Letters to the Editor
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No ugly subtext here, no sir, move right along
... there was no ugly subtext to her innocuous remark about the different roles of Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon Baines Johnson in the civil rights crusade, although several prominent Obama supporters promoted that smear.
The "ugly subtext" was that it was an ignorant remark that Clinton should have known better than to make in the first place, let alone to dig her heels in and defend.
How is it a smear to point that out?
And how was pointing it out then any different than what Joe Conason is saying now — about another, different, ignorant remark?
The whole point of Clinton's campaign is to demonstrate her hard-as-nails dedication to winning, no matter what kind of commitments she has to make and what kind of stands she has to take. Personal friendliness with black Americans, and her and her husband's past accomplishments in the cause of civil rights, are precisely not the issue.
The issue is that (right or wrong) she went in whole hog with white, rural working-class America, and part of running that kind of campaign is exactly what Conason starts to say it is — an appeal to race anxiety — before he backs off from the inevitable destination of his line of reasoning.
But why back off? Doing what she did is what it took to even have a chance of winning, and because she's the kind of person she is Clinton paid the price.
It's not exactly flattering, but it hardly seems fair to draw the conclusion that, therefore, Clinton is like George Wallace. For one thing, it's not as if most Clintonites are going to vote McCain over Obama. For another, Clinton shows no sign of wanting them to.
So let's not get all kid-gloved about this &mdas; but let's also remember to save the worst judgment for if she decides to run on an independent ticket as an Obama-spoiler.