As Keith O. pointed out, the comments plus the implied agreement with them by Clinton, plus her denigration of the results from more than half of the states that have voted, plus her proposed coup by superdelegates = GRASPING.

I like Hilary, I wish she wasn't so desperate to sink to any level to win.

There little you can do, with words, more hurtful than to tell a person of color who has achieved that it was merely a matter of special preference. It's not just patently untrue, in the case of Obama and others. It's to dismiss all the difficulties involved in making it past the racism that is still so obvious effective. This more than doubles the offense. And if the author is hoping that this is not what Ferraro meant to do, he gives no evidence for that.

He must also be incredibly dismissive of people's common sense assessments of racist views, which I have always found quite apt. (The stakes are high, when it comes to detecting racism.) So this is an attempt to argue against what is clear to almost everyone (but an biased advocate of the Clinton campaign). Ferraro's comment and subsequent comments are racist on their face.

I agree with some of your points and disagree with others, but most of all, thanks for finally covering this, especially in such detail. As a fan of the site and your work on it, I appreciate it.

Wow,

that was a really long defensively written article. You do some very good analysis on, errr, how we analyze and I don't have any (major) disagreements with you but dude ... this just reads like an article written because you're tired of getting yelled at by the letters section. I mean ... if it's overblown then just say it and move on, save the long pieces of analysis for stories you think are worthy of long pieces of analysis.

Geri Ferraro and the people who are defending her are using, I believe, a flawed analogy.

When Mondale chose Ferraro, when Reagan chose O'Connor, when Bush chose Thomas, they were looking for someone who fit a pre-existing description. They were looking for a woman or a black guy. A woman or a black guy that was fully qualified for the position, certainly, but "woman or black guy" was part of the criteria. And that was totally justifiable in those, as in many cases; we traditionally appoint a person of an ethnic minority to head the EEOC, for example.

But that's not what's going on with Obama -- or Hillary, for that matter. In their cases, they each came up through the system (maybe quicker in his case, but no matter), and have presented us with the opportunity to choose a woman or a black guy.

That is, in the earlier examples, the intent, the drive, came from "above", from those doing the choosing; the President or whoever was making the offer. In the current, terribly ironic situation, the intent is coming from the candidates themselves; they're the ones offering us the choice between them.

And that's why this is truly historic.

Geraldine Ferraro should have been dismissed by the Clinton camp as soon as her big mouth started DEFENDING her totally indefensible previous comments. Hillary Clinton will pay the price in the GE if she wins the nomination.

Like your writing, you mean? Or Salon's sense of its own relevance, now diminished by its blatant support for HRC?

Because surely you aren't saying that Democrats, many of us former Clinton -- and yes, even Ferraro -- supporters weren't over-reacting to the appalling racism and simmering rage in Ferraro's rant?

She didn't merely put forth this ridiculous point to the Daily Breeze. She also said it to Fox.

I am a white, middle-class feminist. I have watched in sadness as one after another of my feminist heroes has been subsumed by anger over the prospect of Hillary Clinton losing to an upstart (you may wish to substitute a synonym also beginning with "up" here) African-American man.

Once upon a time we all were on the same side. Hillary and her divisive tactics now have us on opposite sides of an abyss.

I used to tell friends that I'd vote for a tuna casserole, before I voted for a Republican.

Sadly, if HRH (as in Her Royal Highness) steals the nomination, I'll be sitting out the election. I just cannot endorse her embrace of a Southern strategy, or her Bush-like reluctance to apologize or accept responsibility.

So it's a kid glove treatment for Obama. If that has any bearing. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe when you paint one candidate as a shrill WOMAN and the other as the Messiah it makes no difference. Yes I'm sure of it now.

I don't claim the sight to peer into the hearts of men and women and see the light and darkness there. And yes, I thought Kieth was over the top last night. Sometimes I think he's auditioning for an opera spot, even when I agree with his basic premises. But I would agree there seems to be a pattern, or the appearance of a pattern. Power knew she stepped in doo, apologized, and commited seppuku right away. Ferraro kept digging herself deeper, The Clinton campaign initially failed to reject and denounce, so that looks like a double standard to me.

And I think that the flip side of this coin "That Obama is winning because he is black" is "Hillary is losing because she is a woman". I don't buy that. But I certainly hear and read that quite a bit in the letters. Another thing we really don't want to talk about.

another shrill salon defense

You'd have been better off just not addressing your failure to cover the story, rather than addressing it with this longwinded, Ferraro-esque defense of your non-reportage.

But thanks for protecting your poor, delicate readership from the perils of addressing an "overblown" story. In the future I just hope you don't decide to keep our fragile sensibilities safe from such overblown stories as the Iraq war, the staggering economy or the coming war with Iran.