You can't say that?

Kathleen Parker:

Race and gender, once the courted darlings of the Democrats, are becoming party poopers. In the always-quotable words of the Wicked Witch of the West: "These things must be done dehhhhhh-licately."

Lately, Democrats -- specifically female Democrats -- have been cast into the outer darkness for speaking their minds in ways that have been interpreted as racist or sexist. Free speech, it seems, is no longer so free in the political arena.

As the aforementioned woman, whose primary mode of transport is a broom, might sketch in today's mud-slung sky: Surrogates beware.

Most recently rapped by the rulers of acceptable speech was Geraldine Ferraro, former vice presidential candidate and, until her resignation Wednesday, fundraiser for Hillary Clinton.

Ferraro committed that most egregious foul in the game of identity politics. She spoke of race and gender -- but especially race -- in an unapproved way.

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she said. "And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position."

Was her comment racist and deserving of denunciation? Or was she partially, if clumsily, right?

Hold that thought while we visit Adelfa Callejo, a revered 84-year-old lawyer/activist and Clinton supporter in Texas, who said last month that Obama would have trouble with Latino voters because he is African-American.

"When blacks had the numbers, they didn't do anything to support us," Callejo said. "They always used our numbers to fulfill their goals and objectives, but they never really supported us, and there's a lot of hard feelings about that."

True or false? Racist or observant?

In fact, Clinton leads among Hispanic voters, winning by a 2-to-1 margin in large states such as New York, California and New Jersey. In Texas, Clinton did the same, winning among Latinos by 66 percent to 32 percent. Callejo wasn't wrong about the end result. And even if some condemned her statement, her reasoning -- based on experience and observation -- was sound.

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What's clearly wrong is the convenient labeling -- and silencing -- of people as racist or sexist for expressing opinions that run counter to acceptable speech codes as determined by the minders of outrage.

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The tribes of the Democrat coalition appear to be fracturing on feelings. They all have a tendency to be hyper sensitive to perceived insults. There was a time when people learned to ignore the insults and keep their head down and get on with the important work they set out to do. In the world of Democrats, feelings trump reality, and feelings must be soothed before the job can go on. Can such people really govern?

John McCain has come up with an intelligent way to deal with this problem. While it sometimes appears he is trying to take the fun out of running against Democrats, he often stops the fun to say that he is going to run a respectful campaign against his Democrat opponents. This in effect shortcuts the demands for apologies and leaves the Democrats speechless. Hopefully Republicans will continue to give him the opportunity to do this by continuing to make fun of the Democrats. I think it has real potential to scramble the feelings of those looking to be aggrieved.