Letters to the Editor
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It Depends on What the "Whole Thing" means?
The democratic race was a clean one as long as Hillary Clinton led in the polls. But there was the Iowa caucus and all of a sudden Barack Obama became a credible threat. That is when it got ugly. That is when the Clinton's activated their "attack, deny, and play victim" arsenal. That is when the race became about race.
Bill Clinton referred to the "whole thing" as a fairy tale. In classic Clintonspeak, the "whole thing" came after a soliloquy distorting Obama's Iraq position. There was no doubt that Bill's "fairy tale" was in reference to Obama's campaign and candidacy but there was enough wigggle room for Bill to argue that the "whole thing" referred to the Iraq policy. We have seen it before!
Then there was Hillary! Obama talks about hope. And he reminds us of the hopes of King, Kennedy, etc. Pretty harmless stuff except Hillary had to found a way to remind us that King's movement would have been but a dream but for Lyndon Johnson. How any seasoned politician could not have reasoned that this would inflame civil right activists and well meaning people is beyond me! But Hillary is no fool. She had found a subtle way of introducing race into the campaign, which would remind america that Barack is not part of the ruling class. When the criticisms came, as they surely should have, although not from the Obama camp, Hillary denied any malevolent intenetions and then played a victim!
Then there was Johnson reminding us that while Hillary was saving the world, Obama was in the ghettos doing something that he was not going to talk about. Again the message was clear, but there was enough room to subsequently deny, which he did. He really meant Obama was doing community work.
The Clintons take americans and the media for fools. And we have played along too long. Time to strip them naked.
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Tim Russert out of context?
I usually like Tim Russert's method of confronting politicians with past utterances, and he surely can throw some of them off rail quite nicely.
But yesterday, there were some serious shortcomings painfully apparent in Tim's approach. Instead of buttressing his arguments against Hillary's "out of context" defense with other people's comments (Congressman Jim Clyburn, Dem operative Donna Brazile) he should have been able to present some facts which he apparently was not able to. It is sad to see that such an institution as Tim Russert is stuck in the "he said, she said" ad-hominem mold of political reporting.
Thus, I felt that - unless you were a Clinton basher or believe in "he said, she said" - Hillary came out of it quite strongly.
I suspect Tim let her off the hook far too easily. But then I admit, I am not wholly unsympathetic to Hillary's argument that you should not only be able to inspire. Hubby Bill put it quite nicely the other day: It is up to the electorate to decide what kind of president they want. And it is indeed a leap of faith to vote for Obama - but what he did not mention: It is a leap of faith to vote for the "experienced" Hillary, too. Who knows for sure which one is better suited for the times that are a'coming?
As a baby boomer myself, I feel torn betwenn the urge “to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible" (said by one inspiring Hillary Diane Rodham in 1969 and quoted by FLOTUS in 1992) and the needs of my ever receding and greying hair to try to change at least what is possible to change (paraphrasing candidate HRC). I do not know whether it is really a relief that as a non-American I won’t have to take sides.
I surely would hope that the press including MTP would do its homework a lot better, checking the facts instead of trying to spin the battle between two very able politicians into a a war of snippets about race and gender.
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Thanks to Clinton
Whew! Thank you Hillary Clinton for setting everyone straight that Dr, King had so llittle to do with the civil rights reorm. We needed the great white President Johnson to make it happen. Hmmm is there a message here? Any real reform can't be accomplished by Obama. We need Hillary to make it happen?! That self serving logic does not win my vote. It only wins my disgust.
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Baseless assumption
When Johnson said "he was doing something in the neighborhood" the author shouldn't presume he was referring to Obama's cocaine use. Because the term "community organizer" is so very nebulous and without and hard and fast definition, most people have no idea what community organizers do. When I hear Obama say he was a community organizer I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering what exactly did he do in the neighborhood. The press shouldn't cynically assume and assign meanings that may not be there.
This rush to assign some negative connotation to every little thing anyone says is coming out of the Obama camp and it is really distorting and fracturing the Democratic Party. For a campaign that calls itself about unity the Obama wing is really trying to divide people by race and age.
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commonsensepoliticstoday is my hero
@commonsensepoliticstoday:
That was the most succinct summary of my feelings on this whole subject. It's been odd to me watching this whole event where one side is doing all the talking about the "race" issue, and it's only been within the last - what, two days? - that the Obama campaign finally said "Yeah. We don't get what their problem is either."
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Please be fair
I have to work, so I don't have time to check whether someone else cleaned up this unfair recitation of the facts.
Hillary Clinton did not say that LBJ was more responsible for the civil rights movement than Dr. King. She was giving Dr. King props for knowing how to make his dreams for this country and person of all races a reality: namely, in part through the political process, i.e., the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is why he found time to campaign for LBJ while he was also busy marching and giving some of the greatest speeches of all time.
I know it is fun for journalists to distort facts, especially when the distortion supports their candidate. But don't y'all have some ethical standards?