Racial Tensions Roil Democratic Race

[IndianaGreen]

Published on Saturday, January 12, 2008 by Politico

Racial Tensions Roil Democratic Race
by Ben Smith

A series of comments from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, her husband and her supporters are spurring a racial backlash and adding a divisive edge to the presidential primary as the candidates head south to heavily African-American South Carolina.

The comments, which ranged from the New York senator appearing to diminish the role of Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement - an aide later said she misspoke - to Bill Clinton dismissing Sen. Barack Obama’s image in the media as a “fairy tale” - generated outrage on black radio, black blogs and cable television. And now they’ve drawn the attention of prominent African-American politicians.

“A cross-section of voters are alarmed at the tenor of some of these statements,” said Obama spokeswoman Candice Tolliver, who said that Clinton would have to decide whether she owed anyone an apology.

“There’s a groundswell of reaction to these comments - and not just these latest comments but really a pattern, or a series of comments that we’ve heard for several months,” she said. “Folks are beginning to wonder: Is this really an isolated situation, or is there something bigger behind all of this?”

<snip>

The series of comments Clinton critics’ cite began in mid-December, when the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s New Hampshire campaign, Bill Shaheen, speculated about whether Obama had ever dealt drugs. In the final days of the New Hampshire campaign, however, the discomfort of some black observers intensified as Bill Clinton dismissed the contrast between Obama’s judgment on the war and Clinton’s as a “fairy tale” and spoke dismissively of his short time in the Senate. And the candidate herself, in an interview with Fox News, stressed the role of President Lyndon Johnson, over Martin Luther King Jr., in the civil rights movement.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/12/6343/

[Yael]

1. She said she misspoke? I must have missed that.

[IndianaGreen]

3. She still says that her IWR vote was a vote for UN inspectors

and that it wasn't her fault that Bush attacked Iraq. I suppose her Kyl-Lieberman vote is another vote for UN inspectors.

Hillary is as much of a liar as Bush, or her husband.

:eyes:

[Yael]

5. The article mentiones that she backpeddled on the MLK thing

I thought she was still defending it.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. I suspect that they misstepped again.

and stepped into something really stinky.

Of course it was intentional. The Clintons' biggest problems are a sense of entitlement, combined with unfettered aggressive campaigning. They forgot that after 7 yrs of constant spin, deceit, and politicization of every single issue by the White House, America is tired of that kind of gamesmanship.

This will do their campaign a great deal of harm. Their goal is to bring Obama down, to attack and destroy him as a choice. Anyone who tries to do that in a national campaign eventually succeeds. They will do so here. Unfortunately for them, it will bite them in the ass.

The real winner will be Edwards.

[Yael]

7. I like the way you think.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

12. (but it's hard. Hard work. Doin' that think thing.)

Hard. people don know how hard. And as for Osama, I jest done give him much thought.

[Yael]

17. LOL. Yes, yes, you can be the decider today.

:P

[MethuenProgressive]

4. Obama's Swiftboating of Clinton on Race is working!

GoBama!

[IndianaGreen]

8. The only switfboater here is Hillary Clinton. Remember what she did to Kerry?

She joined the GOP in their sliming of Kerry with the libel he had offended the troops.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

21. she sure looks like she likes getting muddy with the pigs.

and her campaign's programmed responses on Cable today were insulting and disgusting.

[Double T]

6. Racism has been injected by the BO campaigners and supporters WHO twist the words for...........

their desired affect; the Clinton's said NOTHING that was racist and playing the race card is nothing more than a cheap shot. Try talking about the REAL issues if there are ANY!!

[IndianaGreen]

9. Typical Clintonian revisionism. Have you forgotten Bill's coded racism on Charlie Rose show?

This was before Hillary's MLK comments.

What's next for this despicable pair of neolibs, accuse Obama of giving aid and comfort to Al-Qaeda? Wait, Hillary already did that when she said Al-Qaeda will attack US if Obama or Edwards are elected.

[Double T]

10. Better show me where the CODED RACISM is.........

Bill Clinton ... Well, He Just Puts Everything On The Table. Read It.
14 Dec 2007 11:28 pm

In a hard-changing interview with Charlie Rose tonight, Bill Clinton said Americans who are prepared to choose someone with less experience, are prepared to "roll the dice" about the future of America. "It's less predictable, isn't it? When is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service before he's running?"

"What do you want to do -- whether you think it matters that, I mean, in theory, no experience matters," Clinton said. "In theory, we could find someone who is a gifted television commentators and let them run. They'd have only one year less experience in national politics..."

And Clinton said the notion that experience led the politicians to sanction the Iraq War is "absurd."

"That's like saying that because 100% of the malpractice cases are committed by doctors, the next time I need surgery, I'll get a chef or a plumber to do it."

Towards the end of the interview, Rose indicated that Clinton's staff was asking producers in his show's control room to get them to have Rose end the interview.

And Clinton said: "Somebody will parse this interview..." to take his quotes out of context. "It is stupid... I think we are fortunate in having people..I think the relevant question from me is, who will be the best president who has a proven record of making change in the lives of other people."

They may parse his body language. Toward the end of the interview, his hands began to shake and his face reddened as he discussed the political thicket his wife finds herself in.

