Cluephone. It's for you

Gateway Pundit has a nice summary of recent comments by Geraldine Ferraro about Barack Obama. For anyone who missed them first time around, "A Hillary Clinton adviser has resigned over her comment that Barack Obama would not be ahead in the race for the White House if he were not black."

Ferraro, Fritz Mondale's choice for Vice President during his doomed 1984 Presidential campaign, then violated the first rule of holes (when you're in one, stop digging) by adding "Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?" Actually, that was a day or two ago, and she hasn't stopped digging yet, but that's enough to give us the general picture.

One thing I like about the Italian women I've known is that they are spunky and opinionated. However, they are not always correct in their opinions. This is one of those times. And I include Gateway Pundit in that criticism, along with some other more right-of-center blogs, because their coverage of this issue indicates they agree with Ferraro's comments.

I don't.

Whether this is just Ferraro's opinion, or one quietly solicited by Clintonian need to keep the race issue alive in the weeks leading up to the PA primary, I find it extremely offensive for both Ferraro and other whites to continue suggesting Obama's skin color is somehow a huge and undeserved advantage. I suspect they will eventually discover most everyone other than some persons of pallor is also offended.

Many white folks have this persistent delusion that the playing field is now level, or even tilted in favor of non-whites. I'll confirm my rebuttal of that to just this: how fair is it for a poor non-white kid to be forced to attend an awful inner city school and then compete for admission to a good college with a rich white kid who attended New Trier? Even if the other kid gets in due to an unfair-in-their-favor racial set-aside, they still aren't even unless and until they manage to make up for all they didn't learn before that they will need to graduate with a meaningful degree.

What I like most about Obama is that his candidacy offers a chance for our nation to move beyond its centuries-long nightmare of failed race relations. What I absolutely despise about Clintonian politics in this matter is that they appear to be intentionally keeping the monster of racism on life support in hopes it will pave their path back to power.

That may or may not be behind Ferraro's comments. But I am not encouraged to read Hillary Clinton has only "distanced" herself from Ferraro's comments, rather than denouncing them forcefully as her husband wisely once did similarly-offensive comments by Sister Souljah.

If I were black, I'd be hopping mad about a serious contender for the leadership of the party favored by most who look like me selling a generation of our votes down the river for short term advantage in one election.

If I were a Democratic party leader, I'd be seriously concerned about permanently losing the safest 10% of my party's supporters.

For Republicans, this would be a wonderful time to either support Obama against such slurs or at least shut up, so that if blacks are offended enough to leave Hillary's party, at least no one has barred the door to their choosing your alternative.

Update: Hillary Clinton came close to a useful apology on this issue today, according to this article:
"I certainly do repudiate it and I regret deeply that it was said. Obviously she doesn't speak for the campaign, she doesn't speak for any of my positions, and she has resigned from being a member of my very large finance committee."

That's in contrast to the non-apology apology she also offered for Bill Clinton's similarly-divisive earlier comments in SC: "You know I am sorry if anyone was offended."

Update2: Has anyone else noticed the convenient timing of this past week's revelations about the views of Obama's pastor? I've heard enough black pastors and anti-American college profs that I'm not shocked about Wright's views. I do disagree with them, which actually got me in trouble back in seminary when I was assigned to read a book by James Cone and failed to properly genuflect before the altar of liberation theology.

More recently, I've had to simply agree to disagree with black speakers at our church who forgive every racist comment by a non-white by claiming only whites have power, and therefore only whites can be racists --arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, if you ask me. Whether the juicier comments of a James Cone or a Jeremiah Wright are racist, or merely bigoted seems a useless distinction.

What I want to know now is, who saved up those You Tube clips of Wright until needed to focus our attention away from Ferraro's comments? I'm guessing it wasn't the "vast right wing conspiracy", but might have been the person who coined that phrase. "Swiftboating" doesn't just originate on the right any more. (Note: unlike many progressives, I consider the Swiftboat charges against Kerry to be true, and appropriate discussion points in a campaign. I also consider the current You Tube sermon snippets to be true and appropriate discussion points in the current campaign. They may very well tell us something we need to know about Obama's true views, just as the Swiftboat vets reminded those who hadn't heard them the first time around about Kerry's anti-military activism during the Viet Nam era.)

I'm pretty sure I'll end up voting for McCain in the fall, but equally sure that he won't carry my state. And forced to choose among those either of whom probably would carry my state this fall, I still support Obama over Hillary.

For all the dirt we already know about Hillary's character and actions, it's clear we haven't reached bottom yet. For instance, she asks Obama to disclose more about his financial dealings while continuing not to disclose her own. She asks about Obama's shady associate now on trial as though she didn't have one of her own also now on trial. It finally dawned on me this week, that just as Obama had to share some of Pastor Wright's views to be part of his church for twenty years, Hillary has to share some of the less-admirable character traits of her husband to have put up with Bill all these years.