actually a racist?

Obama can’t claim to hate racism and then turn around and use it as a tool whenever it suits him.

I've heard nothing from Obama's camp that suggested he was pivoting toward racism. He called her remarks "absurd," but I didn't get any sense he was accusing her of racism, only of being a bonehead.

FERRARO is running around saying "The Obama camp is doing thus and so," which gives HER the opportunity to make this about race. This would be a brilliant political move were Ferraro not coming across like a kook. Now, I have to imagine the Clintons want her to please shut up. She keeps digging deeper.

Obama blew this off. It's Ferraro who's making hay out of it.

Oh, and George Bush was a lousy businessman, losing money and, IIRC, bankrupting at least one company. He was, I'm certain, at best mediocre.

As for Obama's inexperience: I personally believe it's a plus. He comes to work with real possibilities, not the baggage of years of favors owed and hopes dashed. Will he screw up? Sure. But so will anybody else who gets the job. The truth is, there's really not much you can do to prepare for the presidency. It's a gig you *must* learn on the job.

Tom:

OK, take another trait such as wealth. If Hilary was running against a rich, white man and one of her advisors said “He’s only a candidate because he’s rich”. What would that candidate do? They certainly wouldn’t blow it off as irrelevant; their opponent just accused them of not having enough experience to be President and of using their wealth to get there.

What that hypothetical candidate would do would be to release a response to the core question of why he IS experienced enough to be President and why his wealth is irrelevant. The fact that Obama felt no need to even respond is him implying the question was inappropriate and the fact that he said he (paraphrase) “didn’t feel the comments had any place in our society” is him implying that they were racist.

As evidence, I’d ask you to look at your own response above. You said…

As for Obama's inexperience: I personally believe it's a plus. He comes to work with real possibilities, not the baggage of years of favors owed and hopes dashed. Will he screw up? Sure. But so will anybody else who gets the job. The truth is, there's really not much you can do to prepare for the presidency. It's a gig you *must* learn on the job.
See! You did exactly what the rich man in my example above did. You addressed the issue itself which is what Obama has never done which further implies that he’s pushing the racism angle.

Here’s the thing, I’m a child of the 80s who grew up in government funded housing (aka the projects though we never called them that) in North Las Vegas (which is a heavily black area). So it isn't just that I'm trying not to see color its that I honestly don't. I grew up around all colors of people and never thought a thing of it.

The biggest reason for why I’m pushed away from the Democratic Party is because, from my perspective, they have a racist agenda.

I’ll give you an example, I’m all for affirmative action as long as it’s on the basis of need (e.g. if you’re a kid who grew up in a bad neighborhood and you have a chance at a future we should give it to you). But the Democratic Party always wants it on the basis of skin color and I could never agree with that.

I was taught and I sincerely believe that people are all equal no matter what the color of their skin is. That isn’t what the Democratic Party pushes these days. What Ferraro did here, in my opinion, is to shine the light on that fact and THAT is why she’s being punished here.

Rick:

Speaking as a Texan, let me say that Bush's term as governor wasn't much to brag about. Texas intentionally has one of the weakest executive branches in America. It's frequently said that Rick Perry (then Lt Governor) actually lost some power by getting promoted to Governor when Bush won. (The Lt Gov can do some stuff in the Legislature that the Gov can't.)

And most of the businesses that Bush ran prior to entering politics failed and had to be bailed out by Dad's money and connections.

That said, even back when he was helping with Bush the Elder, he was generally considered to be good at campaigning.

Hysan:

Everyone has an equal shot at being president. The only color that truly counts in a campaign is GREEN.

Ferraro isn't shining a light on SQUAT. All she's doing is unearthing ridiculous comments from 20 years ago.

The "let's accuse the person being disparaged of being the cause of the problem" is patently ridiculous and laughable.

Experience has jack all to do with how good a President somebody becomes. See this graph, and its full context.

I'm going to vote for the Dem candidate, whoever it is, because John McCain is far worse: war with everyone forever, nation of torturers, plus radical Christian dominionism and destructive Republican domestic policy.

But I think Obama is better than Hillary on leadership and idealism, and that's what I desperately want for this country. Hillary is probably better on policy. And practical usually is more effective than idealistic in terms of governance, but I'd rather have a cooperative Dem Congress and a dynamic leader President.

 

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