Tennessee Guerilla Women: Olbermann's Meltdown: KO Compares Hillary's Campaign to KKK's David Duke

With lots and lots of exclamation marks, the increasingly eye-bulging hyperbolic Keith Olbermann told the world last night that Hillary Clinton's campaign is comparable to the former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. I am not kidding.

Attacking Bush has gotten boring, so Keith has moved on to Democrats, and since he works for the Misogyny Channel, naturally he's moved on to attacking Hillary for what he terms the "clearly racist" remarks of that other uppity woman, Geraldine Ferraro.

Have you noticed how very few of the voices in the national discourse belong to women? I wish that Geraldine Ferraro had chosen her words more carefully when she expressed her views about the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama:

“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.”

Interestingly, Ferraro made these comments last week, but it was on the day of the Mississippi primary, when "the Obama camp latched on to them, calling them outrageous and demanding that Mrs. Clinton repudiate them."

In my view, Ferraro's comments refer to the free pass presidential candidate Barack Obama has received from national leaders and from a media plagued with what appears to be white liberal guilt, or fear that any criticism of Sen. Obama will be viewed as racist. But some take her words to mean that all of Senator Obama's achievements are due to some affirmative action program -- a decidedly right-wing frame. And so they cry racism. All of this does seem to justify the fears of the Obama-worshipping media.

Good people can disagree on the intent or meaning of her remarks, but there was a time when progressives were known for nuance, for operating on the premise that there are many shades of gray in between GOOD and EVIL. There was a time when it seemed to be a given that everyone has a unique standpoint and thus everything cannot be seen clearly from any one point of view. Those days appear to be long gone, and Keith Olbermann appears to represent the neo progressive with the view that Hillary and all her supporters are every bit as EVIL as the vilest Republican. And it's Keith's view, or no view.

I have not found Ferraro's subsequent clarifications helpful largely because like a lot of women, Geraldine Ferraro is fucking furious about the fact that while those who lead the national discourse are rightly intolerant of racism in the presidential campaign, sexism is so fucking routine that apparently only a few of us marginalized folks can even recognize it. Don't hold your breath waiting for Keith's special commentary on sexism, because the man is so steeped in misogyny that he cannot see it. (Ever catch his Stupid Slut of the Day coverage?)

Since the sexists are the media, there is little hope of anything changing in our lifetimes. Did I say a lot of women are furious?

Below are some of Keith's rabidly self-righteous comments on racism in the Clinton campaign. I'd like to invite Keith to come to Nashville and spend some time in some of our re-segregated Black schools, which just happen to be a whole lot poorer than some of our 'white' schools, and then maybe Keith will have a fucking clue about where he should be expending his moral outrage.

Keith Obamaman: To not distance you from it, Senator! To not distance you… from that which you as a woman, and Senator Obama as an African-American, should both know and feel with the deepest of personal pain! Which you should both fight with all you have! Which you should both insure, has no place in this contest! Voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth. Your only reaction has been to disagree, reject, and to call it regrettable. Her only reaction has been to brand herself as the victim, resign from your committee, and insist she will continue to speak.

Somebody tells her that simply disagreeing with and rejecting the remarks is sufficient. And she should then call, “regrettable”, words that should make any Democrat retch. And that she should then try to twist them, first into some pox-on-both-your-houses plea to ’stick to the issues,’ and then to let her campaign manager try to bend them beyond all recognition, into Senator Obama’s fault. And thus these advisers give Congresswoman Ferraro nearly a week in which to send Senator Clinton’s campaign back into the vocabulary… of David Duke.

"I certainly do repudiate it and I regret deeply that it was said. Obviously she doesn't speak for the campaign, she doesn't speak for any of my positions, and she has resigned from being a member of my very large finance committee."

-- Hillary Rodham Clinton

“Every time that campaign is upset about something, they call it racist. . If they think they’re going to shut up Geraldine Ferraro with that kind of stuff, they don’t know me.”

-- Geraldine Ferraro

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Olbermann's Meltdown: KO Compares Hillary's Campaign to KKK's David Duke