Please read this rough transcription of Clinton's take on why his wife isn't doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire.



"Really, really interesting, that I've heard Sen. Obama a dozen times making some fairly derisive comment about Hillary...saying, you know, she had a decades old plan to be president...repeating this total canard that...totally fabricated account from an anti-Hillary book...as if it was something bad that he didn't have a decades-long president...so on their website they put reports that he had been planning to run for president...and they put this thing when he was in kindergarten that he planned to run for president..but the Obama people got the press on their side..."

Rose asked Clinton whether he was nervous about the state of the campaign.

"Well, no. Let me back up. In January, when on New Years Day, she said she was finally going to try and do this... I said I'll make you a prediction...allt he press will say you will coast to the nomination....I think you will have a difficult time getting nominated, and if you are nominated, you'll win the general election handily........you'll have to run in Iowa, which is the single most difficult state...but Sen. Edwards has a well-earned, huge cadre of support in Iowa because he's worked it for seven years...Sen. Obama is next door, that matters.

Rose: "You think that's the reason for the polls...""

Clinton: "On Edwards, there is no doubt...So, look I've done this before. When I lost in New Hampshire to Paul Tsongas, I lost the first 10 miles next to the Massachusetts border. I carried everything from 10 miles north up to the Canadian border. There are thousands of Illinois students in Iowa colleges...who have never caucused before.....he's been to 75 counties, she's been to 50..so my view of this is that I never thought she had a big lead in Iowa...the Iowa people have been really fair to her...they've listened to her and they've given her a chance, and she might win there...and it is astonishing...from the beginning of this race, she had a lead in 36 of 38 states...and not having good luck...what has really happened...what i have been frustrated about has nothing to do with her campaign...the challenges in the polls in the moments will be overcome..I can feel in Iowa, it depends on what people think the answer is...in New Hampshire...the Republicans have been attacking her in all the debates...those attacks affect independent voters...she is not in a position to answer back what the Republicans are doing in the primary...that has not been good..."

"In Iowa, nobody wants to go negative on television, so really it's a war underneath the radar screen and it has more to do with how the press interprets it than anything else...what broke her momentum there was the extraordinary attention given to her not very great answer on the driver's licenses....the press should have a common set of standards..."

"He is great, Edwards is really good..."

"It's a miracle she's got a chance to win."

Richardson, Biden, Dodd are ready to be president, Clinton says.

"Obama has got great skills. It depends on what the American people think is more important.... have somebody who is very his very nature a compelling, very attractive, highly intelligent, visible symbol of transformation, or is it more ... to have someone who would also symbolize change...but who has done a significant number of things to change other people's lives."

[Double T]

11. No response....interesting.

Now let's checkout the Hillary MLK comment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9LhWUsrJnM&feature=related

NOTHING racist there either.

Your 'What's next....' comments don't even deserve ANY response.

Summation: BO supporters are intentionally twisting and re-fabricating HRC words and comments to attack her as being racist when in FACT NONE of this is true. Why would ANYONE want to vote for a candidate that emulates bushesque swiftboat behavior??

[FrenchieCat]

13. That video really illustrates the point that Hillary was elevating what Presidents do......

that "it took a President to get it done".

She'd been calling herself the Doer and Obama the talker for some time. And so she was making the case (which didn't make sense anyways because BOTH she and Barack are BOTH Senators, And therefore she hasn't "done" that much more than Barack) that a President is key in getting "anything" done.

She was in fact elevating LBJ's role and equalizing his effectiveness in what was accomplished in the struggle. What she fails to realize is that if Kennedy wouldn't have been assassinated, Kennedy might have been the one to sign that law in. However, Dr. King could not have been replaced.....as he was uniquely effective in moving the needle to where the public realized that a law was required.

In other words, LBJ's work on this was good...but MLK's was priceless.

That's why she didn't need to be trying to elevate LBJ.

[Double T]

14. I certainly don't think that HRC was attempting to elevate LBJ over MLK.......

in ANY way. It took BOTH MEN to get the job done! The OP's claim of RACISM to HRC's comments is ABSOLUTELY ABSURD!

[FrenchieCat]

15. You don't get the point, do you?

MLK was not interchangable.......

He gets credit, won a Nobel Peace Prize, and died for the cause. The point is LBJ could have been JFK, if JKF would have lived long enough. LBJ is not at par with MLK.....on the issue of the Civil Rights movement, and that is the reality. Mrs. Clinton believing that LBJ was AS pivotal is her spinning a fairy tale.

[Double T]

16. I get your point. It still has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with RACISM.

It took MLK (let's NOT forget MLK had a lot of supporters that should also get credit TOO!) and 'a President' along with many other politicians to get Civil Rights legislation passed. NO one individual gets things like this done UNLESS he/she is a dictator.

[goldcanyonaz]

18. Sadly, your posts are falling on deaf ears. Sadly, they have made up their minds.

[Double T]

19. The important fight will continue.

The truth will NOT be ignored; we've put up with that kind of crap for the last seven years and I'll be damned if a Democrat will continue to perpetrate the same.

[goldcanyonaz]

20. Yes! I'm with you.