Dubbed The Snub by the media, and played up endlessly, this photo has been getting a lot of airtime:
Not content to just let the media talk about it, Clinton talked about it, too:
Hillary went on ABC News on Tuesday night to insinuate that he had been rude Monday.
“Well, I reached my hand out in friendship and unity and my hand is still reaching out,” she said. “And I look forward to shaking his hand sometime soon.”
That would have been a pretty horrible diss by Obama, if that’s what had actually happened. Let’s look at it from another angle, shall we?
Oh, look at that. He turned, actually, because Clair McCaskill had asked him a question. You can clearly see that he’s turned before she has. He didn’t even see Hillary. But, by all means, keep playing it up as something else.
I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Rezko, in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago.
Obama worked for a charity group that partnered with Rezko. He did 5 hours of work for them as an associate, which means his bosses told him to do this here job.
William Miceli, Obama’s supervisor at the law firm, said the firm represented the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., a nonprofit group that redeveloped a run-down property on Chicago’s South Side with Rezko. He called Clinton’s assertion that Obama represented Rezko in a slum landlord business ‘categorically untrue. He was a very junior lawyer at the time, who was given responsibility for basic due diligence, document review,’ said Miceli, adding that Obama did what he was told by the firm.
And a Tribune review of land and court documents and law firm files as well as correspondence and other records related to Obama’s eight years as an Illinois state lawmaker supports his contention that he did not directly represent Rezko’s development firm. Instead, the records show, he represented non-profit community groups that partnered with Rezko’s firm.
Oh… hey, who’s this guy in the middle? That wouldn’t be Tony Rezko, would it?
I don’t know the man. I wouldn’t know him if he walked in the door. I don’t have a 17-year relationship with him.
No doubt Senator Clinton had her picture taken with lots of people while serving as both First Lady and as a Senator. Perhaps she should keep that in mind the next time she wants to create the idea that merely associating with someone equals corruption.
I’ve heard that if you stand in front of a mirror and say his name three times it will summon him from his unholy rest…
Obama gave a candid interview to the Reno Gazette-Journal in which he said something that turned out not to be demonizing enough about Ronald Reagan:
I don’t want to present myself as some sort of singular figure. I think part of what’s different are the times. I do think that, for example, the 1980 election was different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn’t much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was: we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.
The Lefty Blogosphere went nuts over this quote, completely missing the point. The 60’s saw an amazing upheaval of popular culture, politics, economy, etc.. We saw the end of segregation, the beginning of the feminist and gay rights movements, the emergence of rock and roll, the anti-war movement. We saw all of our most liberal leaders killed.
The 70’s brought Cambodia, Watergate, fuel shortages, a recession, the Iran Hostage Crisis, a rise in violent crime, homelessness, and drug use, to name just a few. People were looking for a father figure. People were looking for someone to tell them that it was morning in America, and that he could make things all better. It was transformative, and came in the guise of a B-movie actor who was really good at connecting with his audience. And it worked.
But oh no no. We can’t say that because, as we all know, Ronald Reagan was the devil and he invented AIDS. Goon Periodiko points out the obvious:
In the rush to accumulate evidence that Obama is actually a Republican manchurian candidate no one is bothering to note that he’s talking about a historical event in a neutral tone as a point of comparison for christ’s sake. No reasonable person would read that and assume he was making anything remotely resembling a policy judgment about Ronald Reagan. Any reasonable person would read this and realize that he is focusing on Ronald Reagan’s significance and weight as a politician and the positive perceptions that he rode to office. There is nothing in there that condones, opposes, or even deals with Ronald Reagan outside of this aspect. It’s such desperate, willful misinterpretation it’s getting embarrassing.
That’s not all Obama said about Reagan, though. He also said, in the same interview:
The Republican approach I think has played itself out. I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10-15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.
Oh boy. This quote was picked up by Clinton, so here we go.
I have to say, you know, my leading opponent the other day said that he thought the Republicans had better ideas than Democrats the last ten to fifteen years. That’s not the way I remember the last ten to fifteen years.
