Obama, Clinton take a detour to the high road

January 15, 2008

The intensity of the race-based debate surrounding the two leading Democratic presidential candidates seemed poised to get worse, not better. The tone and volume of the dispute was not only driving a wedge in the party, it seemed like the kind of clash that could do lasting damage.

Fortunately, before matters got out of control, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton decided yesterday that it was time to take the high road. Obama got this started yesterday afternoon with a press conference in Nevada.

“I’ve been a little concerned about the tenor of the campaign over the last few days,” Obama told reporters in Reno, Nevada, after speaking to about 2,500 people at a rally. “We share the same goals, we are all Democrats, we all believe in civil rights, we all believe in equal rights.”

“I think that (former President) Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have historically and consistently been on the right side of civil rights issues,” he added. “I think they care about the African American community and they care about all Americans and they want to see equal rights and equal justice in this country.”

Obama added, “I may disagree with Senator Clinton and Senator Edwards on how to get there, but we share the same goals…. They are good people. They are patriots…. I don’t want the campaign at this stage to degenerate to so much tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, that we lose sight of why we are doing this. We’ve got too much at stake at this time in our history to be engaging in this kind of silliness.”

Shortly thereafter, Clinton followed suit.

Here’s the statement from the Clinton campaign, issued just a couple of hours after Obama’s remarks.

“Over this past week, there has been a lot of discussion and back and forth – much of which I know does not reflect what is in our hearts. And at this moment, I believe we must seek common ground.

“Our party and our nation is bigger than this. Our party has been on the front line of every civil rights movement, women’s rights movement, workers’ rights movement, and other movements for justice in America.

“We differ on a lot of things. And it is critical to have the right kind of discussion on where we stand. But when it comes to civil rights and our commitment to diversity, when it comes to our heroes – President John F. Kennedy and Dr. King – Senator Obama and I are on the same side.

“And in that spirit, let’s come together, because I want more than anything else to ensure that our family stays together on the front lines of the struggle to expand rights for all Americans.”

Good for both of them. I suspect the temptation to fan the flames and raise the temperature was great, but this was, without a doubt, the right way to go.

That said, there is, I’m sad to say, a nagging, cynical side of me that wonders whether the detente will hold.

The problem of late has largely been one of surrogates. Clinton backers such as Bob Johnson, Bob Kerrey, Mark Penn, Billy Shaheen, Andrew Cuomo, and assorted anonymous advisors have helped create this dispute with contentious remarks that were ostensibly not authorized by the campaign.

It’s my hope that yesterday’s developments were a positive sign of things to come. But my fear isn’t that Obama and Clinton will personally keep this skirmish alive, it’s that people speaking on their behalf will.

a nice bridging piece that points out the fallacy of the either/or tone of the present MLK-LBJ debate by Joseph Califano (who had a first hand view) in WaPo today

  • Well, really, Obama decided to take the high road, as usual, and Hillary followed. What else could she do? Expect to see more shenanigans from her campaign, though, as this is how she does business. Her campaign started this, not just the MLK commments, many more: my favourite was a Clinton advisor who claimed you should only vote for Obama if you want an ‘imaginary hip black friend’. Obama has for the most part tried to stay out of it, although understandably irate supporters have hit the blogs. and poster no. 2 has a good point. If Hillary can’t really control her campaign advisors and her surrogates, how will she control her cabinet or her staff?

  • just an idea… how ’bout all we dems stick together and give each other a little benefit of the doubt. if one of the candidates, or someone associated with one of the candidates, makes a comment that roils… take a deep breath and put it into the broader context of the political arena. ask questions and challenge but do it from an intellectual base rather than a visceral reaction. if we all become reactionary all we do is pour gasoline on the fire. discourse is wonderful but not if it divides us. if we divide ourselves all we will end up with is a president huckabee, or president romney, or president mccain, or president thompson (if he ever decides he’s a candidate;)… etc…etc…

  • Thank God – I wasn’t sure I could take much more, and it wasn’t being helped by the giant echo chamber that is the media, which because it never covers anything in depth, managed to make it even worse than it was.

    This is the same media that could have chosen to keep the focus on actual issues, and could have devoted a minute or two now and again to John Edwards, but didn’t, preferring to play up a controversy that wasn’t really a controversy at all.

    As for surrogates, I think one’s perception of which campaign has more control is affected by what the media has chosen to cover. Jesse Jackson, Jr. took a pretty big swipe at Clinton, but it didn’t get much attention, and Obama campagin memos would seem to indicate that they were “involved” in pushing a message, but I didn’t see any coverage of that, either.

