Nice job Dr. Spence,

You hit the nail on the head on this issue and THE issues.

The other problem here is that the MSM is also not interested in using this opportunity to discuss issues relating to race, poverty and social justice in general. It's far easier to make hay out of "OMG teh racism" than it is to engage in substantive discussions of ways to eliminate poverty in black neighborhoods.

Judging from this they haven't learned from the "Hillary is dead" debacle at all.

In my opinion, the media fascination with symbols is part and parcel of a larger set of issues to do with mainstream US notions of what's wrong with America: which is to talk ONLY about race and racism in terms of symbolic issues e.g. Confederate flags, hip-hop, Don Imus, Dog the Bounty Hunter etc. etc. and not a word about the role of racism in legitimizing fundamental social inequality in this country. Because if you go around doing that, then you've started to undermine the American Dream. And if you think Bob Johnson was mad before, just think what would happen if you did that!

That would have been the real victory.

What are these comments about? When what we need to discuss it issues that are really important. That would have been a brilliant approach.

The last thing the media, the corporations, the politicians, their campaign contributors and most of all, Congressional Democrats like Clinton AND Clyburn want is a genuine discussion of class and poverty.

Only John Edwards is talking about the reasons why every single thing in this country - health care, education, housing, jobs, everything - is set up to ensure the vast majority of people either stay or become too poor to grab their share of the pie.

Which is why the media, the corporations, the politicians, their campaign contributors, and most of all, Congressional Democrats like Clinton AND Clyburn are ignoring him.

QED.

Stop getting distracted by race. It's the poverty, stupid.

Here's Hilary's problem, in a nutshell: how can you raise the issue of who was more effective [if only by implication], Martin Luther King or Lyndon Johnson when, while King was risking his life, limb and freedom in racist southern precints and was two years removed from getting a brick bounced off his head in an area closer to [hillary's] balliwick, she was campaigning actively as a Goldwater Girl for "Mr. State's Rights," himself [why else would Goldwater have carried five deep south states that hadn't voted Republican in a hundred years?]

I mean, how would she, with that and coming from a conservative family, be in a position to know? When you place the incidence of the use of that accent and some of her campaigns dicey forays into arguably racially charged territory against the backdrop of her political activities as a hignly intelligent 16 year old four or five years removed from a commencement speech which landed her on the cover of a national news magazine, you have to wonder if she's made a misstep.

Let's face it: how would she have responded if Russert had hit her with that tidbit, yesterday, while questioning her on the King and "fairy tale" matters?

I guess he thinks Salon readers are gullible college students fawning over the good ole wise sage...

I expected more but it was just a rehash of what others have written already...

I really think Salon should stop shopping for Black pundits and hire me...

I really do...

We're never allowed to speak a truth or any opinion that deviates from the official posture lest someone get mobs of people boiling into the streets threatening coverage on the cable news. Right or wrong, good or bad, there's a script of the correct words and phrases all candidates, just like all beauty pageant contestants have to follow. All NFL players and rappers have to thank Jesus all candidates have to lay a wreath on the pyre of One True American History. And that's fine. Go mouth your officious and precious words and the morons who hear it will check off the appropriate boxes on their crib sheet and decide who lies about tolerance the best and vote for them.

I wonder though what MLK would say about the Black ministers in Memphis who are fighting with their own democratic Congressman to get rid of anti hate speech legislation because it would infringe on their desire to be homophobic shitheads? Seriously, I wonder what he would say?

Lester should be in your class taking notes....

with a james brown beat between the money collection plates...

'I feel good......

As an Obama supporter I'm terribly distressed by the brouhaha regarding Bill Clinton's comments. It appears everyone is too lazy to any research anymore. They just want to draw their own opinions and mouth off. It's common behaviour as described by Al Gore in his book Assault on Reason. If you want to know what Bill Clinton actually said, just click here. It has been recorded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1Ytbr-7VaE

I've been living in South Carolina for a little over 10 years now and have only begun to grasp the complexity of racial politics in this state. But even with my limited experience I am impressed that Clyburn has remain on the politco-moral high ground. For either of the Clinton's to dismiss the real sacrifices and **actions** of civil rights activists (funny them being called that) when neither of them (to my knowledge) laid his or her body on the line, was profoundly stupid. Yes, stupid.

As for Clyburn's actions...let's just say he met his wife in prison after being arrested as a protester. The Clintons' remarks must be a personal insult to him.

I know I'll remember them when I go into the ballot box.

Now to be fair, this issue is neither of Obama's nor Clyburn's making. The comments coming from the Clinton camp were the catalyst.

The comments from the Clinton camp that were supposedly the catalyst for this ridiculous brouhaha are all innocuous and completely taken out of context. The most charged comments are those having to do with Obama's drug use, but why should criticisms of Obama's admitted drug use automatically be considered racist? Surely a white candidate who wrote so honestly about past drug use would get the same treatment.

Clearly this controversy has been ginned up by the media and a few opportunistic Obama supporters. If I were conspiracy minded I'd consider that right-wing operatives might be involved somehow. This controversy threatens to undermine the historic coalition of blacks and whites that is the Democratic Party.