Will He Get The Ferraro Treatment

Uh oh, don’t these Democrats realize that you simply can’t talk about this sort of thing in polite company?

Wading back into the Democratic presidential race, billionaire businessman Bob Johnson said Monday that Sen. Barack Obama would not be his party’s leading candidate if he were white.

Yes, apparently Mr. Johnson does recall Geraldine Ferraro’s remarks, and in fact agrees with them.

Johnson’s comments to the Observer echoed those of former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro. She stepped down as an adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton last month after saying Obama wouldn’t be where he is if he were white.

"What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called `Jerry Smith’ and he says I’m going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote?" Johnson said. "And the answer is, probably not… ."

"Geraldine Ferraro said it right. The problem is, Geraldine Ferraro is white. This campaign has such a hair-trigger on anything racial … it is almost impossible for anybody to say anything."

Well, I wouldn’t say Ferraro’s skin color was a "problem" in the general sense, because that shouldn’t have mattered.  Equally, Bob Johnson’s skin color shouldn’t matter either, but if you click here and pull up the web page for the article, you’ll notice that he is black.  Not only can he say that Obama’s color is a factor in his popularity, he can also say that it was a "problem" for Ferraro to say this because of her color.

Whether or not you agree with Johnson’s assessments, I highly doubt he’s going to come under fire nearly as much as Ferraro for what amounts to a restating and expanding of her comments.  Obama himself may take a shot back, but the uproar, or lack thereof, over this will be telling.

And again I have to come back to the question; who it is that really has a problem with this?  It’s Democrats, the ones who insist they have more common cause with Dr. King.  It’s not just that talking about racial issues (which they, like Obama, insist they want to have a conversation on) can be taboo, but it’s a different sized taboo (or none at all) depending on the race of the speaker.  Your opinion is simply not tolerated unless you are of a particular race. 

Isn’t that, y’know, the very definition of racism?  Isn’t this allegedly what political correctness — AKA liberal sensitivity — was supposed to remove?  And yet liberals find themselves yet again in a bed, nay coffin of their own making.  Identity politics is ripping the party apart, and now oversensitivity to racial issues is continuing the breakdown. 

The facade that is the Democratic party has some gaping fissures. 

Filed under: Democrats • Politics • Race Issues

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