  • I love the WaPo’s title—“It Took a Partnership.” As I understood things, that was the core tenet behind the criticism of Clinton’s “it-took-a-president” statement the other day, and the initial appearance was that Clinton = LBJ and Obama = MLK.

    The WaPo piece also points out that it was King who was pushing the issue, “days after JFK’s assassination.” Of equal importance was that Johnson was 100% receptive to King’s ideas—because they were, likewise and equally, LBJ’s ideas.

    As for this “tentative cease-fire,” I’m going to have to say it—Obama scored some good points for leadership and diplomatic qualities. Both are—or at the very minimum, should be—prerequisites for the office of President. Clinton did well, but the “couple hours’ delay” in issuing a similar statement suggests that there might have been a wee bit of scrambling to shore up another credibility leak in the HRC campaign. Then again, maybe not—but as “a centuries-old friend” once said: “The truth will play out.”

    I think this mess needs to take things one step further. A little “housecleaning” is certainly in order—perhaps throwing that list of “Clinton backers” under the bus would be a good start.

    Throwing them under a bulldozer and consigning them to an eternity at “Chateau Landfill” wouldn’t be a bad idea, either….

  • Charlie Rangel was absolutely right. Race became an issue in this campaign because Barack Obama made it an issue.

    Now I will say that I think it was probably a rash decision made in the flush of rage over losing NH (hell hath no fury like a narcissist rejected). I also suspect that it’s one he may have come to regret green-lighting even before the Clinton pushback proved so effective and the blowback started getting uncomfortable for him. In any case, it’s certainly gotten to the point that it’s very much in Obama’s own interest to call a truce. I also would not rule out there having been some kind of intervention we didn’t hear about.

    But it’s still good news and it appears Clinton has accepted his overtures, so hopefully we can put away the nukes and return to conventional warfare — note that Obama apparently could not resist lobbing a grenade at Clinton even as he was seeking de-escalation. The other good news of course, is that I imagine that those of us who haven’t exactly been buying 100% of the hype over Barack Obama will likely have to endure considerably less of that “new kind of politician” claptrap from here on out.

  • The struggle for racial and gender equality have been two of the strongest undercurrents throughout the 20th century. We should expect that at this moment, when we are embracing an African-American and a women as serious, and well above qualified candidates for president, we will have some very awkward moments processing such a feat. This motion can be a good thing, and I think the Obama and Clinton camps are just now realizing it. I agree that their cease and desist announcements are a sort of detente, but in the next 11 months the discussion of race and gender will not go away.

    I think the Democratic campaigns have decided to keep their eyes on the prize, and I hope they can continue such an effort. -Kevo

  • Kevo,

    Don’t you find it ironic that the two Democratic candidates want to be evaluated as individuals while supporting racial quotas for employment and schools, minority contracting set asides, separate and unequal college admission programs, race based busing programs, and all of the rest of the current raced based government programs.

    If Senator Obama wants equality, maybe he should support actual equality instead of raced based government decision making.

  • #10… kevo… great points!!! and i hope that all of us can also keep our eyes on the prize…

  • What I like about Obama’s remarks:

    He used the phrase “Bill and Hillary.”

    Beautiful.
    He needs to do more of that.
    He needs to conflate their connection.
    He needs to let the Dems know you can’t have one without the other.
    That his baggage is her baggage is going to be the Dems baggage come November.
    And that while Big Dog can wag that finger of his now like some sort of saintly pundit…
    When the big show comes in November someone else is going to be shaking it at him…
    Ain’t no way this country is going to give the White House keys to “Bill and Hillary.”

    Keep saying it Obama:
    “Bill and Hillary.”
    “Bill and Hillary.”
    “Bill and Hillary.”

  • The campaign had gotten silly. Silly isn’t any way to run for president. It made them sound like Republicans.

    I can’t help but notice that Obama went positive first.

  • he problem of late has largely been one of surrogates. Clinton backers such as Bob Johnson, Bob Kerrey, Mark Penn, Billy Shaheen, Andrew Cuomo, and assorted anonymous advisors have helped create this dispute with contentious remarks that were ostensibly not authorized by the campaign.

    Yep

    Funny how Obama manages to control his surrogates (as far as I know).

    Yep.

    CalD

    Charlie Rangel was absolutely right. Race became an issue in this campaign because Barack Obama made it an issue.

    Get out of fantasy land. “Guess whos coming to dinner?” Seriously? There was a serious backlash in the black community long before Obama’s campaign mentioned “race” in any way, shape or form. And “hip black friend?” Get real.

