I’ve just spent half an hour reading accounts of Geraldine Ferraro’s statements and the reaction to them, including her Fox interviews. For myself, the affair has two distinct aspects.

1. Sen. Clinton repudiated Ms Ferraro’s statements. If she had not, she would have been in the position of saying that it’s all right by her, if her campaign staff say that Obama owes his position to his colour. I hope you can see that if such a statement is acceptable, then it’s available as free ammo for anyone who wants to make a slur on any successful person of colour. “Colin Powell wouldn’t be in this position …” ” Condoleeza Rice wouldn’t be …”, etc. It’s a statement that plays into the hands of racists, it’s beneath the dignity of any public figure, and it ought to be, yes, silenced. Ferraro resigned from the campaign of her own accord, under how much pressure I don’t know. Even though I think she was wrong, she is due respect for standing by her beliefs. I am not persuaded this is because Obama has somehow become sacrosanct. It is because political etiquette, in this respect, is being held to proper standards.

2. The barrage of hate-mail to which Ms Ferraro was subjected was appalling and clearly beyond the pale. Just this kind of vicousness was all through the comments threads in several of the main left-wing blogs I read, on both sides of the nomination contest. I can see how it could be made a weapon for suppressing dissent, for the dogma of your choice, in principle; in fact it must function to keep the poitical communities separate. The problem is, every ugly word of it is free speech. But have you noticed that it never actually succeeds in making anybody shut up? I mean, there was Ferraro giving TV interviews a few days later.

So I’m not convinced, Wretchard. In a democratic society, some speech ought to be reproved. In principle, and regardless of personalities. I’m completely for free speech in this. You say your piece, nobody can stop you, and then you take your chances.with everybody else’s responses. Which ought to be reproved in turn if they are malcious attacks on you or your heritage. Really. July 4 is coming up, light an extra rocket for free speech, I’ll be thinking of you.

Back to the main argument now. The cult of personality is a totalitarian phenomenon. Celebrity is a democratic phenomenon. It is dishonest to conflate them.

It may be I’m making contrast against the fact that in Australia we’ve had a long series of grey men who more or less did what the country needed and the people wanted. But I make my claim regardless: You Yanks are up to your necks in celebrity, and completely immune to cults of personality. Haven’t you seen them come, and seen them go? Don’t you think, the bigger they come, the harder they fall? Has there ever been an American who believed in aristocracy of any kind?

Roosevelt’s in the White House, he’s doing his best, McKinley’s in the graveyard, he taking his rest.

Good luck!