I don’t think it’s a better idea to privatize Social Security. I don’t think it’s a better idea to try to eliminate the minimum wage. I don’t think it’s a better idea to undercut health benefits and to give drug companies the right to make billions of dollars by providing prescription drugs to Medicare recipients. I don’t think it’s a better idea to shut down the government, to drive us into debt.
He didn’t say better. He didn’t even say “good.” He said they had ideas. This, right here, is what we close observers call a lie. But since getting caught in a lie has never stopped anyone, let’s get Barney Frank to say it, and then let’s get Bill Clinton to say it and get everyone to say it some more!
Yes, how dare he give credit to Reagan. He even did it in his book!
Audacity of Hope page 31:
That Reagan’s message found such a receptive audience spoke not only to his kills as a communicator; it also spoke to the failures of liberal government, during a period of economic stagnation, to give middle-class voters any sense that it was fighting for them. For the fact was government at every level had become to cavalier about spending taxpayer money. Too often bureaucracies were oblivious to the cost of their mandates. A lot of liberal rhetoric did seem to value rights and entitlements over duties and responsibilities. Reagan may have exaggerated the sins of the welfare state, and certainly liberals were right to complain that his domestic policies tilted heavily toward elites, with corporate raiders making tidy profits throughout the eighties while unions were busted and the income for the average working stiff flatlined.
Nevertheless, by promising to side with those who worked hard, obeyed the law, cared for their families, loved their country, Reagan offered Americans a sense of common purpose that liberals seemed no longer able to muster.
It was a remarkable moment: A young, free-thinking presidential hopeful named Bill Clinton sat down with reporters and editors at The Washington Post in October 1991 and started saying things most Democrats wouldn’t allow to pass their lips.
Ronald Reagan, Clinton said, deserved credit for winning the Cold War. He praised Reagan’s “rhetoric in defense of freedom” and his role in “advancing the idea that communism could be rolled back.”
“The idea that we were going to stand firm and reaffirm our containment strategy, and the fact that we forced them to spend even more when they were already producing a Cadillac defense system and a dinosaur economy, I think it hastened their undoing,” Clinton declared.
His apostasy was widely noticed. The Memphis Commercial Appeal praised Clinton two days later for daring to “set himself apart from the pack of contenders for the Democratic nomination by saying something nice about Ronald Reagan.” Clinton’s “readiness to defy his party’s prevailing Reaganphobia and admit it,” the paper wrote, “is one reason he’s a candidate to watch.”
But no president can do it alone. She must break recent tradition, cast cronyism aside and fill her cabinet with the best people, not only the best Democrats, but the best Republicans as well.. We’re confident she will do that. Her list of favorite presidents - Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Truman, George H.W. Bush and Reagan - demonstrates how she thinks.
[Reagan] was a child of the Depression, so he understood it (economic pressures on the working and middle class). When he had those big tax cuts and they went too far, he oversaw the largest tax increase. He could call the Soviet Union the Evil Empire and then negotiate arms-control agreements. He played the balance and the music beautifully.
The original news out of Nevada was Who Really Won? Clinton won the popular vote, Obama won the delegate vote, FIGHT. However, shortly after the caucuses word spread of serious irregularities.
One of the first reports to go out was this DailyKos diary from thereisnospoon, detailing lost registration lists, doors closing early, Clinton supporters turning away Obama supporters, etc. etc. etc.. Just after 6PM, Obama’s camp released this statement:
We currently have reports of over 200 separate incidents of trouble at caucus sites, including doors being closed up to thirty minutes early, registration forms running out so people were turned away, and ID being requested and checked in a non-uniform fashion. This is in addition to the Clinton campaign’s efforts to confuse voters and call into question the at-large caucus sites which clearly had an affect on turnout at these locations. These kinds of Clinton campaign tactics were part of an entire week’s worth of false, divisive, attacks designed to mislead caucus-goers and discredit the caucus itself.
It was accompanied by a phone number for people to call to report irregularities. The Clinton camp swiftly released their own statement alleging suppression by Obama supporters.
As of this post, the only thing that is clear is that the Nevada Democratic Party sucks at running caucuses. We’ll keep you appraised of any further details as they emerge.