    BTW, Steve Benen, the “truce” has already been called off, apparently, by a major Clinton Surrogate:

    As both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tried to lower the tension after days of charged rhetoric over race, a congressional supporter of Clinton’s presidential bid called the Illinois senator’s remarks attacking her over recent comments about President Lyndon Johnson and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. “absolutely stupid.”

    “How race got into this thing is because Obama said ‘race,’” New York Rep. Charlie Rangel, one of the highest-ranking African-Americans in Congress, said in an interview on NY1.

    “But there is nothing that Hillary Clinton has said that baffles me. I would challenge anybody to belittle the contribution that Dr. King has made to the world, to our country, to civil rights, and the Voting Rights Act,” said Rangel. “But for him to suggest that Dr. King could have signed that act is absolutely stupid. It’s absolutely dumb to infer that Doctor King, alone, passed the legislation and signed it into law.”

    Rangel’s remarks came in response to Sunday comments from Obama, who told an audience at a Nevada campaign event: “I am baffled by that statement by the Senator. She made an ill-advised statement about Dr. King, suggesting that Lyndon Johnson had more to do with the Civil Rights Act. For them to somehow suggest that we’re interjecting race as a consequence of a statement she made, that we haven’t commented on, is pretty hard to figure out.”

    The New York senator has since tried to explain the intent of her remarks was not to diminish the contribution of King, but to point out the benefit of experience in enacting positive legislation.

    Rangel also implied that Obama’s admission of prior drug use in his autobiography may have had a financial motive: “I assume that the book was not written for political purposes. It was honest….It was a big mistake for him to have done it [used drugs.] For him to be honest enough to write about it, I guess he thought it might sell books.”

    First of all, Obama’s “attack” is pretty mild, and much more a statement of fact than an attack. I think most everyone (save Clinton’s most-ardent supporters) agree Clinton’s comments were ill-advised. She did suggest LBJ was more important than MLK to the Civil Rights movement; that was her whole point. And she did accuse the Obama campaign of injecting “race” into the discussion before they ever commented on that. A re-telling of the event is not an “attack”, and I fail to see how Obama’s comment there injects “race” into a discussion that, up to that point, he hadn’t been a part of, and was already about race, and he doesn’t make her comment racial in the least. That’s a distortion. His comment certainly wasn’t “stupid”, to use Rangel’s word, and I fail to see where Obama suggested King could sign anything into law. Obama’s point is nicely summarized over at the American Prospect

    What’s forgotten in all this talk about Hillary Clinton’s remark that “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” is some historical context on LBJ. Though he signed off on civil rights legislation in 1964, just 16 years earlier he was giving campaign speeches in which he compared civil rights legislation to “a police state in the guise of liberty,” as biographer Robert Caro notes in The Years of Lyndon Johnson, and opposing Truman’s civil rights legislation. Johnson wasn’t always a supporter of civil rights legislation, and he didn’t come around on the issue by himself. He came around because of the growing pressure in the country, because it became politically imperative for him to do so. And that pressure was coming from leaders like King.

    So perhaps it’s a question of what Clinton really means by “began to be realized.” I would say that the dream of equity began to be realized when people like Johnson were forced to change their position on it. It began to be realized when Americans, both black and white, united in saying that segregation was immoral and unsustainable. Johnson signing it into law was an imperative part of progress, but it was by no means the first, or the last.

    But I don’t think Clinton’s statements qualify as racist. If anything, they more clearly highlight how she thinks about “change,” a word that everyone keeps dropping this primary season. In Clinton’s mind, change is something that comes from Washington, not from the desires of the American people. And that’s been one of the chief criticisms her opponents have offered in the primary – that she’s too invested in the Beltway to yield the real change citizens are longing for. If anything her statements are more indicative of some truth to those criticisms than they are evidence of racist intent.

    The Prospect:

    Read Kate, Paul, and Ezra on the ugliness of the Clinton campaign’s injection of race into the debate over the past week or so. Obviously, it’s exciting to imagine the possibility of either the first female or the first African American president. But it’s sad to see that while one campaign handles this competition with relative tact (Obama’s), the other seems barely able to constrain itself from descending into a cesspool of insensitive, offensive, and tone-deaf attacks. I don’t believe all of the comments from Hillary Clinton’s surrogates were directed by her campaign. Fools like Andrew Cuomo and Robert Johnson are letting their mouths run and exposing the rest of us to their id. But the Clinton camp hasn’t done enough to divorce itself from their statements, which would require specifically denouncing their comments.

    Exactly right.

  • One can only hope.

    Of course, what’s left to talk about. An Obama surrogate on Hardball yesterday said the campaigns (i.e., Hillary’s) should stop doing comparisons and talk about the issues. But the two sides agree on the issues, and Hillary’s whole argument is that she is better able to implement their shared policies than Obama. Yet every time she makes that comparison is every word going to be parsed for racial implications?

