Geraldine Ferraro's remarks are just one in a series of attacks the
Clinton Campaign has made, all revolving around a single point. No, not
race. Legitimacy.

Throughout this entire process, the only answer the Clinton team has had to Obama's strengths is to dismiss them as fantasy.

Go back and take a look at all the different memes that have emerged since New Hampshire.

First
there was "Barack the fairy tale." When the line was first uttered by
Clinton, everyone got caught up in the accusations of racial overtones,
but what was he really saying? That OBama was beating Hillary because
of his opposition to the war and that that opposition was in fact a
myth. "Just a speech that he later took off his own website."

Then
there was "It takes a president" which began with the LBJ remarks.
Obama=MLK. A man who talks pretty and mobilizes people but who is
incapable of wielding the long arm of government. To bring about change
you need an LBJ figure who's willing to "work hard" and "push things
through."

Next there was "Union Gate" where the Clintons claimed
that if Obama won Nevada, it was because Unions were suppressing the
vote. This later evolved into the larger "caucuses don't count"
argument.

Then we had "Obama is the black candidate." People
seem to forget that the Clinton camp was sending out memos to this
regard before South Carolina. Ferraro did not pull this out of her ass.
In the run up to South Carolina, especially after the Jesse Jackson,
comments it became conventional wisdom that the Clintons were trying to
box OBama in as "the black candidate" as a full fledged campaign
strategy. Only when it backfired did they back off of it.

Next
came "Obamamania is a cult" where not only him but also his supporters
were tossed aside as some sick generation phenemenon. Then "latte
liberals don't need a president," words don't count, the media isn't
tough on him, he hasn't crossed the commander in chief "threshhold," on
and on and on and on and on.

The Clintons and to some degree even the media have been engaged since day one in a game of trying to explain away
Barack Obama's wins. Beneath this is the assumption that there is no
logical or substansive reason for Barack to be ahead. It's simply not
possible for any rational, objective human being to choose him over
her, there must be something else at play.

Their whole
operation has been reduced to, in essence, a child throwing a temper
tantrum because they didn't get selected for the school play.

I'm
sure some people may have detected a degree of racial condescension
from the very beginning, but until recently it was not explicit and
largely debateable.

The problem with Geraldine Ferraro's
remarks is that when taken within this larger context she has made the
racial link that already existed to some people overt. Given
that they've been saying for 3 months now that his victory is
illegitimate and somehow sinister, linking that to his skin color is at
best irresponsible, at worst a reprehensible accusation that, as Keith
Olbermann said, he is only where he is because of some kind of unspoken
quota. A subconscious desire among his supporters to see a black
president at any cost.

This suggestion and indeed the larger
pattern of dismissal engaged in by the Clintons is not only insulting
to Obama it is insulting to those who voted for him. Now that it is
heading into racial waters, it simply needs to stop. For everyone's sake.