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Friday, March 14, 2008
Gingrich: ‘Ferraro’s remark was silly, childish — and true’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Newt Gingrich is saying that Geraldine Ferraro’s comment about Barack Obama was “childish” and “silly” — and “something that probably was true.”
This line of thought started Thursday with a Gingrich appearance on the Fox radio program “Brian and the Judge,” picked up by a Human Events blog.
But the former Georgia congressman and House speaker repeated himself this morning on WSB (750AM) radio in Atlanta, in an exchange with Neal Boortz. Click here for the sound bite.
“I thought it kind of strange that she had to resign for telling the truth,” Gingrich said.
To back up a bit: Ferraro withdrew from the Hillary Clinton campaign after saying the following one week ago, to a local California newspaper:
“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.”
Here’s the gist of the Gingrich/Human Events post:
“Senator Obama has made every African American proud. There’s nothing wrong with that,” said Gingrich.
“Under other circumstances, what are the odds that Oprah Winfrey would have decided…to recommend [him] to the entire country and…what are the odds that Oprah Winfrey would have for the first time in her career, gone around the country campaigning for him?”
Gingrich ridiculed the controversy over Ferraro’s comments as part of “the politically correct left” and asked, “Are we now going to say that nobody is allowed to notice that Senator Clinton is female and nobody is allowed to notice that Senator Obama is African American…are we not allowed to be honest?”
Gingrich also added about Senator Clinton, “Does anyone seriously believe that Senator Clinton is not running better among women because she is a woman?”
Blogwatch: ‘An ethics panel can be abused. I know. I’ve done it.’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is what happens when blogging and politics mix.
Erick Erickson, founder of PeachPundit and a newly elected city councilman, is taking after Mayor Robert Reichert plan to make Macon a “city of ethics.”
Specifically, Erickson, a Republican, doesn’t like the proposal for a panel that would review accusations of impropriety.
Such an ethics board would be abused, Erikson said. He knows, because he’s done it.
Erickson wrote this in his local, lesser-known Blog Macon:
“Look, I’m a political consultant by trade. When I run political campaigns, I routinely encourage, at the mere hint of any impropriety, a third party friendly to my candidate’s campaign to file a complaint with the State Ethics Commission….
“Every campaign would be hurling ethics complaints at every other campaign through surrogates not viewed as connected with any campaign. And the media would sit back and cover every single one of the complaints as if it was genuine and true.”
But if an ethics panel must be formed, Erickson said he’d insist that it be peopled only with “college educated men and women who have full time jobs outside the home.”
“In my experience, politically active housewives and househusbands and blue-haired retirees are the most troublesome, meddlesome politically active people who will view every complaint filed as probable cause for an investigation,” Erickson wrote. “Professionals with full-time jobs don’t have time for that nonsense. They’d be more likely to weed out the frivolous complaints rapidly.”
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