Ferraro didn't say Obama is a loser or has no potential or isn't a promising politician.  She said he wouldn't a presidential candidate at age 45 with only 3 years in the Senate if he weren't AA. I believe it's a valid statement that can at least be debated.

What worries me is:  if Obama does become president are we going to have this constant censorship and lack of objectivity like we had the last 8 years with Bush?  And it seems to me that if Obama is as phenomenal as he and his media claim, why can he not be magnanimous as the front-runner and let valid statements that merely express a personal opinion roll off?  Clinton has been expected to let the kitchen sink roll off.

This is what I think:

1. The "mommy party" has penis envy -- they are hoping to get the male voters the male voters they've been hankering after, but who long ago started voting with the Republicans, this time around by showing they're willing to beat up on women, abandon "women's" issues and basically and throw women -- especially those old, uppity ones with "expectations" off, and under, the bus.

2. This gotcha gamesmanship has got to stop. And the youthful "progressive" blogosphere and the media have got to wake up to the harm they are doing.

Why aren't Olberman and Kroft covering the obscene incarceration rates of young black men? Or, the plight young working class men and women trying to put together a secure family life in an economy where nothing is certain except the fact that the average per capita wage is insufficient to raise a family?

This campaign has been a revelation about the "progressive" community. A very disheartening and disillusioning one -- and that is what is going to inevitably tear the party apart.

3. What has been the liberal, and the Democratic Party's, message to women for the last 30-40 years?

"Stick with us (open your wallets and make sure you vote) because our presidential candidates have attractive, "liberated" wives, and, most important, we're the party that will make sure you can abort your babies."

Beyond that, every Democratic appeal to women -- on the issues that could help make a different "choice" possible for many -- universal, affordable health care, access to child care and early childhood education, family leave, pay equity, more flexible approaches to work and retirement, etc. -- has been made with a wink, a nod and fingers crossed behind their backs.

What we've learned in this campaign is that for affluent liberals, male and female, for whom abortion is a "personal choice" rather than an economic issue, it is the only "feminist" or "woman's" issue they're willing to stand up for. And we've learned that the party's elite leadership and the "progressive" punditocracy that supports it, for the mostly have extreme contempt for all those "older women" who have expected more from the party, and from the many progressive institutions, organizations and media outlets they've supported with their time, energy, money and patronage. Worse, we've learned that the party's leadership and those elites have nothing but disdain for all those younger, poorer women, and their families, whose votes they need and seek -- voters who they refer to dismissively as "women with needs."

It doesn't matter who ends up with the nomination. This campaign may be putting an end to any distinctive rationale for the Democratic Party. It has exposed the Party's gender and class hypocrisy and fault lines, and made apparent the extreme diversion of interests between the male and elite female party leadership and the middle and working class women whose votes have kept the party viable over the last 30 years.

Thanks to Jeralyn for consistently keeping this in the news.

Story here

for now I just want to make one comment: the current attempts to tar Hillary as a racist have gone way, way over the top. They're revolting. Back before the South Carolina primary, the Clinton campaign and its surrogates really did seem to be making a few too many racially charged comments for it to be just a coincidence (though even then some of the accusations were bogus), but after South Carolina it pretty much stopped. I can't say whether it stopped for reasons of politics or reasons of principle, but it stopped.

But the accusations of racism haven't. They've just gotten more ridiculous. Last week a commenter at Daily Kos claimed that the Clinton campaign had concocted an ad that deliberately darkened Obama's face (to make him scarier) and changed the image's aspect ratio (to make his nose broader). They hadn't. After a 60 Minutes appearance, Hillary got slammed for supposedly implying the Obama might be a Muslim. As Eric Boehlert points out, this is patently absurd. Then, a couple of days ago, a legion of bloggers started locking onto the inane meme that talk of Obama as Hillary's VP was like asking him to "ride in the back of the bus." Finally, today, Orlando Patterson, in an apparent attempt to make parody obsolete, writes that when he saw Hillary's "3 am" ad, "I couldn't help but think of D. W. Griffith's 'Birth of a Nation,' the racist movie epic that helped revive the Ku Klux Klan, with its portrayal of black men lurking in the bushes around white society." Hell, even I fell for the racism meme a couple of weeks ago, getting suckered into passing along a Drudge slander about Hillary's campaign supposedly circulating a photo of Obama in "Muslim" garb.

