Legal Commentary

Now That It Is Over . .

By Big Tent Democrat

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

Jonathan Cohn says this about Geraldine Ferraro's recent comments to the press:

Ferraro's original statement . . . was a dog-whistle to white voters who resent affirmative action.

Well, sure. Except for one thing. Torrance is a faceless little bedroom community most famous for having a big shopping mall, and the Torrance Daily Breeze is a faceless little local newspaper . . . In fact, nobody would ever have noticed her remarks in the first place if Kos hadn't highlighted them three days after they appeared. Ferraro's moment in the national press didn't start until after the blogosphere erupted.

If Ferraro was trying to do some dog whistling, she sure picked an unusually ineffective forum for it. It's way more likely that she just blurted out something dumb to a local reporter, and then got her dander up when people started piling on about it. That's no excuse for saying something dumb . . . but it's pretty unlikely that Ferraro had any serious dog whistling agenda here.

No comments on this one. Um, I said no comments. Don't waste your time.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 12, 2008 (boomark / email).