Was her comment emphasized on "PRESIDENT" or "WHITE"? Honestly, if it was on "president", it has nothing to do with race. That's why I asked would you be offended if Johnson was black. How's that stupid? However, if that comment is emphasized on a white person to get it done, it would be outright racist comment, but do you honestly believe she meant that?
dude, where did I say it was a racist comment, it was a stupid comment. the comparison is stupid. because one guy is an activist and one guy is president. how many times do I have to say that. mlk did all he could, of course he couldn't pass legilation, because he wasn't a freakin legislator edit: its injecting race because there's a million references she could have made, like the one I gave an example of earlier. if you're going to ignore my actual points then don't respond. please
Of course I have read what MLK have done. As minority myself, we all owe a great deal to MLK. We also owe a great deal to Democrats for similar reasons. That's why I am very disappointed to see a comment, maybe not the smartest thing to say, from Clinton, to be cooked up like that.
its not cooked up, it has nothing to do with johnson. no one argues that johnson didn't have to fight to get legislation passed, no one here thinks mlk did everything himself. its just she framed it as though all mlk did was dream and then some folks in washington got it done. let me ask you this, do you think anyone worked harder than mlk in that time period to get black people organized and to get them to stand up for themselves? the civil rights movement isn't just about legislation being passed. its about changing a whole mindset in this country, before you could get laws passed. that's the leg work.
pgabriel, You may be right that it is a dumb comment. But I think we are talking about two different subjects. I think people and the press are saying the Clintons deliberately inciting racial tension for strategic reason by her remark on MLK and his remark on fairy tale. That is where my confusion comes from.
I get your point, and I agree Dr. King got the hardest part done and set the foundation for anything thereafter. But did Clinton emphasize on the skin color of MLK and Johnson? No, she didn't. She emphasized on experience and legislation, to her own benefit. But why is this injecting race into it? Simply because she's White and Obama is Black?
There are 69,169 instances in American government history to cite the importance of experience/legislation........why preytelll did she choose this one out of her w**** ass?
Perhaps it is because the topic was on MLK and a Democratic President (LBJ) was responsible for signing the largest number of civil rights related laws? real, sorry to bust the Democrat myth. Historically, Republicans have done as much as, if not more than, Democrats on helping the minorities. During the Civil War era, the Emancipation Proclamation that started the freedom of slavery was declared by Republican President Abraham Lincoln. After the WWII, it was Republic President Dwight Eisenhower that 1) proposed the first two Civil Rights Acts (1957 and 1960) and signed them into laws; 2) sent Army troops to escort nine black students into an all-white public school in Arkansas to start school desegregation. It took great political courage and brilliant skills of Republican President Nixon and his Labor Secretary George Shultz to end the school desegregation in the South on a massive scale in the early 1970s. On the flip side, - the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882 and made permanent in 1902, both during Republican presidencies; - Japanese American internment was carried out on order by a Democratic President in WWII; - The fiercest opposition to school desegregation came from Southern Democrats in the 1950s. In short, neither Democrats nor Republicans can claim to hold monopoly of moral high ground on providing equal/civil rights to minorities. Don't let the big media and the Democrats fool you.
