Subscribe by RSS
This has been in play for a few days now and I think it’s actually quite humorous to see the Clinton’s, both Bill and Hillary, now defending and clarifying the comments they made in criticizing Obama.
First, Hillary’s comment likening Obama to Martin Luther King:
Mrs Clinton, trying to make a point about presidential leadership and Mr Obama’s constant references to Dr King, the civil rights icon, said: “Dr King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.â€
Clearly insinuating that Obama, like King, is the dreamer and Hillary, like Johnson, is the doer. In the same token Obama’s camp is alleging she was diminishing King’s achievements in Civil Rights.
Next, following the same foot-in-mouth fashion, Bill Clinton likens Obama’s record to a “fairy tale”:
“Second, it is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, numerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, ‘Well, how could you say, that when you said in 2004 you didn’t know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war and you took that speech you’re now running on off your website in 2004 and there’s no difference in your voting record and Hillary’s ever since?’ Give me a break.
“This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.†…
To which Bill Clinton promptly began backtracking and clarifying his remarks. In liberal circles, a visit to Al Sharpton was in order to come clean and apologize for his comments.
Sharpton was on Geraldo At Large earlier and while I usually don’t care much for Geraldo or Sharpton, the two made a good fit on this story:
What’s funny to me on this is that I think both Bill and Hillary inadvertently stepped in it this week and, I think for the first time, the issue of race between Clinton and Obama came to light. I don’t think Hillary meant her comment in the way it was construed, she just meant that Johnson was the one to act on the progress of King. Of course King couldn’t change the law, he wasn’t a lawmaker but he started the movement. The same for poor old Bill, he was inferring that Obama’s record is a “fairy tale”, nothing to do with his race or candidacy.
Still, they had to apologize to Sharpton and play cleanup on the racial issue since they’re heading into South Carolina soon where African-American Democratic voters play a huge part in the primary. I don’t really think this is going to affect many voters as they can see what the Clinton’s really meant. However, the media has played it a bit bigger than it probably was. By the 19th, the day of the South Carolina primary, most will have totally forgot about this unless Obama can perpetuate it.
Update
Actually, Obama may be playing the race card on the Clinton’s.
Story from the Huffington Post on Obama’s campaign circulating a memo highlighting what they consider the Clinton’s politicizing race:
Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has prepared a detailed memo listing various instances in which it perceived Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign to have deliberately played the race card in the Democratic primary.
The memo, which was obtained by the Huffington Post and has been made public elsewhere, is believed to have been given to an activist and contains mostly excerpts from different media reports. It lists the contact info and name of Obama’s South Carolina press secretary, Amaya Smith, and is broken down into five incidents in which either Clinton, her husband Bill, or campaign surrogates made comments that could be interpreted as racially insensitive.
The document provides an indication that, in private, the Obama campaign is seeking to capitalize on the view – and push the narrative – that the Clintons are using race-related issues for political leverage. In public, the Obama campaign has denied that they are trying to propagate such a perception, noting that the document never was sent to the press.
True, it was leaked to the press, not distributed publicly, but the point is that they were propagating it to supporters who in turn would continue to propagate it in their communication with others. I guess the question here is whether or not Obama is above perpetuating false instances of race politics or whether the Clinton’s are indeed engaged in the tactic of politicizing race?
It doesn’t seem that Obama is wasting time in trying to capitalize on these incidents, at least to his close supporters. We’ll see how this issue continues to develop heading into South Carolina in 6 days.
Visit the You Decide Politics Store »
Loading ...
It is a bit unclear at this point what exactly was ‘filtered’ as the Huffington Post will not show the letter, and I have not found a site that is displaying it.
The accusation about Obama’s campaign releasing this memo aside, Hillary’s comment about MLK JR. was not a bright one. It’s a lose-lose situation when you due that: you either compare and say you support MLK (in which case you are boosting Obama) or you compare and then critique MLK (in which case you are denigrating the most famous African American of the 20th century- W.E.B Dubois and Toni Morrison aside).
And Bill Clinton’s accusation about Obama’s ‘fairy tale’ claim was spurious, regardless of whether it was racially motivated or not. Nate put up a clip just a few days ago in which Obama explained Bill Clinton has repeatedly gotten the quote wrong and is continuing to misrepresent him.