In the Nevada Debates, the candidates were all asked what their greatest weakness is. Let’s go to the transcript, Bob!
RUSSERT: You said each of you have strengths and weaknesses. I want to ask each of you quickly, your greatest strength, your greatest weakness.
OBAMA: My greatest strength, I think is the ability to bring people together from different perspectives to get them to recognize what they have in common and to move people in a different direction. And as I indicated before, my greatest weakness, I think, is when it comes to — I’ll give you a very good example.
I ask my staff member to hand me paper until two seconds before I need it because I will lose it. You know, the —- you know…
(LAUGHTER)
And my desk and my office doesn’t look good. I’ve got to have somebody around me who is keeping track of that stuff. And that’s not trivial; I need to have good people in place who can make sure that systems run. That’s what I’ve always done, and that’s why we run not only a good campaign, but a good U.S. Senate office.
RUSSERT: Senator Edwards, greatest strength, greatest weakness?
EDWARDS: I think my greatest strength is that for 54 years, I’ve been fighting with every fiber of my being. In the beginning, the fight was for me. Growing up in mill towns and mill villages, I had to literally fight to survive.
But then I spent 20 years in courtrooms fighting for children and families against really powerful well-financed interests. I learned from that experience, by the way, that if you’re tough enough and you’re strong enough and you got the guts and you’re smart enough, you can win. That’s a fight that can be won.
It can be won in Washington, too, by the way. And I’ve continued that entire fight my entire time in public life. So I’ve got what it takes inside to fight on behalf of the American people and on behalf of the middle class.
I think weakness, I sometimes have a very powerful emotional response to pain that I see around me, when I see a man like Donnie Ingram (ph), who I met a few months ago in South Carolina, who worked for 33 years in the mill, reminded me very much of the kind of people that I grew up with, who’s about to lose his job, has no idea where he’s going to go, what he’s going to do.
I mean, his dignity and self-respect is at issue. And I feel that in a really personal way and in a very emotional way. And I think sometimes that can undermine what you need to do.
RUSSERT: Senator Clinton?
CLINTON: Well, I am passionately committed to this country and what it stands for. I’m a product of the changes that have already occurred, and I want to be an instrument for making those changes alive and real in the lives of Americans, particularly children.
That’s what I’ve done for 35 years. It is really my life’s work. It is something that comes out of my own experience, both in my family and in my church that, you know, I’ve been blessed. I think to whom much is given, much is expected.
So I have tried to create opportunities, both on an individual basis, intervening to help people who have no where else to turn, to be their champion. And then to make those changes. And I think I can deliver change. I think I understand how to make it possible for more people to live up to their God-given potential.
I get impatient. I get, you know, really frustrated when people don’t seem to understand that we can do so much more to help each other. Sometimes I come across that way. I admit that. I get very concerned about, you know, pushing further and faster than perhaps people are ready to go.
The third thing that happened tonight is that Hillary Clinton and John Edwards disgraced themselves in the minds of debate-watchers everywhere. At some point in each campaign, candidates are asked to name their greatest weakness. Only the lamest political hacks answer that question this way: Goshdarn it, I just care too much. I am too impatient for good things to happen.
Giving that answer is an insult to the art of politics. And yet Edwards and Clinton both gave that answer. They didn’t even give artfully disguised versions of that answer. They gave the straight, unsubtle kindergarten version of that answer. Obama, honestly, admitted that he’s bad at organizing his paperwork. Truly, here is a man willing to stand for change.
However, the Clinton campaign actually made this an issue. Because they are desperate. They’ve insinuated that his honest answer means he’ll be disinterested or disorganized in running the country.
Because I’m an ordinary person, I thought that they meant, `What’s your biggest weakness?’ If I had gone last I would have known what the game was. And then I could have said, `Well, ya know, I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don’t want to be helped. It’s terrible.’
We knew getting into this race that Barack would be competing with Senator Clinton and President Clinton at the same time. We expected that Bill Clinton would tout his record from the nineties and talk about Hillary’s role in his past success … What we didn’t expect, at least not from our fellow Democrats, are the win-at-all-costs tactics we’ve seen recently.
