Don't Antagonize Me

[FOTD]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOIwQSq9y8o

FOX News Analyst and Clinton Finance Committee Member Geraldine Ferraro blames her racist remarks on the Obama Ccampaign. She threatens Obama not to antagonize her. Whoa, and Clinton hasn't kicked her off her finance campaign yet. This is the Clinton Campaign unleashing a full-scale racial campaign to win the white blue collar vote in Pennsylvania. Is Lee Atwater's ghost advising Senator Clinton now?

It's a Hail Mary. There's nothing the Clintons want more than for Obama to dignify this garbage with a response. Trust me, Obama and his campaign are much smarter than that.
Is Zippy the Clown running Hillary's campaign?


"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." ---Mark Twain

[FOTD]

I'm waiting RM for you to defend all this bigotry coming from Hitlery.

[RecycleMichael]

Come on FOTD...trying to call me out by baiting me with a FoxNews interview with Geraldine Ferraro?

Your posts are pathetic...you start threads and copypost blogger after blogger like they are absolute truth and then use Fox TV to make your point.

I can't possibly expect me to counter every stupid opinion you can find on the internet...my time is limited and your stupid opinions must take priority...that is if you ever had any of your own thoughts.

[Hometown]

I would be proud to defend Ms. Ferraro.

I have heard over and over again how "good" Obama's campaign makes people feel about how we have changed in the U.S. and that we now would consider a Black as a viable candidate for office.  I have heard this enough to make me believe that for many people Obama's race is a significant factor and a positive for them.  In that sense, which is what I think Geraldine Ferraro is referencing, those comments make sense.  

It makes even more sense when you consider Obama's primary constituency, young people new to politics and well off liberals.  

Ms. Ferraro, has lived her life in public for some time now and deserves credit for the important role she played in bringing women more fully into political life.

I'm tired of young folks with no tract record at all lecturing left wing pioneers who have a life of service to diversity under their belts.  Ferraro was left wing before Move-on even thought about existing.

Now, what's really going on behind the spin?  Today, Obama was trying to throw some punches.  Good.  We need to see if the guy can duke it out.  But it looks to me like it was all defensive and he needs to get into the stronger position of going on the offensive.

I don't need to lecture Ms. Clinton on strategy because the woman obviously knows how to fight.  That was the question about women being president.  Would they have the strength to lead our military?  Can we give Clinton some credit for being so capable that she has made that a mute question?

Now with regard to Obama and race:  Discussion of race is not in and of itself racist and the race of each of candidate is of course an issue to one degree or another.  The realities of race and politics have been discussed every election that I can remember and I'm for all practical purposes at least 100 years old.  Come on, let's grow up.

[USRufnex]

quote:Originally posted by Hometown

I would be proud to defend Ms. Ferraro.

I have heard over and over again how "good" Obama's campaign makes people feel about how we have changed in the U.S. and that we now would consider a Black as a viable candidate for office.  I have heard this enough to make me believe that for many people Obama's race is a significant factor and a positive for them.  In that sense, which is what I think Geraldine Ferraro is referencing, those comments make sense.  

It makes even more sense when you consider Obama's primary constituency, young people new to politics and well off liberals.  

Ms. Ferraro, has lived her life in public for some time now and deserves credit for the important role she played in bringing women more fully into political life.

I'm tired of young folks with no tract record at all lecturing left wing pioneers who have a life of service to diversity under their belts.  Ferraro was left wing before Move-on even thought about existing.

Now, what's really going on behind the spin?  Today, Obama was trying to throw some punches.  Good.  We need to see if the guy can duke it out.  But it looks to me like it was all defensive and he needs to get into the stronger position of going on the offensive.

I don't need to lecture Ms. Clinton on strategy because the woman obviously knows how to fight.  That was the question about women being president.  Would they have the strength to lead our military?  Can we give Clinton some credit for being so capable that she has made that a mute question?

Now with regard to Obama and race:  Discussion of race is not in and of itself racist and the race of each of candidate is of course an issue to one degree or another.  The realities of race and politics have been discussed every election that I can remember and I'm for all practical purposes at least 100 years old.  Come on, let's grow up.

Wow.  Just wow.  You know that horse-apple from Geraldine Ferraro didn't fall far from the tree...

... here's a Geraldine Ferraro gem from April 15, 1988...
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/A_Ferraro_flashback.html

"If Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race."