I don’t know why Geraldo and Al Sharpton are “waiting” for Obama to respond to this accusation from Bill Clinton, since Obama has done so many times over. In some ways, by capitalizing on this ‘race card’ issue, the media is the one coming out dirty.
I wish anyone would comment on the following blog comment I read!
From The Sunday Times
January 13, 2008
DIRT BEGINS TO FLY AT OBAMA
War opens with hints about backers
Obama was not brought up to follow any religion, although his African grandfather and Indonesian stepfather were Muslim. He became a Christian as a community organiser in Chicago and in the late 1980s joined the Trinity United Church of Christ, an African-American mega-church with an 8,000-strong congregation.
The same southern voter, who did not wish to be named, then threw another piece of Obama’s biography into the frame. “I looked at his church’s website. It said it was ‘unashamedly black’. They don’t want any whites there. I wouldn’t feel real comfortable if I tried to worship there.â€
The unorthodox pastor of Trinity church is the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who is refusing all interviews. He married Barack and Michelle Obama and baptised their two daughters. He is already attracting attention on right-wing websites for describing the September 11 attacks as a “wake-up call†to America for ignoring the concerns of “people of colourâ€, and for claiming that Americans “believe in white supremacy and black inferiority . . . more than we believe in Godâ€.
Wright travelled to meet Muammar Gadaffi, the Libyan leader, in the 1980s with Louis Farrakhan, the black supremacist leader of the Nation of Islam, and subscribes to the “Black Values Systemâ€, which preaches self-reliance but claims “middle-classness†is ensnaring blacks.
“When [Obama’s] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli to visit Colonel Gadaffi with Farrakhan, a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell,†Wright once said.
The other potential threat to Obama comes from the indictment of one of his leading donors, Antoin “Tony†Rezko, a Syrian-born property developer in Chicago, who is accused of extortion.
Rezko has been indicted by Patrick Fitzgerald – the prosecutor who brought down the White House official Lewis “Scooter†Libby and the press magnate Conrad Black – for seeking millions of dollars in kickbacks from companies bidding for state business in Illinois. He is due to appear in court on February 24.
On the day the Obamas bought a new home in Chicago for $1.6m in 2005, Rezko’s wife purchased an adjoining piece of land, giving the senator’s family more privacy and a larger expanse of green than they had paid for. Obama later paid $104,000 for a strip of the land, even though it was known that Rezko was under investigation.
—————————————-
BARRACK HUSSEIN OBAMA’S CHURCH: http://tucc.org/about.htm
—————————————-
The sad truth is…people who support Barack Obama are supporting:
A) a racist (see his church affiliation)
B) a closet Mulsim (father and step father both Muslim and mom is an athiest…how do you feel about those genes sitting in the Oval Office)
C) an anti-American (refusing to hold your hand over your heart for the National Anthem tells me everything I need to know about his true allegiance).
D) an inexperienced politician (a man who spent his time talking ideals to freshman students instead of battling real world politics in Washington).
Barack Hussein Obaman…Racist, Muslim, Anti-American, and Inexperienced. Americans need to “wake the hell up” and take a look at this man…this fraud.
Perhaps the prognosticators are right. Perhaps the next terrorist act against the United States will come from within…within the Oval Office.
Putting Barack Obama in the White House is placing the Muslim influence in the White House. I for one…will never accept that, especially when our soldiers are dying overseas at the hands of these lunatics. Have we forgotten 9/11 that quickly…?
Also…it’s disgusting that the media refuses to expose this fraud because of their fear of being portrayed as being “racially biased”. If Barack Obama were white…the media would have saturated the news with his real background.
WE ALL WANT CHANGE…! WE ALL WANT PRESIDENT BUSH OUT OF OFFICE.
This country needs a democrat as President. If Hillary Clinton can bring this country back to the Clinton years…low unemployment, balanced budged with a surplus, staying out of wars, establishing good relationships with the world, etc….then what the BLEEP are we doing looking at Barack Obama…?????
People must have forgotten…President Bush got elected on a platform of CHANGE despite having no real experience in Washington. Can we afford to make the same mistake a third straight election….?
AMERICAN RALLY CRY: Down with Barack Hussein Obama…the Muslim choice for “Man of the Year”.