nice to see acknowledgement that republicans didn't invent the politics of personal destruction. http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_8102363 [rquoter]Billary is just embarrassing By David Harsanyi Article Last Updated: 01/29/2008 05:44:21 AM MST Democrats have been known to employ identity politics on occasion — but rarely on each other. Recently, a CNN news segment focused on a group of black women working at a hair salon. The participants were asked if they felt torn between leading Democratic Party presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. It was titled: "Gender or race: Black women voters face tough choices in S.C." It is possible, you know, for black women to come to their political verdicts based on policy rather than only race and gender. And since Hillary and Obama share virtually identical policy views, why would an African- American woman feel torn supporting, not only a black man, but a gifted liberal politician she can be proud of? Frankly, there is little to admire when it comes to Billary. Unless you admire ruthlessness. And after the couple began using code and innuendo to make race an issue in South Carolina, the African-American community reacted by voting in huge numbers for Obama. The Clintons continued to play the game, though, as Bill dismissed Obama's victory by pointing out that "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88." Color me skeptical, but it sounds like Bill is trying to connect Jackson and Obama in the mind of white voters. It won't be easy. Because while Jackson is busy shaking down corporations in a conflict-ridden and marginal political existence, Obama keeps sounding so, I don't know, inclusive. In his victory speech, Obama attempted to distance himself from racial politics, claiming that he did not see "a white South Carolina and a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina." The crowd chanted, "Race doesn't matter! Race doesn't matter!" But, of course, race does matter. It mattered months ago when perpetual Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said that, in Obama, we have "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." It continued when the co-chair of Hillary's campaign, William Shaheen, said that Obama would have to answer questions like: " 'Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?' There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks." (Yeah. Republican dirty tricks.) It persists with former Democratic Atlanta mayor and Clinton supporter Andrew Young, saying, according to a New York Times columnist, that "Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He's probably gone with more black women than Barack." You know, these are the sorts of comments that any good liberal will tell you are utterly racist and misogynistic — especially when they come from the mouth of a Republican. How could this have happened to the party of tolerance? Hillary is married to Bill, after all. As we all know, Bill — according to poet Toni Morrison — was not only the first black president, but "blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime." Whoops. Morrison now endorses Obama. But not because he's black. "I would not support you if that was all you had to offer or because it might make me 'proud,' " she wrote. No, it was because of "a creative imagination" coupled with brilliance "equals wisdom." Then again, perhaps no one wants to admit the Clintons fooled the African-American community. As Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor of African-American studies at Princeton University, recently wrote, the "hypnotic racial dance of cultural authenticity that Bill Clinton performed in office lulled many blacks into perceptual fog." The Clintons have long played on victimhood and fear — or, more precisely, any tool to win power. Obama is only the latest to get a taste. As bad as the last seven years might have been, we're now reminded that the previous eight years were as ugly and divisive as any. The Clintons won't let us forget.[/rquoter]
That is exactly what they are doing. They are trying to paint Obama as the narrow "black" candidate so white people vote for the white caniddate. This is why they made the ridiculous Jesse Jackson comparison. Pretty sad that the Clintons are playing the race card. Obama needs to hit back, I dont think being civil is the way to go in a tough primary fight.
I dont think that comment was racist, and I dont think they are racist. I am referring to some of their other comments and strategies in SC. They are playing the race card.
Who said it was racist term? The series of about 5 or 6 separate comments in a matter of 3 or 4 days - no single comment by itself would have done this - was designed to bring race to the forefront of the campaign and get the media to turn it into a huge story. The comments themselves weren't racist.
It all started with black leaders got upset when Bill Clinton called Obama a "fairy tale" on his stance on Iraq. I mean it is pretty ironic, isn't it? If those black leaders think like what they want others think about Obama, that is, he is a candidate who happens to be black, why are they so upset on such a comment which was totally unrelated to race? I personally believe race was introduced in this primary at that point. It approached the climax during the SC primary in which most voters voted on the racial line and Obama benefited from it. Now Clintons are accused to be the only one pulling the race card? Give me a break.