    Unfortunate and Ill-advised? Is Obama going to apply those terms to every Hillary says that he doesn’t like?

  • Like I said, he started it.

    This is both maybe the most infantile thing I’ve ever seen post on this blog, while also being flatly false.

  • Unfortunate and Ill-advised? Is Obama going to apply those terms to every Hillary says that he doesn’t like?

    Nope, only when she suggests someone who was against Civil Rights legislation before MLK lead a movement on the issue and then came around for it b/c of that pressure…was actually more important than MLK in getting that legislation passed…will he note that what she said was ill-advised. Or something similarly ill-advised.

    It’s not the case that any argument for Hillary is “ill-advised”, and that’s certainly not the argument Obama has made. Nice strawman though, I expect no better from you and CalD.

    However, suggesting LBJ was more important to the civil rights movement than JFK or MLK is ill-advised.

  • You know Michael (re #16) I don’t think of myself as one of Hillary’s ardent supporters. I just think of my self as a supporter of truth. And your claim that Hillary said LBJ was more important than MLK is unfounded, and thus Obama’s assertion that her comment was ill-advised is incorrect.

  • Michael said: “However, suggesting LBJ was more important to the civil rights movement than JFK or MLK is ill-advised.”

    I’m not too familar with Baseball but as I understand it, if after eight innings the manager takes out the starting pitcher and brings in a replacement, the starting pitcher still gets he’s stats recorded.

    Hillary said that you need a President (certainly one like Johnson, who overcame institutional resistence in the Congress) to get things done/finished/passed into law.

    Where, oh where ask I does she say this is MORE IMPORTANT than King’s or Kennedy’s contributions?

    You won’t let go of your Rovian spin on her statement, trying to get it to mean something she didn’t say, then using that as an excuse to defend Obama’s characterization of it as ‘ill-advised’ and his surrogates’ claiming it was an insult of MLK.

    Or perhaps you are saying Because someone put a Rovian spin on her statement she is ill-advised to have made it? In which case why doesn’t Obama have an obligation up front to point out that the Rovian spin is not what Clinton said.

  • let me guess, the Obamaists like Michael are now going to smear Charlie Rangel? Good luck with that.

    As Lance pointed out, HRC never said LBJ was more important. As Califano points out in defending her actual words (as opposed to Obamaist’s rewriting of them), it took both.

    Perhaps if Obama hadn’t arrogated himself to the analog to Dr. King none of this happens?

  • Can I ask a stupid question: Is it wrong for Obama to court the African-American vote? Does that necessarily mean he’s making *his* race an issue? Folks, race *is* an issue in America. African-Americans are a historically underserved constituency with political interests unique to their community. If Clinton, Obama, Edwards or anyone else wants to make special efforts to court the African-American vote, I have no problem with that.

    Now, if Obama makes an effort to convince African-Americans, “You should vote for me because my skin color is the same as yours,” *then* I think he’s making his race an issue. But that’s not what I see him doing.

  • ROTF @ 13

    I hope Obama takes your advice. All of the polling in NH showed that if Bill Clinton had been on the ballot he’d have handily beaten any of the actual candidates. Bill Clinton left office — after all of the beating he took, all of the scandals — with an approval rating in the 60s. He remains one of the most popular political figures in the country.

    So if anyone, Dem or Rep, wants to make this a referendum on Bill, I suspect that works out well for HRC, and ultimately for the Dems in general (because in the general, it then becomes a referendum on Bill vs Dumbya)

  • Wow.
    Just read that Rangel thing.
    And to think I get stuff from him in the mail asking for money.
    Yikes.

    One more thing: Josh Marshall needs to throw up a timeline documenting who said what and when.
    Seems to be the Republicans aren’t the only ones who create reality on the fly. I’ve read everything since the start and it seems that my version of who started this and prolonged it for political gain is quite wrong. Maybe. But I’d like some proof.

  • Well, didn’t this all begin when the Obama camp intentionally and vocally misinterpreted some accurate and reasonable Clinton remarks about civil rights history? She was making a good point, and it looked to me like her opponents chose to take offense as a way to deflect attention from that good point, rather than meet it head on.

    As far as Obama getting the reconciliation started, well, perhaps, but Ms. Clinton had very respectful and complimentary things to say about Obama to Russert on Sunday, while legitimately criticizing him on issues.

    Now, I like both Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama very much, and I very much hope that one or the other will be our next president. I suspect an Obama presidency has a greater chance of lifting our country in a profound way, but if she wins, I hope she will include him and he will willingly contribute his energy and his vision.

