Comments

1. ed gleason 03/13/2008 - 2:56 pm

   I saw this and while too shrill it had a point that Clinton campaign is trying to cast Obama’s message as a race entitlement.
   e.g. stressing overwheleming Black vote in hopes blue collar whites will offset this in Pa. Ferraro was picked from nowhere as a token. Obama nominated himself and is winning. As Maureen Dowd said ‘she helped Mondale lose 49 states’ [NYT]
   Poor Ferraro could not have carried a precint in an Italian/American enclave in NJ!
   A good question for this thread is ‘ why does Clinton capture the Catholc vote’? it mystifies me.

2. Bill Mazzella 03/13/2008 - 3:14 pm  subscriber

   Another contributor who is an overt Obama supporter and Clinton basher, pretending to provide us with educational material. Again all is fair….
   Msnbc, of course, is very fair to Clinton. This is clear from the fact that Chris Matthews from Hardballl has been FORCED to apologize to her and the other guy on Msnbc got suspended for using the word “PIMPING” with reference to Clinton’s daughter.
   Now tell me that Olberman is not trying to throw the arrows his chastened colleagues cannot throw because of a credibility gap which Olberman may achieve with this kind of declension.

   Carter only won 6 states in 1980 and Mondale barely carried his own state in 84. So one might lay of the ad-feminam. Anthony Gaughan gave us the real deal on the TRUTH of Ferrara’s words.

   How we lose our reason when it comes to politics and…….gender.

3. Joe Pettit 03/13/2008 - 3:14 pm

   I have made my thoughts on the Ferraro comments clear below. As for Olberman, I cannot take him seriously, if only because when you cause you head to move so much from excessive jawing, your hair ought to move at least a little bit.

4. Grant Gallicho 03/13/2008 - 3:37 pm  contributor

   The cross-over candidate! Here you go, Bill. This ought to make your head explode:
   http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/03/13/proof-rush-limbaugh-s-strategy-worked-in-ohio.aspx

5. Bill Mazzella 03/13/2008 - 3:50 pm  subscriber

   Here is a story Contributors should be featuring:
   http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=c5005f31-237e-4f9d-bca1-891c7aa2b7b2&k=90024

6. David Gibson 03/13/2008 - 4:09 pm  subscriber  contributor

   Olberman is almost as funny as Bill Mazzella. But Olberman is right on this one.

7. David Nickol 03/13/2008 - 5:03 pm  subscriber

   David Gibson,

   Right on this one?

   “Racial undertone to the 3:00 a.m. ad”? “Vocabulary of David Duke”? “Awash in filth”?

   Please tell me you’re joking.

   By the way, Olbermann has two n’s.

8. Barbara 03/13/2008 - 6:01 pm

   Actually, I am pretty sure that Olbermann has been a Clinton supporter, but I don’t think there’s any public statement that lets us know for sure. I think Olbermann was over the top — it was too long. Parts of it were pretty funny, though.

   Bill, there are more than a few Hillary supporters who really want no part of this kind of tactic. I am guessing that at her donor pow wow yesterday she received more than a few blunt and negative comments. I am also guessing she is beginning to realize that there might be blowback from super ds if she keeps going down this road.

9. Bill Mazzella 03/13/2008 - 6:33 pm  subscriber

   Barbara, I never said that Ferrara was right. I said she was accurate. This is politics which, if you have not noticed, is practiced on this venerable blog. Denials and affirmations are all part of the game. If you win you are politically astute. If you lose you are naive. Etc. Remember all those people getting outraged over Monica when a few guys were learning how to fly without bothering to learn how to land…

   Olbermann has been a Clinton supporter and prefaced his inanity with profound gratitude for all they have done for him and then some. With friends like that.

   Msnbc, Cnn and Fox are really hopeless. They do not know what to feature. They just keep repeating themselves. The Anti-Hillary always plays and Ferrara gave them justification. Read my lips, Swiftboat….

   This democratic primary has been so hypocritical. Didn’t someone say this wasn’t Disney or something.

10. George D 03/13/2008 - 6:43 pm

    Bill:

    Here is a story Contributors should be featuring:

    You have got to be kidding. Eliot Spitzer as poor victim of over zealous prosecutor.

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2008/03/13/poor-ashley-dupre.aspx

    “Then, this morning comes the Ashley Dupré moment (and there is always in these sordid connections the Ashley Dupré moment). She is like the pathetic contestants in the early phases of American Idol: broken, rejected, exploited through a fantasy in which she willingly particpates. I read her story and the old ’70s feminist in me (admittedly, a tiny presence) rears up. A broken home on the Jersey shore. Abused as a kid. A nightclub singer. Worried about paying her rent. Men walking out on her. “Broke and homeless,” and known for giving extra food to homeless guys. OK, so she’s not a Thai village girl smuggled into Amsterdam. But she is a sad American type: This is Marilyn Monroe territory—a woman who can play the role of sexy and powerful but is always herself being played. I think about Ashley looking at an eviction notice and Spitzer cavalierly wiring $4,300 from one account to another, and it’s very hard for me to feel sorry for him.”

    I am not saying that she is a victim but Spitzer’s arrogance for a man given that degree of power (and for someone who wasn’t lenient) with others is hardly grounds for sympathy.

    I am surprised Bill. You assume the role of prophet with the hierarchy which is fair. The prophet must never be a sycophant but that includes a sycophant to the Democratic party and the left.

11. Balaam s Ass 03/13/2008 - 7:14 pm

    It is OUTRAGEOUS what Geraldine Ferrero suggested! Obama should NOT STAND for it! He should PROVE that she’s wrong! He should immediately release his transcripts from Occidental College, so everybody can see that a white guy with the same qualifications would have been accepted as a transfer at Columbia. And he should immediately release his transcripts from Columbia, so nobody can suggest he might have received preferential treatment in admission to Harvard Law.

