The Ferraro Flap

Well, looks like this Ferraro story has legs. And maybe I was too quick to give her the benefit of the doubt. She's getting bloodied throughout the blogosphere. A consensus is forming that her "gaffes" are part of a strategy to inflame white resentment (by giving voice to it) over issues like affirmative action.

And instead of staying mum, she continues to press onward, digging the hole deeper. This time by going on The O'Reilly Factor (of all places) and saying this:

O'REILLY: Apparently you told the Daily Breeze newspaper in Torrance, California, quote, "If Obama were a white man, he would not be in this position. If here were a woman of any color, he would not be in the position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is in a country who's caught up in the concept." Did you say that?

FERRARO: Yeah, but I also said a lot before that.

O'REILLY: Right, but you know you're gonna get hammered on that.

FERRARO: I was not speaking – no, I was speaking to – it was a paid speech. I was not representing a campaign. I go out and give speeches. I don't –

O'REILLY: Oh, I understand that.

FERRARO: You know, like you do.

O'REILLY: I absolutely know they can take you out of context, but do you believe that Barack Obama, if he were a white mean, white senator, would not be in the position?

FERRARO: Absolutely.

More from Kos:

She was "taken out of context", but asked directly if that's what she meant, she says "absolutely". So what the hell is she talking about? […]

This is what the Clinton campaign is reduced to. Taking a candidate who has inspired hope and passion, and working overtime to turn him into the "black candidate" even though she has no hope of winning the nomination absent a coup by super delegate. Now there's a legacy for Clinton. Congrats to her on pulling that one off.

And it's clear as day, given their refusal to ask for Ferraro's resignation, that the Clinton campaign is as complicit and pleased with Ferraro's words as they are with her media strategy.

Then there's this from the Daily Dish:

The Ferraro Gambit Is Deliberate
The Obama campaign saw Samantha Power resign for a less offensive remark. But Ferraro is now on the networks and airwaves amping up the volume, and Clinton, in classic passive-aggressive mode, is merely "disagreeing." Isn't this obviously about Pennsylvania? Isn't this classic Rove-Morris politics - to keep designating Obama a beneficiary of affirmative action and Clinton a victimized white woman in order to racially polarize a primary where Clinton needs white ethnic votes? Ferraro's original gaffe was an accident. The compounding of it is a strategy. A reader comments:

I'm willing to bet damn near anything Bill thought this up himself. As a white male Bill realized he couldn't push Obama into the ghetto box, but what a brilliant strategy! - let's have another "disadvantaged group" lambaste Obama through an elderly white female surrogate to divide and conquer in the victimology sweepstakes. Since whites outnumber blacks, and white females in particular outnumber black voters, it's an incredibly audacious gambit to win the nomination. Throwing the kitchen sink apparently means turning the Democratic Party into an all out race versus gender war, ultimately allowing Bill and Hillary to either emerge on top or for Obama to be so badly damaged that the Superdelegates will fear he's lost the white vote in the general election. That's exactly the game the Clinton's have set in motion here.