Plato once said that necessity is the mother of invention. Today I introduce you to a invention on this blog that has been necessitated by our politicians.
Readers, welcome to the Incredibly Stupid Statements File.
Our first entry features Geraldine Ferraro, that groundbreaking feminist who ran for vice president on Walter Mondale's ticket, like, 80 years ago.
(Actually, it was 1984, but with the way the world has changed, it might as well have been 1928.)
Anyway, Ferraro is one of Hillary Clinton's top fundraisers and has stood in gender solidarity with the Democratic candidate since the beginning of her campaign. Late last week, Ferraro gave an interview to a reporter with the Torrance (Calif.) Daily Breeze:
When the subject turned to Obama, Clinton's rival for the Democratic Party nomination, Ferraro's comments took on a decidedly bitter edge.OK, so that was three or four Incredibly Stupid Statements. But for convenience, we'll just call it No. 1.
"I think what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama's campaign - to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against," she said. "For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It's been a very sexist media. Some just don't like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign.
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she continued. "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." Ferraro does not buy the notion of Obama as the great reconciler.
"I was reading an article that said young Republicans are out there campaigning for Obama because they believe he's going to be able to put an end to partisanship," Ferraro said, clearly annoyed. "Dear God! Anyone that has worked in the Congress knows that for over 200 years this country has had partisanship - that's the way our country is."
In the aftermath, CNN reported that a senior adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign called on Hillary Clinton to "repudiate" the comment. Clinton's communications director, Howard Wolfson, said Clinton "disagrees" with Ferraro's statements.
Sidebar: Remember Clinton's insistence a couple of weeks ago that Barack Obama "reject," and not just "denounce," comments made by Louis Farrakhan about Israel? "There's a difference between 'denouncing' and 'rejecting,'" Clinton said then.During the Strategy Session segment with CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Tuesday, Republican strategist Leslie Sanchez said that Ferraro "didn't go off message; she went off the deep end ... As someone who has been the recipient of the politics of gender, she has a lot of nerve engaging in the politics of race."
I wonder where "disagreeing" falls in relation to "denouncing" or "rejecting" on the Clinton Scale of Outrage. I'm envisioning something like that strong-man game you see at the county fairs, you know, where you have to bang on a sensor with a big mallet and the meter climbs the tower based on your strength? Maybe Clinton could call hers the Object-o-Meter.
BAM! Now that's a sound bite you can take to the bank.
