Letters to the Editor
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From the Jan. 13 Washington Post
Okay, this appeared the day after the HuffPo report:
COLUMBIA, S.C., Jan. 13 -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton defended her recent remarks on civil rights Sunday, as Sen. Barack Obama weighed in on the controversy for the first time, describing Clinton's earlier comments about the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. as "unfortunate" and "ill-advised."
Obama had previously tried to sidestep direct engagement in the debate over race. But the recent controversy has touched a nerve with many African Americans, including some sympathetic to the Clintons, and Obama chose to address it Sunday.
The primary source of the debate is a comment Monday from the New York Democrat: "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," she said, adding that "it took a president to get it done." Critics read that as playing down King's importance in the civil rights movement. Clinton said Sunday that the Obama campaign was "deliberately distorting this."
Asked whether he had taken offense to Clinton's remarks, the Illinois Democrat said he had not been the one to raise the subject.
"Senator Clinton made an unfortunate remark, an ill-advised remark, about King and Lyndon Johnson. I didn't make the statement," Obama said in a conference call with reporters. "I haven't remarked on it. And she, I think, offended some folks who felt that somehow diminished King's role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act. She is free to explain that. But the notion that somehow this is our doing is ludicrous."
....Clinton defended her remark about King, made the day before the New Hampshire primary, in a sometimes contentious appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday morning. She said she was responding to a speech Obama made comparing himself to both John F. Kennedy and to King, and she elaborated on her view of King's role as a change agent.
"Dr. King had been on the front lines. He had been leading a movement," Clinton said. "But Dr. King understood, which is why he made it very clear, that there has to be a coming to terms of our country politically in order to make the changes that would last for generations beyond the iconic, extraordinary speeches that he gave. That's why he campaigned for Lyndon Johnson in 1964. That's why he was there when those great pieces of legislation were passed. Does he deserve the lion's share of the credit for moving our country and moving our political process? Yes, he does. But he also had partners who were in the political system...."
Here, Obama makes no attempt to disabuse anyone of the notion that Clinton's remarks were offensive, nor does he admit that his campaign may well have fanned the whole controversy. All he offers is: I didn't start this.
The question that no one asks is: what, exactly, did Hillary Clinton stand to gain by offering remarks which could have been interpreted as being offensive to black American voters? The answer, of course, is: absolutely nothing.
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@Sesanders
Hillary had months of "inevitability" and "frontrunner" status -- talk about a media free ride. Obama's announcement was greeted with a lot of shrugged shoulders, and assumptions that it would be over by Super Tuesday. Salon's announcement of Obama consisted of an article bemoaning his choice of Springfield as an announcement point (apparently, 100 year old race riots did not "bode well for his future" and Debra Dickerson yammering about how he wasn't really "black.") And that was the so-called "liberal" media. And in the "rest of the media world," we had the madrassa rumors, and about 100 other similar ridiculous NONstories regularly disseminated by broadcast and internet media -- and even at times Salon, which hasn't actually had a "fair" day of primary coverage since the start.
Yes, some media started to cover Obama in a more positive light -- but it was in part due to their just getting to know him at all. Because except for his convention speech, and a bit of coverage around his election to the Senate, he was a relative unknown to the media. And, like many people who first hear him, they were excited by his intelligence, his ability to communicate, his hope for a different kind of Washington. No surprise there that he had a "honeymoon" period with the media as people got to know him.
As for who is voting for Obama? Plenty of people have, and will. That's why he's winning.
I am convinced that Obama has the experience, leadership, and support to be a wonderful, and frankly, historic, president.
I am not confident that being married to a president as a main job qualification, bungling health care reform, exaggerating one's experience, and race baiting -- along with huge negative approval ratings from your own party members -- bode well for Hillary's chances.
And, again, no matter which way anyone parses it, Hillary made a colossally stupid, historically wrong, and panderingly craven vote to authorize the Iraq war.
And given that she is running on a platform of having "experience" -- there it is, in all its glory -- the perfect example of exactly what you get with Hillary's experience: a self-serving, utterly wrong, politically craven vote that has contributed in part, to the death of more than 4,000 Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Afghanis, Iraqis and coalition troops.
That's it. Hillary's "experience" in action. And it ain't pretty.
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@ jebldmm
Also, again re: the argument that she represents experience, if she is so experienced why is this 'noob' beating her? Why was she unprepared for post-super-tuesday? Why was her campaign uninformed as to how the Texas primary/caucus system worked?
This leads me to two possible conclusions:
1. Experience is not worth nearly as much as people tend to think; or
2. She's not as experienced as she'd like us to believe.
Look if you like Hillary better than Obama, thats fine. But the arguments being put forward as to why she is better than Obama don't make any sense to me.
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I have been reading AA blogs..
I have been very curious about the AA reaction to the whole Rev. Wright controversy so I have been reading a few AA blogs. I have found them to be very interesting and enlightening.I would say from my reading( I know that AA blogs don't represent the majority any more than any other blog does).I have learned that the AA response to both Sen. Obama's candidacy and his denouncement of Rev. Wright is very complex. Many understand that he has stayed away from any discussion of AA issues and events as an effort not to become the black candidate,some resent it.I have learned that his campaign has not spent any money with AA media and that he has done very little campaigning in urban communities. Some are feeling taken for granted.
Many are cynical about his ever doing anything about AA issues if he were to be elected. Some are really disappointed in his handling of the Wright issue and feel he was forced to appease his white supporters. Rev. Wright is respected wihin the AA community as a person who speaks truth to power and as a strong voice for black nationalism.
Most of the criticism appeared to be an airing of family grievences and it appears that most will continue to support him at the polls dispite misgivings.Most of the commenters had their eyes wide open and were not blind to Sen.Obama's less than honest manipulations. Some were saying that they were not voting period. I know that his campaign was expecting a much larger turnout in Philly,like one hundred thousand more than they got. We never see any comparisons of votes recieved vs votes available
What cheered me was the fact that many understand the the Clintons are not racist and that they have worked hard for AA issues throughout their lives. Knowing this is not enough to weigh against the chance to make a historic vote for the first viable African American.
Jebldmm makes many good points about who played the race card and many of the AAs in the blogs think the same thing.