    Which he didn’t OF COURSE. Did he?

    After all, it would be pretty ridiculous for him to suggest he had some kind of unique sort of “diversity” to contribute in the Ivy League. A guy who grew up in a white household in a white neighborhood and went to the fanciest-shmanciest private high school in Hawaii.

12. David Gibson 03/13/2008 - 8:37 pm  subscriber  contributor

    David Nickol, never fear, I was joking. Yes, I think Ferraro was wrong and ridiculous and should have been fired. But Olbermann (does Doberman have one “n”?) is way overheated–like Bill M. Hard to take seriously.

13. David Nickol 03/13/2008 - 9:06 pm  subscriber

    David Gibson,

    I am so relieved!

14. Bill Mazzella 03/13/2008 - 9:57 pm  subscriber

    “I am surprised Bill. You assume the role of prophet with the hierarchy which is fair. The prophet must never be a sycophant but that includes a sycophant to the Democratic party and the left.”
    George D, there are plenty of my views that you can legitimately contend without making me portray something that I did not write.

    Where did I defend Spitzer. This is pure hallucination on your part, no? While there is NO defense of Spitzer’s actions there could very well be politics involved. As the article I referenced notes, choosing to prosecute is many times at the discretion or judgment of the prosecutor or his supervisor/s. Secondly, Both Norfolk Bank and Hsbc which reported the financial movements of Spitzer were successfully prosecuted by him. Even David Gibson would know that. (I love you too, David) Repeat: I believe Spitzer should serve jail time because of his blatant hypocrisy.

    To clarify AGAIN, George D, my horse in this race is the anti-Hillary because she is a woman notion. It might surprise you to know that I voted for Reagan over Jimmy Carter in 80 and still without regret. My other point is Obama has the shortest resume for a serious candidate in history. Even Reagan was a governor first.

    Again, the Ferrara sanctimonious commentators in this blog still have not acknowledged the shameful behavior of Matthews and his other suspended colleague. But I understand the need to be selective.

15. George D 03/13/2008 - 10:54 pm

    Bill:

    OK my misunderstanding.

    The thing about Hillary is that I don’t think she plummeted because of her gender, I think she sank right around the time her husband became more visible. I keep hearing about how much he is beloved. I think the media and pundits are dead wrong on that. He isn’t really respected.

    They are also dead wrong about Hillary. She doesn’t have to be more human, more likeable. Ridiculous. She is likeable enough. Machiavelli had it right when he said that if the leader has to choose, the leader should choose to be respected rather than liked. If she would have just run on her hard work in the senate, her not showboating but co-operating, even her staying in marriage she would have been respected and it would be an entirely different story.

    I agree to a certain extent about gender bias, but not entirely. This is HER campaign. She calls the shots and needs to call the shots. She shouldn’t have had her husband come in a few months ago to fight her battles. She should have chosen another conduit. Bill’s day is over and she needs to make that clear to him.

    As for the video, I stopped watching after two minutes. I don’t really know who this guy is but he seems so swelled up with self importance that I tuned out.

16. Barbara 03/13/2008 - 11:25 pm

    For the record, for the reasons I stated in my posts on the other thread, I do not believe that Ferraro was accurate.

    But what really pains me about Hillary Clinton’s campaign is that I genuinely believe that she would be better off staying positive — telling us how lucky we are to have two great candidates and why she’s the better candidate. That’s what I believed as late as January. I don’t know exactly what I think now, but I know my declining respect for Clinton has nothing to do with her gender.

17. David Nickol 03/14/2008 - 8:55 am  subscriber

    It would be interesting to hear Olbermann’s commentary on how Obama should deal with the positions of Rev Jeremiah Wright, his pastor for twenty years and the source of the phrase “the audacity of hope.” Should Obama stick to saying they disagree (like Hillary said regarding Ferraro’s remarks), or should Obama “denounce” Rev Wright (as Olbermann wanted Hillary to denounce Ferraro)?

    And how do we compare the McCain-Hagee connection and the Obama-Wright connection?

18. David Nickol 03/14/2008 - 8:54 pm  subscriber

    Presumably my message above resulted in the following:

    Obama Denounces His Pastor’s Statements

    In the handful of years Senator Barack Obama has spent in the national spotlight, his stance toward his pastor has gone from glowing praise to growing distance to — as of Friday — strong criticism.

    On Friday, Mr. Obama called a grab bag of statements by his longtime minister, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., “inflammatory and appalling.”

    “I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue,” he wrote in a campaign statement that was his strongest in a series of public disavowals of his pastor’s views over the past year. . . .

    The full story is at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/us/politics/15wright.html?hp

19. Bob Schwartz 03/15/2008 - 12:34 am  subscriber

    Time for Obama to throw reverend Wright under the bus. Hope! Change!

20. Joe Pettit 03/15/2008 - 8:42 am

    Bob: Perhaps it would be best if you could find a less violent way of expressing that sentiment. Maybe, “ask Rev. Wright to get off the bus.”

21. Grant Gallicho 03/15/2008 - 10:29 am  contributor

    If only…
    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/183584.php

22. Jimmy Mac 03/15/2008 - 5:10 pm  subscriber

    I wonder how many people will agree with THIS point of view?

    http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/truth-time-wright-is-right.php

23. Jimmy Mac 03/15/2008 - 5:18 pm  subscriber

    And lest we be a wee bit too smug ….

    http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/catholic-church-followers-did.php

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