Letters to the Editor
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Needless Brouhaha
Here is what I posted in an accompanying article, on this page:
"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 precincts 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 campaign's dicey forays into arguably racially charged territory against the backdrop of her political activities as a highly 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?"
The question can be fairly asked whether Hillary's campaign apparatus wants to insinuate the question--through its seemingly warrantless use of certain issues vis a vis obama--of Obama's electibility as an African American and thus the concommitant matter of Dem's blowing a critical chance at the White House. Why else would her campaign lob shots, however obliquely, regarding his drug use, "laziness," "all sizzle, no steak" "shucking and jiving?" Why would she heedlessly compare Martin Luther King and Lyndon Baines Johnson to the former's detriment, however arguable? That was one issue that was sure to be misinterpreted and blow up in the campaign's face.
You can hammer the differences in style and issues between her and Barack and do it in a way that minimizes the racial factor...the question is whether, when faced with electoral armageddon, again, her campaign can do it.