That’s from an e-mail sent to supporters by Michelle Obama. It was also brought up by Barack at the South Carolina debate on Monday, when he said “Sometimes I’m not sure who I am running against.”
There’s no denying that Bill Clinton is an advocate for his wife during this political run. What’s increasingly clear, though, is that he’s pissing people off. Leading Democrats To Bill Clinton: Pipe Down
Prominent Democrats are upset with the aggressive role that Bill Clinton is playing in the 2008 campaign, a role they believe is inappropriate for a former president and the titular head of the Democratic Party.
He has adopted tactics that, if he does not curb himself soon, may tarnish his global brand irreparably. That would be a shame, not only for him but also for the causes that he has placed his weight behind.
…
Instead of a non-partisan philanthropist, US voters see a partisan operative getting red-faced with anger as he bitterly rails against Mr Obama for, in Mrs Clinton’s words, “raising false hopes” that the US can be otherwise.
The worst thing about all this is what both Clintons are doing to their own legacy as pioneers of an approach that rejected, as Bill Clinton said in a 1991 speech, “the stale orthodoxies of left and right.” The great asset shared by both Clintons is their willingness to bring fresh thinking to old problems.
Bill’s back on the campaign trail, waxing eloquent about his White House days, pummeling Hillary’s rivals and promising more good times if Hillary becomes the Democratic nominee: You liked Clinton I? You’re gonna love Clinton II!
In contrast to 1992, though, the Clintons now officially pretend that they’re not a twofer. When critics — Barack Obama among them — complain that it’s hard to figure out which Clinton is actually running for president this year, Hillary responds with wide-eyed incomprehension: Goodness, what’s this fuss about Bill? “This campaign is not about our spouses, it’s about us,” she explained demurely to a South Carolina debate audience. “Michelle [Obama] and Elizabeth [Edwards] are strong and staunch advocates for their husbands, and I respect that.” Isn’t Hillary allowed to have a supportive spouse too?’
This flyer went around in New Hampshire in the days leading up to the primary there. It seems like it refuses to die. It continues to perpetuate the lie that Obama is pro-Abortion, because of his “present” votes. We’ve debunked that once, but if you don’t want to believe us, how about Newsweek or The Wall Street Journal.
The trouble is that in politics, “the facts” alone don’t always make things clearer. Take Obama’s abortion votes. It is true he voted present several times between 1997 and 2001. But it was part of a strategy designed by Planned Parenthood. Republicans in the Illinois Senate had repeatedly tried to pass bills restricting abortion. This put Democrats in a difficult position. They wanted to vote against the bills, but worried they would be smeared by Republican opponents for opposing legislation with names like “The Born Alive Infant Protection Act.” So Obama and a group of Democrats and moderate Republicans cut a deal with Planned Parenthood. The politicians would vote present as a bloc. The bills wouldn’t get enough votes, and the pols would have political cover. Everybody would win.
Luckily, the forces of Truth and Justice and fluffy bunnies are starting to win, as a backlash comes against this flyer. Check out the video below to see how this little dirty campaign trick turned the Former President of Chicago NOW against the Clinton campaign.
The Los Angeles Times has uncovered the stunning story of how Obama accidentally voted wrong 6 times while in the Illinois Senate.
“I was not aware that I had voted no,” he said that day in June 2002, asking that the record be changed to reflect that he “intended to vote yes.”
That was not the only misfire for the former civil rights attorney first elected to the state Senate in 1996. During his eight years in state office, Obama cast more than 4,000 votes. Of those, according to transcripts of the proceedings in Springfield, he hit the wrong button at least six times.
Oh no! Six times out of 4,000 votes! How could this be rectified?
The rules allow state lawmakers to clear up a mishap if they suffered from a momentary case of stumbly fingers or a lapse in attention. Correcting the record is common practice in the Illinois Legislature, where lawmakers routinely cast numerous votes in a hurry.
Oh. Well, clearly he was hiding this record. It’s not like the LA Times could have just, I don’t know, opened up a copy of The Audacity of Hope and found this out.
