How Many Geraldine Ferraros Does it Take to Make One Rush Limbaugh?

By Lee Russ

Tuesday, March 11, 2008 at 08:22 PM

Answer: One. As in equivalent. If you heard a vague temporal echo when Ferraro said that Obama would not be where he is if he was white (or a woman), it's because it sounded a hell of a lot like Limbaugh insulting Donovan McNabb in 2003.

For the record, this is what Ferraro said a few days ago:

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.

This is what Limbaugh said about Eagle quarterback McNabb back in 2003 during his awful stint on ESPN:

I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team.

Decades of white favoritism somehow leads to the conclusion that a black player is being favored, whether in politics or sports. Yes, in America, we spend a lot of time deliberately overrating Black men. It's what we're famous for. That's why you continually see baseball writers raving about white players with slightly better than average skills, but finding several subtle reasons to knock black (or Hispanic) players with, if anything, higher skill levels. It's why we have so many black Governors, U.S. Senators, and so on.

Talk about a crock. And the similarity between Ferraro and Limbaugh goes further, folks. When called on his comments about McNabb, Limbaugh said little in the open arena but immediately raced back to the safety of his controlled access radio show to add:

All this has become the tempest that it is because I must have been right about something. If I wasn't right, there wouldn't be this cacophony of outrage that has sprung up in the sports writer community.

So the crazier the thing you say, the more outrage at your having said it, and the greater the outrage, the more proof that the crazy thing you said was right.

Limbaugh also added:

..the sports media, being liberals just like liberal media is elsewhere, have a desire that black quarterbacks excel and do very well so that their claims that blacks are being denied opportunity can be validated.

Yup, just another liberal plot, like all the other criticisms of Rush "the jerkster" Limbaugh. Conservatives get skewered by liberals (in what passes for his mind), so if he's getting skewered, it must be the liberals.

And Ferraro? Well, in what passes for her mind, if you're a national leader, you have to have put in your time doing what the party bosses say, so if you're now a national leader and haven't paid those dues, it must be because....

It didn't matter to Limbaugh that several really good black quarterbacks preceded McNabb (ever hear of Warren Moon, Rushie?). It doesn't matter to Ferraro that there are several other black men who have run for their party's presidential nomination (Keyes, Sharpton, Jackson) and been...skewered big time. For some reason being black didn't make them skewerproof.

But lets face it, it's more than time for Ferraro to fade away and save what shred of dignity she may retain. This is the same woman who recently wrote an editorial for the NY Times trumpeting her pride in the concept of super delegates (she was involved in their creation), essentially on the grounds that the party insiders know what's best, and even bragged about being coauthor of the Dems' 1984 platform, "the longest platform in Democratic history." Quite an accomplishment, huh? Think that might be a reason the platform was hacked down to a fraction of that in the next electoral year?

Not to mention, as Ferraro acknowledges, that the Dems lost 1984 "big time." She thinks "that loss had nothing to do with Democratic Party infighting." I think, "who gives a crap what it had to do with--you lost. BIG TIME."

The real similarity between Limbaugh and Ferraro? Both fit their narrow self interest into lofty terms based on their existing framework of who the good guys and bad guys are, both have little in the way of personal insight or conscience, and neither has an analytical leg to stand on.