Here you have Barack Obama who through this entire campaign has tried to transend race.  He needs to transcend race.  He MUST appeal to a broader base of Americans if he wants to be elected as President of the United States... kinda like the voters in Wisconsin and Iowa and Wyoming and Idaho and Maine and Vermont and Washington and Minnesota... etc, etc...

And then you have Hillary Clinton who used her husband to inject race into the campaign before South Carolina....  Hillary could have transcended race but she okay'd her husband using racial code words and condescension to POLARIZE blacks... blacks didn't fall for it.... or did they?!?... so, what was slick Willie attempting to accomplish?  A Sister Souljah moment?

Or better yet, a chance to polarize southern white voters for Hillary?... yep.  Or maybe an attempt to play the blacks vs. latinos card... gee, why not?
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/navarrette/20080130-9999-lz1e30navarre.html

quote:Having polarized blacks and whites, the Democratic primary campaign was already becoming sleazy. And now that Latinos have been added to the mix, it's become surreal.

We're being told that Latinos won't vote for Barack Obama because he's black. The implication is that Latinos are racist.

Sergio Bendixen, a Latino who conducts polls for Hillary Clinton, suggested during an interview with Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker that "the Hispanic voter – and I want to say this very carefully – has not shown a lot of willingness to support black candidates."

------------------------------------------------

This despite the ex-president's despicable efforts to scare off Obama's white supporters by trying to define the Illinois senator solely by race. Last week, a top adviser to the Clinton campaign acknowledged to a reporter from The Associated Press that the campaign's objective is to define Obama as "the black candidate."

And so, Bill Clinton tried to portray Obama as someone who draws his support almost exclusively from African-Americans and speculated that South Carolinians would vote along racial lines. After the votes were cast, he took one last shot by comparing Obama's victory to those enjoyed in South Carolina by Jesse Jackson during his 1984 and 1988 presidential bids.

Hurricane Bill couldn't have done more damage to his wife's campaign if he had tried. Wait. Maybe he did. Maybe the plan was to write off South Carolina, knowing that black voters would turn out overwhelmingly for Obama. Then Hillary comes off as a victim of identity politics, and white and Latino voters become more sympathetic to her in future primaries.

An African-American friend suggested to me recently that the Clinton campaign might be willing to swap black voters for Latinos. The Clintons could be counting on Latino voters to make up the votes they're losing from African-Americans. It's possible.

And now... in steps Geraldine Ferraro....... OMG, HT, I remember Fritz-n-tits... Geraldine Ferraro was never, ever ever the kind of statesman (or stateswoman) that Barack Obama is.  It is amazingly ironic that the very same woman who was accused of only being chosen as VP by Mondale for '84 because she was a woman... chooses to display "the audicity of cynicism" to make these kinds of accusations against Barack Obama getting the nomination because he's black.  It takes a lot of nerve for Ferraro to play both the race card and the gender card simultaneously... and still have a job in the Clinton campaign.  

This speaks volumes.  And it plays into the Clinton's strategy.

Hillary Clinton is the most polarizing figure in the Democratic Party... by far.

She and her campaign know that there are far more women in this country than there are blacks.  So, instead of rising above issues of gender and race and uniting her party, she uses her surrogates (including her part-time husband slick Willie) to play those race and gender games for her...

Geraldine Ferraro should be FIRED... period.
What she said was inexcusable.

I'm sorry you can't see what the Clinton campaign is doing to you...... making sure you will never vote for Barack Obama so Hillary has another chance to polarize this country in 4 years after she's sabatoged his campaign by....

Providing "ammunition to the opposition party that can be used to destroy your party's nominee..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-hart/breaking-the-final-rule_b_90420.html

and by "dealing from the bottom of the deck -- and the bottom of the barrel -- and playing the fear card."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/democratic-scorecard-the_b_90258.html

Hillary was a disaster on healthcare in the 90s... what did we get?... COBRA?

Hillary was a "hawk" when it came to the war in Iraq, moreso than almost every other dem in the Senate at the time-- that is well documented... sorry, but that was a cowardly cynical position for anyone in "the loyal oppostition" dem party to take.

Hillary did NOT bring peace to Northern Ireland... she consistently includes her unelected years as first lady as a major part of her "experience."  Not to mention her years on the board at WalMart and her high flying days at the Rose Law Firm...

Obama has more experience in foreign affairs than Hillary's husband Bill did before he became president in '92... and more experience than a certain Geraldine Ferraro...

Fun quotes from Geraldine Ferraro...

"I didn't serve on a committee that dealt with foreign policy."