My goodness, Nate, do we have to let these comments on the website? Leave it for a Hillary supporter to go negative, nasty, and racist…
Katie, get your facts straight before supporting mud-slinging that hurts the Democratic Party. Keith Ellison is the only Muslim elected congressman in the United States (a fact that, in itself, is sad), and he was the one who was accepted to Congress through a Qu’ran, not the Christian Bible.
Barack Obama holds his hand over his heart for the pledge of allegiance…
And what the heck is wrong with a church being proud for being Black! Is this something to be ashamed of? Do you have any idea how many White Churches there are in the United States– or the persecution Blacks have suffered under such Christian groups as the KKK?
If you are going to start evaluating presidential candidates based on the churches and religious organizations they go to- you better start looking at the extremely racist and elitist rhetoric of conservative evangelicals, which form of the base of the Republican party– such as Pat Robertson (who has endorsed Giuliani).
Start looking at “The Fellowship” and Hillary’s religious roots, if you want to compare religious backgrounds. And also question yourself as to who actually “walks” the Christian line– like the Ten Commandments? (specifically #7 and #9)
Religion is not in ‘genes’ — what sort of idiotic idea is that? I guess all Christians are really Jews then.
First, I didn”t write the blog..I read it and wondered why it’s not discussed by anyone, anywhere. Not on political talk shows, news, not anywhere. It’s out there. Most republicans feel it important enough to discuss religious views about their candidates, as do the news and political pundits. Why are democrats, and the pundits not interested? When one liners are discussed to death over and over…Is this not “important” enough to discuss? I also never said I believe it! But this conversation seems off limits. I’m wondering why? If its untrue, why are we not discussing it? Ignoring this personally makes me and alot of others very uneasy about supporting Obama. Not as a democrat, but as an independant voter!
Katie,
The retort was in reference to your comments below the blog, starting with your [A-D] listing.
Republican candidates — I will argue — feel it is necessary to discuss religious views since there is an incredibly strong evangelical base for the Republican party. This base is not the majority of the country, in fact it is quite small– but it is united, active, and vocal. This makes waves of influence for political processes.
The Karl Rove tactic of tapping Christian church infrastructures for extending grass-root support has created a system that supports and promotes the discussion of “Christian” ideals. It was a smart strategic play, but I do not see any substance to it. I also do not see a candidate’s personal religious views a profitable political discussion (although I do see the discussion surrounding its legitimacy an interesting academic one).
My reasons for this are manifold, but I will be brief. We do not evaluate our pilot’s or taxi driver’s religious allegiance (or church they attend) before trusting them to take us places– nor do we regularly evaluate the religious leaning of our professors, teachers, CEOs, etc. One can make the argument that we need to do so, but this creates superficial divisions that are unnecessary and detrimental.
Now the question that can be raised is whether or not religion is an important dimension to a president’s duties. It is easy to argue that the overwhelming majority of U.S citizens feel ‘values’ are important for a president, since s/he will make important decisions based on these values. And one can argue that this is different than a pilot’s, taxi driver’s, or CEO’s position, since the hard cold capitalist drive is not the only determinant in a president’s decision– human suffering is another incredibly important factor.
I would suggest that it is not the label of a religion, nor the “institution” one subscribes to that should dictate ones values, but rather their individual words and actions. These should be scrutinized, not some easy label of “Lutheran,” “Baptist,” “Episcopalian,” “Ismaeli,” etc.
You don’t sound ‘uneasy’ about supporting Obama. You sound extremely dismissive and accusatory. This is your right, but I would argue you are using evaluative points that, in the end, lead you astray of the actual issues. And if you are going to evaluate a candidate’s religious views, examine their views, not those ascribed to them.
What I submitted was the entire blog…I added nothing!…Not the A-D nor the ending…The entire submit was the blog I would like to know if he is indeed a muslim or a christian! No one seems to have the answer that I for one would like to know! I don’t feel I’m being dismissive by wanting to know the facts. I feel the question is being dismissed. Also I do believe there is a difference in the religions, the teachings and the beliefs, and that may indeed impact a future president’s decision making.
Katie,
my apologies then for the confusion. Please affix my earlier comments then to the blogger’s points, than to you.