If we're on the subject of a candidate's spouse and injection of race into the primary. I think you'd have to go back to November for that. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/21909.html
There's a huge difference between that and the comment being racist. But it goes well, well beyond blacks being upset at Clinton. http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/2008...ry-liberals-turn-their-backs-on-team-clinton/ One by One, Angry Liberals Turn Their Backs on Team Clinton Like lovers scorned, Bill Clinton’s longtime liberal supporters are walking out on him, slamming the door behind them and rebuking the 42nd president for his behavior leading up to last weekend’s South Carolina primary. Clinton’s base seems to be eroding fast as liberal Democratic stalwarts join up with Barack Obama, whose message of change seems now to apply not only to the Bush Administration of the last seven years, but the eight-year Clinton Administration that preceded it. Obama’s biggest “get” was Sen. Ted Kennedy, who abandoned his neutrality in the presidential race and endorsed Obama over Hillary Clinton on Monday. While Obama insists the Massachusetts senator’s endorsement was not a repudiation of anyone, it was clear that Kennedy - along with his niece Caroline Kennedy and son Rep. Patrick Kennedy — had reached beyond the Clintons to pass the mantle of the Democratic party’s liberal wing to Obama. And while the Kennedys may open the floodgates, they were hardly the first liberals to abandon the Clintons for Obama. In recent weeks the Clintons have watched many of their supporters drift to the young senator from Illinois. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the Democrats’ 2004 presidential candidate, endorsed Obama recently. On Tuesday, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius climbed aboard, the morning after she delivered the Democrats’ rebuttal speech to President Bush’s State of the Union address. Even novelist Toni Morrison, who once called Bill Clinton the “first black president,” has come out for Obama. Liberal criticism of the Clintons has come from inside and outside the Beltway, from former supporters and colleagues. It ranges from the thinly veiled to the blatant: Robert Reich, former Clinton labor secretary, on his personal blog: “Bill Clinton’s ill-tempered and ill-founded attacks on Barack Obama are doing no credit to the former President, his legacy, or his wife’s campaign. Nor are they helping the Democratic party … Now, sadly, we’re witnessing a smear campaign against Obama that employs some of the worst aspects of the old politics.” Leahy: “He is not helping anyone, and certainly not helping the Democratic Party.” (The Washington Post) Columnist Nicholas von Hoffman: “By the time Hillary and Bill have finished with Obama the real man may be unrecognizable to voters in Iowa or any place else … If he can wipe enough of the Clintonian slime off himself, Obama may be able to come out from under and explain to the world that sometimes less experience is more and better.” (The Nation) Columnist/Editor Jonathan Chait: “Am I starting to sound like a Clinton hater? It’s a scary thought. Of course, to conservatives, it’s a delicious thought. The Wall Street Journal published a gloating editorial noting that liberals had suddenly learned “what everyone else already knows about the Clintons.” (By “everyone,” it means Republicans.) It made me wonder: Were the conservatives right about Bill Clinton all along?” (The Los Angeles Times). Columnist Maureen Dowd: “It’s odd that the first woman with a shot at becoming president is so openly dependent on her husband to drag her over the finish line. She handed over South Carolina to him, knowing that her support here is largely derivative.” (The New York Times) E.J. Dionne Jr.: “That’s why the Clintons’ assault on Obama is so depressing. In many ways, Obama is running the 2008 version of the 1992 Clinton campaign. You have the feeling that if Bill Clinton did not have another candidate in this contest, he’d be advising Obama and cheering him on.” (The Washington Post) Al Sharpton: “But I think that it’s time for him to just be quiet. I think it’s time for him to stop. As one of the most outspoken people in America, there is a time to shut up, and I think that time has come.” (On The View) Kerry: “I think you had an abuse of the truth … I mean, being an ex-president does not give you license to abuse the truth, and I think that over the last few days it’s been over the top.” (On National Journal radio) Daschle: “… this backbiting, bitter give-and-take that we’re beginning to see more and more of, especially from the Clinton campaign. It’s wrong. Everybody know it’s wrong and it’s got to stop … It’s not presidential. It’s not in keeping with the image of a former president.” Ted Kennedy: “With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion.” Though the Clintons have been staring at a lot of backs recently, it’s not a full-scale rebellion. As Ted, Caroline and Patrick Kennedy endorsed Obama, three other Kennedys endorsed Clinton. In a newspaper column Tuesday, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (former Maryland lieutenant governor), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Kerry Kennedy wrote: “We believe that [Hillary Clinton] is the strongest candidate for our party and our country.” They invoked President Kennedy’s ideals and the desire to give voice to the voiceless as they described Hillary Clinton. The column made no mention of the candidate’s husband.