The Audacity of Hope, page 132-33
Perhaps my greatest bit of good fortune during my own Senate campaign was that no candidate ran a negative TV ad about me. This had to do entirely with the odd circumstances of my Senate race, and not an absence of material with which to work. After all, I had been in the state legislature for seven years when I ran, had been in the minority for six of those years and had cast thousands of sometimes difficult votes. As is standard practice these days, the National Republican Senatorial Committee had prepared a fat binder of opposition research on me before I was even nominated, and my own research team spent many hours combing through my record in an effort to anticipate what negative ads the Republicans might have up their sleeves.
They didn’t find a lot, but they found enough to do the trick– a dozen or so votes that, if described without context, could be made to sound pretty scary. When my media consultant, David Axelrod, tested them in a poll, my approval rating immediately dropped ten points. There was the criminal law bill that purported to crack down on drug dealing in schools but had been so poorly drafted that I concluded it was both ineffective and unconstitutional– “Obama voted to weaken penalties on gang-bangers who deal drugs in schools,” is how the poll described it. There was a bill sponsored by antiabortion activists that on its face sounded reasonable enough- it mandated lifesaving measures for premature babies (the bill didn’t mention that such measures were already the law)– but also extended “personhood” to previable fetuses, thereby effectively overturning Roe vs. Wade; in the poll, I was said to have “Voted to deny lifesaving treatment to babies born alive.” Running down the list, I came across a claim that while in the state legislature I had voted against a bill to “protect our children from sex offenders.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, snatching the sheet from David’s hands. “I accidentally pressed the wrong button on that bill. I meant to vote aye, and had it immediately corrected in the official record.”
David smiled. “Somehow, I don’t think that portion of the official record will make it into a Republican ad.” He gently retrieved the poll from my hands. “Anyway, cheer up,” he added, clapping me on the back. “I’m sure this will help you with the sex offender vote.”
Have you or one of your family members received one of those nasty chain letters? One of the most popular ones going around accuses Obama of being a Muslim. This is one of the oldest attacks against Obama and should not even need to be discussed. Still, there have been reports of people still receiving these emails and one poster who goes by the name TubeSockFan drafted up a nice letter you can use to respond with if you ever receive this. Here is the email, please feel free to pass it around.
Hello,
I recently received a mass-forwarded e-mail about Barack Obama (Who is Barack Obama) and his supposed ties to radical Islam. This claim has already been rebuked through the media, but this is a very sensitive subject, capable of causing a lot of hate and pain if consistently misreported. I write not to persuade you to vote for or support Senator Obama, but rather to try to bring a little bit of justice into the marketplace of ideas.
I have no issue with people not liking Barack Obama based on his policies or even based on him personally, in a world as large as ours it’s a bit too much to expect that everyone will get along with each other. This is America and part of what I love about it is that we can all make our own informed decisions. When something is outright false though I believe we should do what we can to help inform our neighbors (even virtual ones). Please take some time and forward this along regardless of your political leanings because Democrat or Republican, Conservative, Moderate or Liberal no one should be making decisions on lies.
If you have any doubts about Obama and his religious background, please read this article from Snopes.com, the most reliable and reputable authority for the de-bunking of myths and rumors.
Barack Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim (As with everything else in the e-mail quoted at the head of the page, this is asserted as “fact” despite a complete lack of supporting evidence.) “Senator Obama has never been a Muslim,” Obama communications director Robert Gibbs said. “As a six-year-old in Catholic school, he studied the catechism.” Barack Obama has been associated with the United Church of Christ since the mid-1980s, describes himself as a Christian, and says that he is “rooted in the Christian tradition.”
“When he was a child in Indonesia, Obama spent a couple of years at a Catholic school and another couple of years at a school that was predominantly Muslim (because Indonesia itself is predominantly Muslim). In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama elaborated on his early schooling, explaining that he attended both Catholic and Muslim schools in Indonesia; not out of any particular religious affiliation, but because his mother wanted him to obtain the best education possible under the circumstances.”
You can also find out more information on FactCheck.org Another site devoted to debunking untruths on the internet and in the press.
