Don't sweat the small stuff.

Ferraro's opinion only carries weight in Minnesota and the District of Columbia, and they've both already voted.

Dude.

Give the old bitter lady with cancer who didn't get to be president either a break.

I mean, really, give her a break. Leave aside the fact that opression of women existed long before racism was invented. Leave aside the fact that despite many years of trying, women by and large still haven't figured out how to be both successful and likeable without being either stunningly beautiful or safely ugly. Leave aside the fact that Obama is indeed lucky to be good looking, charming and smart on the one hand and black and a smoker on the other, a combination that makes him just dangerouse enough to be appealing without being Donny Osmond.

Just admit that at the end of the day, many of us, male or female, black or white, young or old, just can't exactly see Hillary Rodham Clinton as POTUS. But let Geraldine Ferraro, who remembers what it was like to be in Hillary's spot, support Hillary anyway.

Go ahead and be outrageously indignant if you want. But I say give Ferraro a break.

If the remarks said Hillary was only in this because she is a woman and were made by an Obama surrogate certain people in this thread would be outraged.

Ferraro is a racist and I see many of you Hillary supporters continue to be apologists for bigotry and racism. I'm glad the only people who are on your side are the ignorant and aged. You are a large part of what is wrong with this nation.

The political vision espoused in Ferraro's statements cannot be excused. Her "legacy" does not get her off the hook - and if we are fair, we have to admit that we would not be making excuses for similar statements from, say, Elizabeth Dole.

As a feminist and the daughter of a feminist, I am tired of Clinton supporters trying to gain votes or political leverage from the argument that sexism is somehow worse than racism. I'm tired of the arguments that Clinton has gotten rougher treatment than Obama because she is a woman (rather than, as sg401 and others have noted, the fact that she is Hillary Clinton).

There are so many empirical, logical, and ethical fallacies in these claims that it is almost impossible to unpack them. The most important thing to keep in mind is that such claims are damaging to *everyone* working toward social justice and equality for all peoples, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, ability, or any other artificial construction of privileged division that exists within our society.

In the words of Augusto Boal, "I consider the struggle against one oppression to be indissociable from the struggle against all oppressions.”

I don't think Geraldine Ferraro is a racist, but she is colossally stupid. Ferraro was lucky to be a woman when Walter Mondale was looking for a running mate, and Hillary was lucky to have a husband who purchased a Senate seat and an entire political party for her. Talk about affirmative action ....

Yeah, a lot of Democrats in the 60's thought George Wallace was a pioneer and a national treasure too. Geraldine Ferraro is carrying on that great tradition. She has tarnished her name and place in the Democratic Party the same way Bill Clinton did with his "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina too" comment and other racist spewings. African Americans can see right through this hateful rhetoric and they've showed it with their votes. Hopefully, Mississippi heard Ms. Ferraro and will let the Clintons know what they think of their racist "kitchen sink" strategy.

As a woman of a certain age, I don't understand how some women can get so excited about the prospect of Hillary Clinton as our first woman president. I would like to see as our first female president someone who has made her own way, not someone who has piggybacked on the brand name established by her husband.

I'm sure HRC contributed a great deal to her husband's success, but that's not the same as getting elected to office on her own merits and making contributions that were uniquely hers. I would feel better about her campaign if she weren't constantly trying to take credit for events during her husband's administration, rather than on her Senate record.

I really wish there had been no email address given for Ferraro's employer, whoever it is, with suggestions to email outrages.

If Ferraro wants to make outrageous comments, that is within her right. Nothing she said can quite compare to Gloria Steinem's lurid idiocy that women suffer more than John McCain did as a POW in North Vietnam. The latter has all the sensitivity of any given pronouncement by David Duke.

I doubt either Ferraro or Steinem are helpful to Hillary but rather destructive.

As a personal note, I remember well my mother and sister telephoning me with the thrilling news Mondale had chosen Ferraro. I suggested to them, with no effect, that Mondale had made an atrocious choice. Had nothing to do with choosing a woman but rather the woman he chose. I think the aftermath bears me out.

