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Ferraro not sorry over remark on Obama, but quits

Geraldine Ferraro resigned on Wednesday from Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign finance committee, but remained unapologetic for citing Senator Barack Obama's race as the decisive factor in his success.

"I feel terrible for the fact that Hillary is stuck in this thing," Ferraro said in an interview on Wednesday night. "Why put her in that position?"

Ferraro said she was not asked by anyone in the Clinton campaign to leave the committee, that she did it on her own, sending an e-mail message to the senator's campaign on Wednesday afternoon, as the political dust-up over remarks she made last week went into its second day.

Words continued to fly back and forth as the Obama campaign called on Clinton to repudiate the remarks, which Ferraro said had been distorted and Obama called "absurd."

Ferraro, who said she and Clinton had not discussed the matter directly, will continue to support the senator.

"I am stepping down from your finance committee," she wrote, "so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what's at stake in this campaign. The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you. I won't let that happen."

Speaking from her Manhattan law office shortly after e-mailing the letter, Ferraro, a former vice presidential nominee, said that she stood by her controversial remarks and repeatedly accused the Obama campaign of deliberate distortion.

"If you point to something that deals with race, you are immediately a racist?" she said over the phone. "Give me a break."

Ferraro made the comments that touched off the latest exchange of Democratic brickbats after she gave a paid speech last week to the Torrance Cultural Center in Torrance, California.

The Daily Breeze reported that she said: "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."

Obama called the remarks "patently absurd" and "divisive."

Clinton, saying she did not agree with the comments, called it "regrettable that any of our supporters -- on both sides because we both have this experience -- say things that kind of veer off into the personal."

Ferraro made no apologies.

"Am I sorry? No, no, no," she said. "I am sorry there are people who think I am racist."
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