"I readily admit I was not an expert on foreign policy but I was knowledgeable and I didn't need a man who was the Vice President of the United States and my opponent turning around and putting me down."

I am not young nor stupid.  I wholeheartedly support Barack Obama because I feel he is a far superior candidate, especially compared to the parsing, triangulating, kitchen-sinking Hillary Clinton.

It's funny that the dems could actually nominate HC.... the ONLY dem candidate I likely could never vote for.

[we vs us]

I don't have much to say on Ferrarro, but I really want to counter the idea that Obama supporters are only African Americans, rich liberals, and stupid kids.  

I'm in my mid 30's, college educated, middle class, married for 9 years, and a regular voter.  I'm what one would call a moderate Democrat, and I believe that Obama is by far the better choice. I also know that I'm not alone amongst my demographic in supporting him.

Obama's constituencies are much less limited than many posters on here would like to contend, and choosing to "blame" his popularity on fickle college kids and black Americans alone -- in other words, on narrow interests -- is ignoring the bigger picture.  

My 2 cents.

[Hometown]

Well USRufnex, you obviously know how to go on the offensive.  The question remains, does Obama know how to fight?  We don't want to send him off to be slaughtered in the general election.

Now if we took your cue and fell into speech like your "Fritz-n-tits," you can imagine things would deteriorate rather quickly.

We vs Us, obviously every Obama supporter does not fall within the majority groups of his constituency.  The practical limits of language and attention spans prevent us from hammering down every possibility.  

The important point is that we are all members of the family of Democrats and we need each other to win in the general election.  We are -- all of us -- central to the party.  That's our strength.

[cannon_fodder]

I'm a white middle aged regular voter in the middle income brackets who is a passive Obama supporter (yay social agenda, booo entitlements and economic ideas).

If I'm not mistaken this same women came out against Jesse Jackson and Alan Keys in comments that were similar.  

How about this:  

quote:If Hillary Clinton wasn't a rich white woman married to a powerful white man she wouldn't even be in the race.

What do you think would happen if someone on Obama's election committee made such a statement? The uproar would be much greater if you ask me, but the statement has at least as much truth in it.

Blacks make up 30% of Mississippi, but he got 60+% of the vote.  Not many black people in Iowa either. Or Wisconsin.  Or... well, actually, they constitute a majority in none of our states that I am aware of.
- - -

The truth of the matter?

Being black certainly is helping Barrack Hussein Obama garner some votes.  There are people who would consider race above all other, on both sides of the issue.  There are also people who would vote because a candidate is a certain sex (remember, more woman than black people in the country).  The reason he is doing well more than being black is that he is a highly educated and well spoken individual and people like him - the two share such a similar platform it will come down to which candidate voters like the best.

Basically, it is a white woman complaining that a black man has an advantage.  Scarlet O'hara would be so confused by this situation. []

[Conan71]

Ruf,

Don't blame or give Hillary credit for COBRA, that passed in the mid-'80's.

Tell me you aren't surprised by this.  This is the same **** the Clintons have pulled for years with relative impunity.  They've always been bottom deck dealers.  It's a simple strategy, make yourself look better by pointing out the flaws in everyone else.

One thing I've seen Obama's campaign do well is not drag these issues out in great length in order to make him look victimized, I'll grant him that much.  They seem to make note of it publicly, play it for a couple of days, then move on.  

I'm curious where this will go in the general election campaign when Hannity and other conservative talking heads start ratcheting up the noise about Obama's church being racist, excludes whites from it's rolls, and his preacher being good friends w/ Louis Farrakhan (sp?).  (Talking head's propaganda, not mine).

I can't believe it, you made it through a political post w/o invoking Dick Lugar's name. []

[FOTD]

quote:Originally posted by RecycleMichael

Come on FOTD...trying to call me out by baiting me with a FoxNews interview with Geraldine Ferraro?

Your posts are pathetic...you start threads and copypost blogger after blogger like they are absolute truth and then use Fox TV to make your point.

I can't possibly expect me to counter every stupid opinion you can find on the internet...my time is limited and your stupid opinions must take priority...that is if you ever had any of your own thoughts.

Pattonly FALSE accusation about me to take the glare off Hitlery....

