Ferraro's comments an insult to the art of politics

Geraldine Ferraro, one-time Democratic VP candidate, has quit her post in the Clinton campaign because of a minor media firestorm over these comments:

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.

Of course, many people's first reaction is to denounce the comments as racist--but this is the wrong view. Matt Yglesias nails it:

It really is hard to imagine Obama being where he is today if he weren't black. But the point is that everyone who has success in presidential politics does so, in part, because of contingent personal attributes that aren't a strict form of merit. Being white has, after all, been an important part of the political success of all our previous presidents. Certainly Bill Clinton's southern accent was an important part of his package, as it was for Jimmy Carter and of course Lyndon Johnson was made VP to do regional ticket balancing. John Kennedy had a rich dad. Franklin Roosevelt was named "Roosevelt." That's just political reality, not some vast black conspiracy to keep Hillary Clinton down.

...And, of course, there's no way Hillary Clinton would be where she is if she weren't a certain ex-president's wife.

Ferraro's observation wasn't untrue or racist so much as trivial. However, that said, I think that every politician in the Clinton campaign should know by now that any comment involving Obama and race is going to be a media powder keg, and must be handled very delicately. Ferraro, with her careless and easy-to-misconstrue comments, was negligent in this regard. BOOM!