    But, dammit, I am exceedingly tired of all of the reflexive Hillary-bashing that one encounters in the progressive community. I know you folks have heard the right-wing memes repeated endlessly in the supposedly liberal press for the last 15 years, and apparently you have come to accept them. But what about using your own eyes: this is one of the most committed, courageous, good-hearted, and effective Americans we have seen in our lifetimes. Disagree with her approach by all means, but she surely deserves all of our respect and appreciation. And if she wins the nomination, we must support her wholeheartedly.

  • All of you quit the he said she said BULL-CRAP and target the Repugs! We should focus on the Village Idiots latest saber rattling against Iran and his wanting to sell advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia instead of behaving like a Chris Matthews round table.

  • HRC never… and i repeat never… said that LBJ’s contribution was more important than MLK’s. yes there was a point in LBJ’s life were he didn’t understand the need for civil rights legislation… after all he was a white man from the south (not meant in any way to offend white men from the south)… but he did “get it” eventually and he did join in to see MLK’s…and many other American’s… dream come true. we still do not have a level playing field… in many ways… and given threads of late… we still have much more work to do.

  • captainlarab said: “Can I ask a stupid question: Is it wrong for Obama to court the African-American vote?”

    Nope, I think he should court the African-American vote. But than so should Hillary. And when she said it took a technocrat President like LBJ to get the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts passed, she was making a case that she (being a policy-wonk technocrat type person) would be a good President for African-Americans, because she/we know what needs to be done for the poor in this country, we just need a Hillary as opposed to a Boy George II to get it done.

    And then, having mentioned Martin Luther King Junior in her comment (to Faux Spews, of all media outlets) Obama’s surrogates attacked her in a quite Rovian manner (which Michael is still doing here).

    It’s like the Obama campaign doesn’t want to let anything Hillary says positively comparing herself to him to go unchallenged, no matter how lame the basis for that challenge will have to be.

  • Michael @ #18:

    OK, let’s review. On the eve of the NH primary, Bill Clinton calls the hype surrounding Barack Obama — this year’s “new paradigm” fad diet, promising fast, easy weight loss without dreary old exercise or sensible long-term eating habits (my words, not his) — a fairy tale.

    Barack Obama responds by invoking JFK and MLK, the civil rights movement and the moon.

    Hillary Clinton points out that without LBJ, there would have been no Civil Rights act of 1964 (leaving out that LBJ was also the president who actually got us to the moon).

    Plenty of silliness so far but as yet no racist overtones.

    The morning after Hillary Clinton wins the NH primary in a surprising upset, the Obama Campaign deploys Jesse Jackson Jr. with a blatantly sexist attack on Clinton, accusing her of cying about “her appearance” but caring less about Hurricane Katrina victims. Just to make sure there was no doubt he meant that Clinton didn’t care about (predominantly black) Katrina victims, he said Katrina three times in a 90 second segment (I counted).

    Simultaneously, on the other side of town, the notion that Bill Clinton was calling Barack Obama himself a fairy tale (because he’s black) is floated and Obama himself I believe, accused Hillary Clinton of belittling MLK.

    An internal Obama campaign strategy memo goes out playing up a disturbing “pattern” behind the Clinton’s recent remarks.

    An Obama campaign spokesweasel is quoted obliquely referring to said “pattern”.

    The Clinton push-back begins, rallying black leaders to point out the ludicrousness of the accusations.

    ABC’s Political Punch and the Huffington Post report on the Obama “pattern” memo and…

    Barack Obama sues for peace.

    The only part I left out, because it’s only an assumption on my part, was the part about party leaders and probably the CBC getting involved to break up the fight.

    But like I said, he started it.

  • I hope Howard Dean slapped both campaigns around and told them to quit trying to lose November’s contest for the party. Another tack for these campaigns to take is who can hit the Republicans the hardest. That would sway the 66%ers who can’t stand Bush, want change and are looking at the Democrats to do so.

    While these little barbs thrown out in this spat may have scored a few points with a small number of voters, my guess is that they have turned off more people than turned them on. The media seems to know that. While campaign advisors can look at this tussle and see points scored on their personal tallies, they need to get their heads out of their butts and realize that they are setting themselves, and the nation, up for a loss in November.

  • No Mas!

    Unless HRC can SHUT UP THE MINIONS who are speaking ‘intentionally or not’ on her behalf – This issue will NEVER DIE.

    4 years of Bush + 8 years of Clinton + 8 years of Bush = 20 years of screwing of the American worker…

    No Mas!