You may agree with her or not -- that Obama's race, like her gender once did, makes a large contribution to the excitement he engenders.

But, if you are a Democrat, a progressive who cares about race and gender issues, you should be outraged at what the media and the "progressive" blogosphere are doing.

It is time to wake up to the fact that the media is supporting the long time REPUBLICAN ARGUMENT that Democrats are hypocrites and phonies when it comes to issues of race and gender.

And the progressive blogosphere, for the most part, is seconding that contention.

Here's a link with text and MP3 (the video is only a snipet).

LINK

Linked text

Mary Ann Busted

Geraldine Ferraro to Discuss "Women in Politics" at NYCLA's Edith I. Spivack Award Reception on March 17

Please join us as NYCLA presents the Edith I. Spivack Award to Geraldine A. Ferraro on Monday, March 17 at a reception at the NYCLA Home of Law, 14 Vesey Street, at 6:00 PM. As part of NYCLA's celebration of Women's History Month, Ms. Ferraro will discuss the timely topic of "Women in Politics." Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney, U.S. Congresswoman, will present the award to Ms. Ferraro. The award is named for Edith I. Spivack, a longtime NYCLA member and first chair of the Association's Women's Rights Committee, which became highly regarded for its advocacy of equal rights under the law for women under her leadership.

Ms. Ferraro, an attorney, Democratic politician, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives and businesswoman, is best known as the first and only woman to date to represent a major U.S. political party as a candidate for Vice President (in the 1984 election).

Ms. Spivack (1910-2005) was one of the first women admitted to Columbia Law School (class of 1932). She worked at the New York City Department of Law for 70 years, retiring in December 2004. Ms. Spivack is remembered for her service as mentor, role model and inspiration to many women lawyers.

Last time I reported, I was up to 12 people who WILL actually vote. This time, 23 in only a few days. 3 went to the Hillary rally, half are going to the St Patricks Day Parade in Scranton because she will be in it. People are starting to talk about it and raising their hands to their choice. Here are my totals.

20 Hillary, 3 McCain total
Dem-Female   9,  Dem-Male  5  GOP-M 3, GOP-F 3.
McCain=GOP-Male 2 GOP Female 1

Yesterday, CentCom commander Adm. William Fallon submitted his resignation on the heels of an Esquire article reporting that he has been "brazenly challenging" President Bush's Middle East policy. Fallon opposed the "surge" in Iraq and has consistently battled the Bush administration to avoid a confrontation with Iran, calling officials' war-mongering "not helpful."

The Bush Administration apparently does not want a military study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention. This morning, the Pentagon cancelled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release and will no longer make the report available online.

[snip]

The report is based on the analysis of some 600,000 official Iraqi documents seized by US forces after the invasion.  It is also based on thousands of hours of interrogations of former top officials in Saddam's government who are now in U.S. custody.

Others have reached the same conclusion, but no previous study has had access to so much information.  Further, this is the first official acknowledgement from the U.S. military that there is no evidence Saddam had ties to Al Qaeda.

I mean, the entire focus of his campaign, and most of the energy of his supporters, appears to now have devolved into asserting that a vast number of Democrats -- including Democrats with 40-50 years of Civil Rights activism behind them -- are racist and/or willing to "do or say" anything to exploit the racism of other Democrats in order to defeat an African American presidential candidate.

I have supported a lot of African American Democrats for local state and national office over the years. I cast my first presidential vote for Shirley Chilsom in the California primary in '72. I supported Ron Dellums when I lived in his district in the early '70s. I voted for Jesse Jackson in '88. I supported Norm Rice in his successful bid for Mayor of Seattle and his unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for Governor in '96. I volunteered and contributed to Ron Sims campaigns for City Council, King County Executive, and his race for the Democratic nomination for Governor (against a white woman). Many of those campaigns were won, some were lost -- none involved this kind of ugliness aimed at the Democratic party by those who call themselves "progressive" or "liberal."

She is divisive figure, she will do anything to win, she switched her position on the war, Bill will bring dishonor to the white house, she can't be trusted.

Which interestingly enough is exactly what the Obama campaign says about her.