Professor Schaff's excellent post on the Spitzer resignation will suffice for that story. Let me turn to the other moral drama of the internet day: the Ferraro resignation. As I follow it, the story is this:
First, Ms. Ferraro was never a part of the Clinton Campaign.
Second, she is resigning from the Clinton campaign for saying bad things about Barack Obama.
Third, what she said were true and there was nothing wrong with what she said.
It reminds me of a Russian joke. A woman explains why she doesn't have to pay for her neighbor's tea pot. First, I never borrowed the pot. Second, when I borrowed it, it was already broken. Third, when I gave it back, it was in perfect condition.
Former Congressperson and second fiddle to Walter Mondale Geraldine Ferraro said this (USA Today):
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. 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."
There are four assertions there. Numbers three and four are obviously true. Number two is highly speculative. Obama's masculinity is surely one of his assets, but nobody can say whether the right female candidate might not have made up for it. A Black woman with Obama's intelligence and talent might well have been a more formidable candidate.
It's number one that forced Ms. Ferraro to resign from a job she didn't have. Again, it is subject to doubt, but it looks pretty solid. Would a White Obama have been able to challenge Ms. Clinton? No. He would not have commanded the lion's share of the Black vote in so many key states, or forced the Clintons to alienate the Black demographic and so alienate many key Democrats. Nor would he have attracted the White voters who, for various reasons, want to vote for a Black candidate. That surely outweighs the voters who went for Ms. Clinton because she was not Black.
Obama's race is an asset, and he has used it with admirable prudence. He didn't run as a Black candidate, and were it not for the characteristic nastiness of the Clintons, he might have run a largely race-neutral campaign. That would have been very good for the country. As it is, the Democratic races is now bogged down in identity politics. But at the very least, Ms. Ferraro's first assertion was a plausible interpretation of the facts.
She committed what has come to be known as a "Kinsley Gaffe." That is when a political figure gets in trouble for blurting out the truth. It is absurd that she should be forced to resign, even from a position she didn't exactly occupy. The politics of political correctness is strangling public discourse. There ought to be some limits on acceptable speech. That is necessary for civil politics. But the limits ought to be very broad, especially when it comes to a reasonable interpretation of the facts. Senator Clinton should have supported her ally. She could easily have disagreed while giving Ms. Ferraro's leave to express her own opinions. In the long run, it might have served her well. But it would have required Senator Clinton to think about something other than her own immediate situation. That is the last thing one would expect from a Clinton.
Recent Comments