  • Thanks for the accurate wrap-up, CalID – let’s hope Michael will find it illuminating, and drop this nonsense he keeps pushing.

  • Agreed: it will be the people speaking on their behalf, starting today with Chuck Rangel’s outright lie about Obama injecting race into the campaign.

    The Clinton campaign will continue mudslinging via supporters speaking on her behalf, like Bob Johnson.

    And it is very much pushing me away from supporting her. As far as I am concerned, how you campaign is part of how you govern.

  • CalD @ 30

    OK, let’s review. On the eve of the NH primary, Bill Clinton calls the hype surrounding Barack Obama — this year’s “new paradigm” fad diet, promising fast, easy weight loss without dreary old exercise or sensible long-term eating habits (my words, not his) — a fairy tale.

    Actually, if you look at Bill Clinton’s original statement, it was clearly saying that the idea that Obama had been consistently against the Iraq war was a fairy tale. Now, one can argue about Obama’s consistency, but clearly there was no racial content here whatsoever.

    As for Hillary Clinton’s MLK/LBJ comment, it also had no racial content and in no way demeaned or belittled MLK. To those who say that LBJ was merely responding to the will of the people, you either did not live through the 1960s or you have no knowledge of its history. Certainly, there were parts of the country that supported the Civil Rights movement and, just as obviously, there were parts that violently opposed it (and not just in the South). The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was right and this country needed it to be passed, but if left to a popular referendum, it would not have passed a vote of the general population. Civil Rights legislation would have been enacted eventually, but not before more years of bloody struggle. It could not have been done in 1964 without the work of MLK, but it also could not have been done then without the support of LBJ. It required both MLK and LBJ to get it done.

  • Algernon said: “The Clinton campaign will continue mudslinging via supporters speaking on her behalf, like Bob Johnson.”

    That was a rather dumbass comment, made only worse by his later claim that he didn’t mean Obama’s drug use but instead his later community work. One wonders how he could have possibly become rich…

  • CB:

    The problem of late has largely been one of surrogates. Clinton backers such as Bob Johnson, Bob Kerrey, Mark Penn, Billy Shaheen, Andrew Cuomo, and assorted anonymous advisors have helped create this dispute with contentious remarks that were ostensibly not authorized by the campaign.

    And your cynicism has been rewarded: Add Rangel to the list.

    Still waiting for that timeline.
    And no… I won’t except one drafted up by a Bill and Hill shill.

  • Michael said:
    (rom the American Prospect)
    What’s forgotten in all this talk about Hillary Clinton’s remark that “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” is some historical context on LBJ.

    LBJ and MLK were both essential to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act becoming law. But while Johnson was putting his reputation and political career on the line, King and his supporters were putting their lives on the line by standing up to guns, dogs and lynch mobs. By equating the two, Clinton demonstrated a lack of understanding of the genuine heroism of King and all the others who were on the front lines of the civil rights movement. Even if it was a poor choice of words, her statement was almost as insensitive as Mitt Romney equating his sons’ “sacrifice” by working for his campaign with the genuine sacrifice of our soldiers in Iraq.

    Even with the cease-fire, Clinton hasn’t really demonstrated that she “gets it”. Since she wants to equate herself with LBJ, when has she ever put her career on the line for justice? Neither she nor her husband spoke up when racial profiling was an issue during his presidency. They both seemed pretty indifferent to the harm Welfare “Reform” would do to the African-American community. She said nothing about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and she continues to defend the Defense of Bigotry (marriage) Act.

    But lets ask all the candidates some “big picture” questions, instead of playing “gotcha” on policy details. Let’s ask:

    ”President Johnson put his presidency on the line by pushing civil rights legislation through Congress. What issue or issues will you risk your career to achieve?”

    and
    “What principles will you refuse to compromise on? When will you say, ‘This is what I believe, and if you don’t like it, don’t vote for me!’?”

    Those questions would define what kind of president they would be.

  • Hillary screwed up, period. She has to know that the media is waiting to make this about race and/or gender. Did she really think she was going to through out anything MLK related and it wasn’t going to be misconstrued into something racial ?

    Sorry Hillary, but MLK is off limits when you are in a race with a black man. That is like politics 101. No way is Obama going to let that ride.

  • Nothing has disappointed me so much in this election season more than the extraordinary lengths the Clinton apologists are willing to go in excusing the slimy tactics of their chosen candidate–or, excuse me, her “surrogates.”

    It’s as if you think the world knows nothing about how the Clintons operate.