Again, please keep in mind that I’m not writing to try to persuade you to support Senator Obama. There is nothing wrong with disliking the man for his ideas and policies. However, the kind of misinformation that has been forwarded in emails like this are motivated not by politics but by prejudice, and can be very dangerous to our democracy.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
(Your Name)
If you feel this is a truthful message please forward it on.
Furthermore on Obama’s web site, they recently added a section with some similar letters responding to other attacks that have been made against him recently. All you need to do is put in the offending email address and it will send automatically send it. Check it out.
By now you’ve heard that there’s a kerfuffle about race. You may be confused as to who started it and what’s been said, so let’s break it down.
OK. Saturday, January 5, there was a debate, where Senator Clinton told Senators Edwards and Obama that “we don’t need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered.” Obama, the next day, began to incorporate this in to his speeches:
How have we made progress in this country? Look, did John F. Kennedy look at the moon and say ‘Ahhhh, it’s too far. We can’t do that. We need a reality check.’ Dr. King standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. ‘You know, this Dream thing,it’s a false hope. We can’t expect equality. False hopes.’
Let me tell you something about hope. I do talk about hope quite a bit. Out of necessity. There is no odds maker who would have said that I would be standing here when I was born in 1961. My parents come from different corners of the planet. They separated when I was two, My father left my mother. Single mom raised me with my grandparents. Could only offer me love and education and hope.
Then Hillary was asked about it.
“I would point to the fact that that Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the President before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done.”
This comment sparked a fervor. Voices in the African-American community found the remark disparaging of Dr. King. Now, I don’t think Senator Clinton in any way meant it the way it came across. I do not think she intended to dismiss Dr. King or the civil rights movement. But, for someone campaigning on “35 years of experience,” she should know to choose her words more carefully. Here’s my problem with what she said:
Dr King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do…
She’s correct here. However, Johnson was able to get this pushed through a still shell-shocked Congress only because Kennedy had been assassinated. In that case, I guess it really took a Communist sympathizer with a crazy accurate shot, or the CIA and Mafia, depending upon whom you believe, to bring about equality.
That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became real in people’s lives, because we had a president who said ‘we’re going to do it,’ and actually got it done.
Uh huh… So, what you’re saying is the women’s suffrage movement had nothing to do with giving women the right to vote. That dream became a reality because Woodrow Wilson was President, right? It had nothing to do with a 60 year movement, or with the amendment coming up every year in Congress for 41 years, or with the admission of Wyoming (which allowed women to vote) as a State, or Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party in 1912 becoming the first national political party to have a plank supporting women suffrage. None of that matters, because Wilson was president when it was passed and ratified.
What a totally bizarre argument for the first serious female contender for the Presidency to make.
But feet just keep entering mouths in this case, with Andrew Cuomo saying of Iowa and New Hampshire:
You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference. All those moves you can make with the press don’t work when you’re in someone’s living room.
The Guardian prints this quote from an anonymous Clinton “advisor:”
If you have a social need, you’re with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you’re young and you have no social needs, then he’s cool.
So that takes us from January 5 through January 10. There has been no response from the Obama campaign regarding this at this point. On January 11, we finally get a quote from spokesperson Candice Tolliver:
A cross-section of voters are alarmed at the tenor of some of these statements. There’s a groundswell of reaction to these comments–and not just these latest comments but really a pattern, or a series of comments that we’ve heard for several months. Folks are beginning to wonder: Is this really an isolated situation, or is there something bigger behind all of this?
Clearly, we know from media reports that the Obama campaign is deliberately distorting this.
And we’re off! Without a shred of evidence to back up this ludicrous claim, the media begin reporting that Obama and Clinton are now having “A Race War.” Obama speaks in a conference call with reporters on this issue for the first time:
Senator Clinton made an unfortunate remark, an ill-advised remark, about King and Lyndon Johnson. I didn’t make the statement. 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.
Later that very same day, at a rally in South Carolina, Bob Johnson, founder of BET, says the following when introducing Senator Clinton:
Bill and Hillary Clinton… [were] deeply and emotionally involved in black issues when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood that… I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in his book.
Which brings us full circle back to what Bill Shaheen was fired for a month ago. On January 14 it’s reported that the two campaigns “call a truce,” which is stupid, because Obama was never at war.
