Bar Fight Primary

This is really weird.

I agree that it's useless to continue to spend time in this campaign talking about who said what about who. It's the height of political correctness and it feels like I'm back in high school again. However, I have to say that the way this Geraldine Ferraro situation has played out is something of a revelation. She said something stupid (Obama's lucky that he's black, to be precise), and in the wake of an Obama surrogate saying something stupid and quickly resigning. If I ran the zoo nobody would have to resign for whatever they say. But to turn it around in this way?

Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up. Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white. How's that?

Wow. Just wow. And the Clinton campaign did essentially the same thing, accusing OBAMA of playing the race card.

Clinton has certainly won the chutzpah vote. I guess they think that they won't be bullied or pushed around. But this is really the kind of thing Republicans do, defending lunacy with nothing but unmitigated gall. At the same time, it's not like the Clinton campaign hasn't forced surrogates or aides to resign:

The Clinton campaign is no longer taking contributions from a Turkish American who financed a film that depicted an American Jew trading in Iraqi body parts.

Mehmet Celebi had been listed on the presidential campaign website of U.S. Sen. Hilalry Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as a "Hill-raiser," someone who had raised more than $100,000 for her presidential bid. Celebi had co-produced "Valley of the Wolves: Iraq," a 2006 film based on a popular Turkish TV series about a crack Turkish combat unit.

The film depicts a Jewish American doctor harvesting organs from prisoners.

Celebi has essentially the same relationship to the Clinton campaign as Ferraro does.

I really think it's some warped sense of "toughness," buying a full Republican critique that it's better to be strong and wrong than weak and right. I don't know if that works in a Democratic primary; it just makes you look bull-headed. And in terms of how a Clinton Administration would deal with criticism or pressure from anyone, including Democrats, it's downright petrifying.

Here's Obama's statement:

"With Senator Clinton's refusal to denounce or reject Ms. Ferraro, she has once again proven that her campaign gets to live by its own rules and its own double standard, and will only decry offensive comments when it's politically advantageous to Senator Clinton. Her refusal to take responsibility for her own supporter's remarks is exactly the kind of tactic that feeds the American people's cynicism about politics today and it's why Barack Obama's message of change has resonated so strongly in every corner of the country," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.

This is probably a little thing. But I think it's a window into a very scary prospect; yet another Administration who thinks they're not bound by any accountability.