    Whether it’s when McCain defeats her in November, “validating” the Bush Disaster, or in three years’ time when Madame President’s arrogance, warmongering, unpopularity and chronic dishonesty have helped cost the Democrats their congressional majorities and Russ Feingold announces a primary challenge… at some point the country will pay a terrible price for your cultish, irrational and wholly unjustified faith in this second Royal Family.

  • The Clinton push-back begins, rallying black leaders to point out the ludicrousness of the accusations. -CalD

    Rallying Bob Johnson probably didn’t do her any favors. Nothing like the having a billionaire who is in favor of repealing the estate tax and who holds secret meetings to concoct a plan to mislead African Americans away from the Democratic party to speak to the people.

    He’s a greedy Republican and not someone I want in a potential President’s cadre.

  • doubtful, i completely agree with you re Bob Johnson. But Rangel said almost the exact same thing — without the pointless coyness — and unlike Johnson I have a lot of respect for Rangel.

  • I’ll believe it when Hill and Billary fire that slimy little pinstriped schmuck Mark Penn.

    What’s going to be next with their “shiny object” psychodrama??

  • dajafi:

    Nothing has disappointed me so much in this election season more than the extraordinary lengths the Clinton apologists are willing to go in excusing the slimy tactics of their chosen candidate–or, excuse me, her “surrogates.”

    Actually dafafi everybody has a right to feel ardent about their candidates.
    It’s okay to play the devil’s advocate. It is okay to question other candidate’s motives and honesty. And it is definitely okay to worry, like you and I do, that we are watching yet another November train wreck a’coming…

    But what has been really amazing to me is the lack of critical thinking skills on the left.
    I have found it to be a complete revelation.
    That’s been a very healthy thing for me to see.
    This sundering of the Dem party has been very interesting for this reason alone:
    Anybody who thinks the left wing has a stranglehold on reality is wrong.
    People on the left, like people on the right, create reality to suit their purposes.
    Both willfully talk past the facts.
    That’s been the lesson here: The ham fisted assertion of the correction of one’s reality.

    And that’s why I so badly want to seem someone with integrity, like Josh Marshall, do a full timeline and accounting of who said what and when.

    Because as CB wrote with such prescience:
    That said, there is, I’m sad to say, a nagging, cynical side of me that wonders whether the detente will hold.

    Get out the timeline for the sake of mental hygiene…

  • I would like to see my fellow liberals and progressives here who support the Clintons point to One Damn Thing that Bill Clinton did in 8 years that was actually progressive and didn’t harm average Americans – you know, the things Democratic presidents are supposed to do?

    I’d also like to see One Damn Time that either of these two careerists ever took a stand on a matter of principle (like LBJ did on civil rights) – you know, did more than talk about it until someone said “boo!” and they retreated to “preserve their prospects”?

    Let’s just compare Bill Clinton on Vietnam with John Kerry – Clinton shucking and jiving and hiding in law school to “preserve his career possibilities”. Hillary voting as she did on Iraq to “preserve her career possibilities.”

  • Tom: use of the term “shuck and jive” is conclusive proof that the user is a racist. Or so I’ve heard.

    Just like the next President will, the first and most important thing Bill Clinton had to do was to undo – the damage of Bush I. The Clinton economy actually lifted all boats — that is a hell of a lot different than the Reagan/Bush/Bush II economies, and is clearly “progressive.” Could it have been better still for the working class? Sure – but if we make perfection the only standard, we’ll never win another election again. It was a lot more progressive than the alternative.

    Foolishly swinging for a home run every pitch is not a universal definition of progressive. I think we get just as far moving baserunners one base at a time with a higher percentage.

    Clinton did scores of things that were not all high profile but were exceedingly helpful to individuals and workers. If you haven’t read Fast Food Nation, you should: Clinton had to totally redo the safety inspections regime that had been guttred by e.coli conservatives under Bush. The real work that needs to be done is at that level of invisible detail. And it is there that Hillary, with Bill’s advice, is much more prepared than Obama, whose inspirational oratory wont help solve the 10,000 problems of piece-meal corruption Bush has build into the nuts and bolts of the system.

  • Re # 46,

    Welfare Reform.

    Unless, of course, you believe the intergenerational transfer of poverty is a Progressive objective. I don’t.

  • Re #46

    NAFTA.

    Unless, of course, you believe that having jobs in the U.S. is a Progressive objective.

  • RE #46

    I would confidently state that the appointments of Ginsberg and Breyer were pretty progressive.

  • Lance said:
    Re # 46,
    Welfare Reform.
    Unless, of course, you believe the intergenerational transfer of poverty is a Progressive objective. I don’t.