"Keith Olbermann's Special Comment tonight "will be about Hillary Clinton, her campaign, and how Olbermann feels about exactly what cards she's been playing (hint: It has something to do with her not firing Geraldine Ferraro for her controversial statement saying that Barack Obama wouldn't have been as successful if he weren't black. Last night Olbermann called Ferraro's statement "clearly racist" and likening the Clinton campaign to South Africa under apartheid for not rejecting it and firing her. Okay, that's more than a hint.)"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/12/keith-olbermann-to-do-sp_n_91110.html


And FOTD will repost it here on Thursday for all to see again and again.

Try not to antagonize me MP/RM!

[Conan71]

"DON'T ANTAGONIZE ME BRO!!!!!  DON'T ANTAGONIZE ME!!!! AAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!"

[FOTD]

Hillary knows her odds now are slim and moving towards none.

Many have told FOTD they could never vote for a black man.

[FOTD]

AS PROMISED!
http://www.hoffmania.com/blog/2008/03/olbermann-speci.html

Finally, as promised, a Special Comment on the presidential campaign of the Junior Senator from New York.
    By way of necessary preface, President and Senator Clinton -- and the Senator's mother, and the Senator's brother -- were of immeasurable support to me at the moments when these very commentaries were the focus of the most surprise, the most uncertainty, and the most anger. My gratitude to them is abiding.
     Also, I am not here endorsing Senator Obama's nomination, nor suggesting it is inevitable.
     Thus I have fought with myself over whether or not to say anything.
    Senator, as it has reached its apex in their tone-deaf, arrogant, and insensitive reaction to the remarks of Geraldine Ferraro... your own advisors are slowly killing your chances to become President.
     Senator, their words, and your own, are now slowly killing the chances for any Democrat to become President.
    In your tepid response to this Ferraro disaster, you may sincerely think you are disenthralling an enchanted media, and righting an unfair advance bestowed on Senator Obama.
     You may think the matter has closed with Representative Ferraro's bitter, almost threatening resignation.
     But in fact, Senator, you are now campaigning, as if Barack Obama were the Democrat, and you... were the Republican.
     As Shakespeare wrote, Senator -- that way... madness... lies.
     You have missed a critical opportunity to do... what was right.
     No matter what Ms. Ferraro now claims, no one took her comments out of context.    
     She had made them on at least three separate occasions, then twice more on television this morning.
    Just hours ago, on NBC Nightly News, she denied she had made the remarks in an interview -- only at a paid political speech.
     In fact, the first time she spoke them, was ten days before the California newspaper published them... not in a speech, but in a radio interview.
     On February 26th, quoting...
    "If Barack Obama were a white man, would we be talking about this, as a potential real problem for Hillary? If he were a woman of any color, would he be in this position that he's in? Absolutely not."
     The context was inescapable.
    Two minutes earlier, a member of Senator Clinton's Finance Committee, one of her "Hill-Raisers," had bemoaned the change in allegiance by Super-Delegate John Lewis from Clinton to Obama, and the endorsement of Obama by Senator Dodd.
     "I look at these guys doing it," she had said, "and I have to tell you, it's the guys sticking together."
    A minute after the "color" remarks, she was describing herself as having been chosen for the 1984 Democratic ticket, purely as a woman politician, purely to make history.
     She was, in turn, making a blind accusation of sexism -- and dismissing Senator Obama's candidacy as nothing more than an Equal Opportunity stunt.
     The next day she repeated her comments to a reporter from the newspaper in Torrance, California.
    "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."
     And when this despicable statement -- ugly in its overtones, laughable in its weak grip of facts, and moronic in the historical context -- when it floats outward from the Clinton Campaign like a poison cloud, what do the advisors have their candidate do?
    Do they have Senator Clinton herself compare the remark to Al Campanis talking on Nightline... on Jackie Robinson day... about how blacks lacked the necessities to become baseball executives, while she points out that Barock Obama has not gotten his 1600 delegates as part of some kind of Affirmative Action plan?
     Do they have Senator Clinton note that her own brief period in elected office, is as irrelevant to the issue of judgment as is Senator Obama's...
    ...while she points out that FDR had served only six years as a governor and state Senator before he became President?
     Or that Teddy Roosevelt had four-and-a-half years before the White House?
     Or that Woodrow Wilson had two years and six weeks?
     Or Richard Nixon... fourteen... and Calvin Coolidge 25?
    Do these advisors have Senator Clinton invoke Samantha Power -- gone by sunrise after she used the word "monster" -- and have Senator Clinton say, "this is how I police my campaign and this is what I stand for," while she fires former Congresswoman Ferraro from any role the campaign?
     No.
     Somebody tells her that simply disagreeing with and rejecting the remarks is sufficient.
     And she should then call, "regrettable", words that should make any Democrat retch.
    And that she should then try to twist them, first into some pox-on-both-your-houses plea to 'stick to the issues,' and then to let her campaign manager try to bend them beyond all recognition, into Senator Obama's fault.
     And thus these advisers give Congresswoman Ferraro nearly a week in which to send Senator Clinton's campaign back into the vocabulary... of David Duke.
     "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.
     "Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white.
     "How's that?"
     How's that?
     Apart from sounding exactly like Rush Limbaugh attacking the black football quarterback Donovan McNabb?
     Apart from sounding exactly like what Ms. Ferraro said about another campaign, nearly twenty years ago?
     Quote:
    "President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don't ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his "radical" views, "if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race."
     So... apart from sounding like insidious racism that is at least two decades old?
     Apart from rendering ridiculous, Senator Clinton's shell-game about choosing Obama as Vice President?
     Apart from this evening's resignation letter?
    "I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign.
     "The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you."
     Apart from all that?
    Well. It sounds as if those advisors want their campaign to be associated with those words, and the cheap... ignorant... vile... racism that underlies every syllable...
     And that Geraldine Ferraro has just gone free-lance.
     Senator Clinton:
     This is not a campaign strategy.
     This is a suicide pact.
    This week alone, your so-called strategists have declared that Senator Obama has not yet crossed the "commander-in-chief threshold"...
    But -- he might be your choice to be Vice President, even though a quarter of the previous sixteen Vice Presidents have become commander-in-chief during the greatest kind of crisis this nation can face: a mid-term succession.
     But you'd only pick him if he crosses that threshold by the time of the convention.
    But if he does cross that threshold by the time of the convention, he will only have done so sufficiently enough to become Vice President, not President.