Whatever the case, Hillary Clinton is a horrendous choice as any sort of vehicle for advancing women's status in society. Hillary, Dubya, gives corruption a bad name.

Best, Terry

Whatever Geraldine Ferraro's historical accomplishments might be, they certainly shouldn't insulate her from criticism for her opinions in the here-and-now. I recently lost whatever residual respect I had for Ferraro after reading her incredibly patronizing Op-Ed piece in the New York Times: ostensibly a history of the Democratic "superdelegate" process, but in fact a thinly-disguised campaign ad for Hillary Clinton; larded with a sneering dismissal of the Party's (small-d-democratic) enthusiasm for Sen. Obama, and topped with a "Party-leaders-know-whats-best-for-the-Party" attitude that wouldn't have been out of place in Brezhnev's Russia. This latest screed is just typical: sorry, Gerri: BS smells the same regardless of its source.

Where is Hillary rejecting and denouncing such garbage? Why is the Obama campaign not asking HIllary to reject and denounce?

There are some comments that cannot be allowed to stand. This is one of them.

As a feminist who was so proud of Geraldine Ferraro, I am now full of outrage. I am full of outrage of these fake feminists who have blindly supported Hillary, as if she was a woman who actually pulled herself up by herself and did any of the work to build a real, accountable resume. She's a sham. She can believe her own press; but the legion of women who support her based on her being a girl make me ill.

Desidero,

Just how the hell did Hillary Clinton suffer from sexism? She had no other real credentials than being the president's spouse, yet somehow she was able to win a U.S. Senate seat and is now perilously close to winning the Democratic nomination for president herself. How is she being oppressed? It seems to me that she has certainly been the beneficiary of fortuitous circumstances, so having one of her finance chairs say the other guy is just lucky is problematic at best.

Isn't THAT ironic?

Is there anyone here who would argue that an up and coming no-name congressman from New York named MR. JERRY FERRARO would have been tapped to be the VP candidate in 1984? DREAM ON! Geraldine was on that ticket for one reason and one reason only... her vagina.

For her to discuss ANYONE getting the benefit of the doubt for something other than merit is laughable at best.

The level of barely hidden racism in some of these postings is alarming.

Justifying bigotism against black people because women have struggled too is at least idiotic. As a minority woman, I also find it insulting.

Clinton fans are out of their minds and starting to sound dangerous and deranged in their blind, irrational hipnosis. Last week was all whining and calls for resignations because another very smart and way more accomplished woman called HRC a monster, but now bringing a typically racist argument ("minorities have it easier, end affirmative action, etc.") agains Obama is OK.

When a journalist uses the word "pimping" has to go, but when an "ethics" governor who prosecuted prostitution rings get entagled with one, clintons hearts are with him.

Tax returns, donations, and records of those years as a first lady (includies amnesties exchanged for donations) that now she claims as experience should not be make public, but if Obama points that out, he becomes Kenneth Starr.

Teas in the White House and in Arkansas, decorative trips, the Wallmart board, having screwed the healthcare reform, and accusing a 12-year-old girl of having provoked the man who raped her (her defendant) are presented as presidential experiences.

When the press barely pays attention to the secrets and lies of the clintons while SNL acts as a hillary campaing ad, the whining crowds keep crying as if she were a victim. And now, consistently, argue that racism is OK. Nice.

Grant,

Btw, nicely done post. I agree with you about Ferraro helping to bolster the anti-affirmative action and racial scapegoating forces in this country. Her remarks certainly don't sound representative of the Democratic Party, and as a highly-visible, established party member, she should be called on them.

Geraldin's been at this for a couple weeks now. Here she is on the John Gibson Show back in Feb 26th, making herself very clear to his audience.

This whole primary has been very sad in a lot of different ways. Are difference are being used as weapons, and there seems to be no shame, even from people who've supposedly spent their whole lives fighting for "equality". I don't know what more to say about Geraldin, but I honestly hope Clinton says something to distance herself from these opinions.