Thursday, March 20, 2008

Why Geraldine Ferraro should go away...

Go away, Geraldine. Not because you're a racist or anything. Go away because you've gone sour and are bad for everyone.

I know you watched it and have probably read it again, too. Play along with me, though. I want you to read an excerpt from Barack Obama's "race" speech. You don't have to study every word carefully. Just read it and pay a little attention, okay? Great. Thanks. Here we go:

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

See? I told you it wasn't complicated! Very easy to understand, actually.

For those who need extra help with interpretation, allow me:

It is wrong to simply dismiss everyone who says something controversial about race as a crazed racist. That kind of simplification is silly and its not very helpful.

Just in case you need even more extra help, I'll simplify again:

We shouldn't call people racists every time they say something about race. That is bad.

Still having problems? Okay:

No call everyone racist. Bad.

That last "level of help" was written with Geraldine Ferraro in mind. I used to think of Ferraro as a relatively harmless relic from the Democratic party's bygone days. She had a landmark moment, served her constituency, and moved on. The end. I didn't dislike her and I certainly admired her willingness to be the first woman VP candidate. Beyond that, I didn't really think too much about Geraldine Ferraro.

I now realize that Geraldine Ferraro is a fucking moron of the first order. She is stupid. She lacks reading comprehension skills. She is a fool. I think you get the idea.

Wait! How can it be that this woman, a former vice presidential candidate, can be a complete dumb-ass? It seems impossible! How could an elected official with a long track record in Washington, DC be functionally illiterate?

I don't know. I really don't. But that's exactly what's going on with Geraldine Ferraro. Well, either that or she really isn't stupid and she's just saying stupid things for the sake of some political objective. I'd rather believe she's a Grade-A dummy than to think she's a conniving piece of shit, though. Wouldn't you?

Any way, she's either stupid or full of crap. We know that because she recently reacted to Obama's speech.

Just in case you've lost track, revisit the comment he made that referenced Geraldine. He said it was wrong for people to simply dismiss Ferraro as a bigot. He said that throwing people overboard on the basis of comments about race was short-sighted and foolish. He basically told the people who called Geraldine Ferraro a racist to stick it up their asses. Barack Obama stuck up for Geraldine Ferraro and cautioned those who'd call her a racist because of her "Barack is lucky to be a black dude" comments.

So, how do you think Geraldine Ferraro reacted? Do you think she thanked Obama for recognizing that she wasn't a racist? Do you think she applauded his willingness to explore what her comments and motivations really meant, instead of painting her as a crazed bigot?

Hell no. Geraldine Ferraro did exactly what you'd expect an idiot who can't understand simple sentences would do. Or, you could say she did exactly what you'd expect a sick, twisted political manipulator would do.

She became indignant!

To equate what I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is unbelievable...


It also didn't happen. Nonetheless, that's what Geraldine told the now-halfway-famous Daily Breeze. She was pissed off that he somehow equated her remarks with Wright's yammerings. So what if he didn't actually do that. So what if he did something approximating the opposite of what seemed to piss her off. She's either too stupid to understand Barack Obama or she's intentionally faking rage to serve some other end.

Either way, she sucks. Big time. She's pure evil and her reaction to the speech is far more sinister and malignant than her earlier fool-talk about Obama's luck at being a black guy running for president.

Geraldine Ferraro mind has rotted. Or her political soul has gone rancid. You pick. I don't give a shit. Either way, she's bad.

The funny thing is that I sort of stuck up for Geraldine after her controversial remarks made headlines. I reasoned that her comments were less a product of racism than of her own involvement in women's issues and the context-built prism through which she might view the world. I thought she was wrong, but I didn't think she was a racist.

Well, no more sticking up for Ferraro. She is infected with either the stupid bug or the most dangerous political disease imaginable.

The latest round of Ferraro vs. Obama is sickening. Geraldine is pissed off at Obama for doing the opposite of what he did. That's bad enough. She's also hacked that he failed to criticize Jeremiah Wright.

Yeah, you read that right. She's all hacked off that Barack didn't come down on the pastor. Here's an example of her fucked up (non)insight:

(Obama) gave a very good speech on race relations, but he did not address the fact that this man is up there spewing hatred...

WTF Gerry? Does this ring a bell?

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.


Apparently, Barack Obama must kill Jeremiah Wright, urinate on his corpse and then go on SNL and tear up a photo of him after singing a capella in order to "address" the matter to Geraldine's satisfaction. Fight the real enemy, Barack! What a load of shit. She's either beyond stupid or she's faking. We all know it.


And it really comes as no surprise. The "lucky black guy" stuff was followed by Geraldine making these weird accusations that they Obama campaign was calling her a racist. Of course, that never happened. They called her remarks "divisive" and "polarizing" but they never categorized the comments as "racist". They certainly didn't call Gerry a racist. That reality didn't phase her, though. She claimed it was true anyway. Then, Obama says that those who did call her a racist were wrong. That pisses her off even more, apparently. Idiot or liar. Your pick.

I guess there's a third choice--psychopath. I don't know which of the three options best fits Geraldine Ferraro, but I do know one thing. America better damn well be done with folks like her. Otherwise, we deserve every bad thing that comes our way.

If you want to know what a new politics should look like... If you're really interested in bettering the USA and its governance... If you want to know why people seem to love the idea of "change" and why hope is an increasingly popular antidote to the status quo... If you want to do any of those things, you can figure it all out by studying Geraldine Ferraro's behavior over the course of the past month.

She is bad. End of story.

Go away, Geraldine. Not because you're a racist or anything. Go away because you've gone sour and are bad for everyone.


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2 comments:

  1. Brilliant post. Pesonally, I think she knows exactly what she's doing.

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  2. What bullshit, John. I totally thought she was getting the shaft, too, even though I didn't think what she said was racist or right. I just thought it was bullshit, as Stephen Colbert said, so that noone on either side will actually have people who say what people on both sides really think about the candidates.

    This whole goddamn primary has been so fuckin' stupid, I can barely stand it. It's so dishonest, I can't handle it.

    And you are right. You're being generous. She is not stupid. She is a conniving bitch, just like her favorite Presidential nominee, is the truth. And they both need to go sit in a corner and think about their behavior. At least that's what both of them would have their children do if they behaved this way at school or on the playground. But that seems to strike neither of them as important.

    I just can't watch any of these people, anymore, and think, "Goddamn. That's the kind of person I want to be."

    It's been going on forever. I just don't understand how we could have ever looked at this bullshit, in the past, and thought, those are the people America looks up to. And more stomach-turning is thinking of these assholes saying to themselves and amongst one another, "We are the guardians of virtue. We are America at its best."

    It's just such bullshit, I can barely stand it.

    I think I'm getting bitter, John. That's not good. I've never really felt like this for a prolonged period before. I got to find some way to let this go. But the longer I have to listen to assholes lie, cheat, and steal their way to whatever ambition they desire and then lecture me about the rules they wrote for everyone else and why they should supercede my conscience and freedom to make choices, fuck up and learn from them, the more disgusted I get with this whole process.

    None of it makes any goddamn sense to me, anymore.

    And the worst part is that so few people in those positions care whether it makes any sense to me or anyone else, for that matter. They've got the power and I don't. And having power means never having to give a fuck if people trust you with it or not or whether your use of it is wise or not.

    Surely, this is not all there is.

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