     Senator, if the serpentine logic of your so-called advisors were not bad enough...
    Now, thanks to Geraldine Ferraro, and your campaign's initial refusal to break with her, and your new relationship with her -- now more disturbing still with her claim that she can now "speak for herself" about her vision of Senator Obama as some kind of embodiment of a quota...
     If you were to seek Obama as a Vice President, it would be, to Ms. Ferraro, some kind of social engineering gesture, some kind of racial make-good.
     Do you not see, Senator?
     To Senator Clinton's supporters, to her admirers, to her friends for whom she is first choice, and her friends for whom she is second choice, she is still letting herself be perceived as standing next to, and standing by, racial divisiveness and blindness...
     And worst yet, after what President Clinton said during the South Carolina primary, comparing the Obama and Jesse Jackson campaigns -- a disturbing, but only borderline remark...
     After what some in the black community have perceived as a racial undertone to the "3 A-M" ad... a disturbing -- but only borderline interpretation...
     And after that moment's hesitation in her own answer on 60 Minutes about Obama's religion -- a disturbing, but only borderline vagueness...
     After those precedents, there are those who see a pattern... false, or true.
     After those precedents, there are those who see an intent... false, or true.
    After those precedents, there are those who see the Clinton campaign's anything-but-benign neglect of this Ferraro catastrophe -- falsely or truly -- as a desire to hear the kind of casual prejudice which still haunts this society voiced... and to not distance the campaign from it.
     To not distance you from it, Senator!
    To not distance you... from that which you as a woman, and Senator Obama as an African-American, should both know and feel with the deepest of personal pain!
     Which you should both fight with all you have!
     Which you should both insure, has no place in this contest!

     This, Senator Clinton, is your campaign, and it is your name.
     Grab the reins back from whoever has led you to this precipice, before it is too late.
     Voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth.
     Your only reaction has been to disagree, reject, and to call it regrettable.
    Her only reaction has been to brand herself as the victim, resign from your committee, and insist she will continue to speak.
     Unless you say something definitive, Senator, the former Congresswoman is speaking with your approval.
     You must remedy this.
     And you must... reject... and denounce... Geraldine Ferraro.
     Good night, and good luck.


Billary be gone.....

[cannon_fodder]

Ouch.  Is Keith Olbermann usually hostile towards her or otherwise biased?  That is REALLY damning for a news personalty to come out with.

[Hometown]

"Billary be gone....."

And take your 23.5% of the electorate with you because Obama's going to attract at least 28% of the Republican vote. Right? Yeh, sure.

Dream on.

Let's see where Olbermann's ratings go.  He's alienating at least half of his audience.  Try out that new girl on CNN in his time slot.  She has a Clinton bias.