Snarky Fun

Hannah Rosen, one of the fun, incisive writers over at Slate's XX Factor, comments on Ferraro's response to Obama's speech on racism last week: 

Sex v. Race Part X

Here is Geraldine Ferraro defending herself against Barack Obama's accusations. His base is African-Americans? What is it with this generation of American feminists? All she left out was "articulate."

Snarky fun aside, I have an answer to her question. It's the inevitable sclerosis that sets in when any ideology stops adapting to new information and begins to rigidify. What's left is a fossilized mindset which, when combined with someone emotionally attached to it, gives us the kind of train wrecks that Ferraro has so wonderfully illustrated.