    True welfare reform would have been great. Forcing single mothers (of all colors) to take minumum wage jobs without any health coverage and forcing them to pay a quarter of what they earn for substandard child care (when they could find it) is not reform. It’s Republican-style punishment of the poor for being poor. And it’s Greenspan-nomics which strives to maintain a pool of workers who are so desperate to keep their jobs that they won’t report violations of OSHA or EPA regualtions (thus maximizing corporate profits).

  • Re #52,

    Then why don’t you hire one of them for a decent wage?

    No, really. We can’t get welfare receipients off the roles and into jobs unless the jobs pay as well as yours does?

    Work is not a punishment. Keeping people poor so that welfare bureaucrats can keep their jobs is a punishment.

    Train them, help them, support them anyway you can, but don’t lock them into a system designed for the benefit of the careers of government employees who get promoted based on the number of clients they retain.

  • bubba @ 51 – i’m with you on Ginsberg. Breyer may be worth a half-point.

    ROTF, you say:

    And that’s why I so badly want to seem someone with integrity, like Josh Marshall, do a full timeline

    I’d be curious what evidence you have that Josh Marshall has any more “integrity” than CalD? It is pretty easy to win an argument when you can simply unilaterally define the messenger and thereby ignore the evidence. Do you have refutation for CalD’s timeline? Do you have the first reason to believe it inaccurate? Or are you just engaging in outright ad hominem attacks on his “integrity”?

    sorry if i don’t find that approach persuasive.

  • Without a doubt the Clinton presidency was far superior to what we’ve experienced over the past 7 years. I wasn’t a big Clinton fan but looking back I am wistful about those years. I do disagree with a lot of the black leadership who seemed to believe that Bill Clinton our first “black” president. I recognize that black politicians had a lot more access to the White House but I’m not convinced that he did more for black people than any other president. What I do have problem with is that a number of people like Charlie Rangel and Bob Johnson are not-so-subtly insisting that we as black people “owe” the Clintons. Maybe the Clintons have worked specifically on their behalf but there are many of us who are not beholden to them and we don’t appreciate the strong-armed tactics. I can tell you that black radio was aghast at the comments by Bob Johnson. The cardinal rule among black people is that you don’t take another black person down in public. Bob Johnson committed the ultimate sin. He’s not particularly well-liked because he’s been so willing to sell out young black people, especially black women with his “booty” channel. I don’t know if his comments are the death knell for HRC in SC but he definitely didn’t help. Full disclosure: I’m not supporting either Hillary or Barack.

    Finally, everyone take a breath. We need to stop falling for the media’s evil plan to pick a fight among the Dems. A lot of what has gone back and forth between the Clinton and Obama camps has been instigated or inflamed by the media and various pundits. They take every opportunity to exploit every utterance, to question the tone, mislead and mischaracterize the motive, whatever. Don’t fall for it and stop attacking each other’s supporters. This is how democracy works. Stop taking everything so personal. Somethings cannot be unsaid or undone. So watch it. Our main objective is to get a Dem in the White House next November.

  • ROTF – your requested timeline:

    MSNBC’s First Read recaps the last 10 days. I doubt it will change anyone’s mind on either side. My take is that Obama first brought race into it by taking Clinton’s “false hope” line and applying it to the civil rights movement (analogizing himself to MLK in the process). I suspect Obama supporters will say that was not bringing race in at all, just a historical example of longshot hopes fulfilled, and the HRC started it with the LBJ comment.

    Either way, the record is what it is, and that record is here.

  • Interestingly, comments #52 and #53 are both correct IMO.

    After years of studying and agonizing over it, I don’t have a huge problem with welfare reform as was ultimately signed by Clinton in 1996 (#53). That said, if he’d done it in ’94 rather than HillaryCare, it would have been far better (#52).

    As it actually played out, the “work first” approach taken by most jurisdictions became “work only”–there was way too little provision for educational opportunities, career advancement, and other policy interventions that might have taken people from welfare to self-sufficiency rather than from welfare to working poverty or near-poverty.

    That isn’t to say that what we have today isn’t better than the old AFDC, or that there is no inherent dignity and value (both in a moral and societal sense) to work–it is, and there is. But Bill Clinton’s original vision for welfare reform–a brilliant re-drawing of the social contract in which citizens committed to work, and the state in return committed to helping them earn a better life for themselves and their kids–is a lot more inspiring than the reality of millions being thrown into the deep end of the low-skill, low-wage labor market without life jackets or swimming lessons.

  • As for Superdestroyer @ #11, I have not heard the term “racial quotas” from anyone in the Democratic party for about 1/4 of a century now. Where have you been? Me thinks “racial quotas” was your way of invoking panic at the prospects that someone other than a white male may become a nationally elected figure. What say you? -Kevo

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