That is an absolutely brilliant response.

He really nailed it. I do think there have been other racially insensitive comments from the Clinton campaign, but that one wasn't one of them. It was just dumb more than anything.

Reporter: Giuliani tossed my crying baby 'like a football'

Anonymous -- clinton was the one stupid enough to suggestion " what happens in Washington is more important than what happens outside of Washington," .

What does that have at all to do with race?

The main problem with Hillary's comment from a strategic point of view was that it set up the election as one between LBJ and MLK.
Faced with that choice, who would you vote for?

In a dictatorship it take president to make change happen but in a democraship People make change.
Example why the immigration reform proposed by the current president couldn’t pass?
What about the fight of Nelson Mandala with 25 years in jail?

TPM has this link posted on the home page.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/01/clinton-recieve.html

The report contains this utterly stupid utterance by the candidate herself.

“I remember hearing him [MLK] speak when I went with my church in downtown Chicago to go and hear and see for myself someone who had burst through the stereotypes and the caricatures who could not be held back by being beaten or gassed or jailed.”

WTF? Whose “stereotypes” and “caricatures” ? Hers?

Is there something going on with your formatting at the moment? None of the TPM posts are word wrapping for me, and your graphics are above the text, which makes it impossible to figure out what is being said here. :(

At least one of our candidates is still classy.

Good move by Obama. He's got nothing to gain by campaigning on racial issues.

Obama and his official supporters have been handling this situation like champs. I am very impressed. They are not falling for the bait, contrary to what the post on the first page said. They are keeping it positive and trying to diffuse the situation. As an unoffical supporter, I am sure that the clintons are flipping out because they wanted to try and foment a racial dispute. Too bad, I guess the politics of personal destruction are finally going by the wayside. I can't wait until the primaries are over and she is history.

Obama said that the comment was "ill-advised". Give him a chance to explain why he thinks so. It wasn't about race; it was about how change has come about in this country. I think this is a legitimate issue for them to debate and I believe both of them are perfectly capable of doing that.

What oh what would we do without Mr. and Mrs. Bill to lead us!

Amberglow:

Which Obama surrogates trashed her as racists? I'd like a name and the show. Thanks.

"I'm sure you wouldn't be satisfied until Obama dropped out of the race."

That's the only way Obama can prove he's not a negative campaigner. He has to give the election to Hillary to prove he believes her lame-ass explanations, preferably with a long apology for ever questioning her wisdom, experience, and suitability to park her lame ass in the oval office.

To Michael: The term "retarded" is generally considered offensive these days.

So what if he was responding to a reporter? Almost every single one of the alleged incidents against Clinton was in response to a reporter, including the original MLK remark. But everybody assumed then that it was all scripted in advance.

Has he disavowed what Jesse Jackson Jr. said? Has he fired his South Carolina press secretary for writing up that memo (that wasn't spontaneous)? Has he fired Candice Tolliver for suggesting there was a pattern of race-baiting?

The time to say this was a week ago when this first started. By now the smear of racism is out there, and it's done its work. It's way too late now.

Wait a minute..if he doesn't take Hillary's race-bait, what will Hillary do?

>OBAMA = hope without work ethic = hype.

We all know Greg Sargent is pro-Hillary, but he shouldn't be allowed to post comments on his own stories!

Jim:

Why play the victim . . . you've seen it already . . . by questioning her comments, he's accusing her of being racist. See how easy that was. Steve, frankly0 are running the strategy as I write this. Apparently the memo to drop this hasn't filtered through viper nest over at Hillaryis44.com.

Let's see The NY Post and Ben Smith publish a rumor they can't find one person to corroborate about a supposedly misogynist Jay Z song played at Obama IA victory party. The DJ's playlist was posted to a diary at Kos and he says there was no rap played at all. That makes sense. We're talking about IA here, where 99.99% of Obama's supporters in corn country are white for God's sake.

In the meantime Hillary has Bob Johnson who has made a cool billion exploiting his own people with really ugly and demeaning gangster rap on BET for years, who has succeeded in keeping any and all competition in his broadcasting niche off cable, who once took out full page ads and made speeches advocating the abolishment of the inheritance tax, ridiculing Obama for his admitted drug dabbling as a kid.

That's classy! Hillary should be proud of herself. But not as proud as I'm gonna be to vote for Obama.

*claps*

spot on Barack, spot on

Steve:

Are you capable of processing the English language?

Please point to one word (just one!) in the response you quoted where Obama mentions race. On the contrary, he's making the exact same point that he makes in the statement in this post, that Sen. Clinton unfortunately diminished MLK, Jr.'s work and heralded LBJ's. MLK excited a massive change in the thinking of the American people, whereas LBJ was a consummate politician who offered enough backroom deals and back-scratching to get a (very good) bill passed. Clinton allied herself with LBJ and denigrated MLK's work. You can take your pick about which method you prefer, but you shouldn't be blatantly lying about what has been said or not said by Senator Obama.

Told you I didn't think playing the race card was working out all that well for him. That always struck me, from the moment Jesse Jackson Jr. popped up on CNN (Katrina! Katrina! Katrina!), as a rash decision made in the heat of rage over losing NH. The Clinton push-back also was very effective.

So, Mr. Obama now wants to kiss and make up, retreat back over the line that he crossed and revert back to conventional warfare with his customary attack lines. Big of him. I have a feeling he's not going to get as much mileage out of that "different kind of politician" spiel as he did before pulling this stunt though.

PS: I read the CNN headline as meaning that Bill Clinton was compiling a list of Obama's attacks on Hillary. It didn't even strike me as ambiguous at the time but I guess you could read it the other way, now that you mention it.

Excuse me people, but JRE is the first one to come out and say that Hillary saying change is made in Washington is a fairytale, and not Obama. All the democratic candidates copy JRE.

Mike2: Kudos for the most intelligent comment on this all day.

Even though Hillary's surrogates are being pretty nasty, why don't we just put it out there: For a lot of people, nasty is not a disqualifier but a virtue. I disagree with this but I understand the point. At some point, Obama has to play hardball with somebody. He can play hardball ethically and tastefully, but he's still gotta do it and he hasn't quite shown me his hardball bona-fides.

I would make this argument: It takes a movement AND a president and that's the crux of Obama's argument. So on its very merits, Hillary's argument is still complete nonsense. Obama never said a movement was sufficient to the exclusion of good government. He wants movement politics and presidential politics to marry and snog and have pretty babies such as universal healthcare, transparent government, and civil service.

That's the point here.

I would make this argument: It takes a movement AND a president and that's the crux of Obama's argument. So on its very merits, Hillary's argument is still complete nonsense. Obama never said a movement was sufficient to the exclusion of good government. He wants movement politics and presidential politics to marry and snog and have pretty babies such as universal healthcare, transparent government, and civil service.

That's the point here.

Yes. Perfect. Well said, Abe.

I am surprised, but I like Clinton more now than I like Obama.

And, I'm done with the HuffingtonPost. Bias isn't just ugly on the GOP side.

slcathena wrote on January 14, 2008 6:26 PM:

yes, slc
something was wrong. I restarted my computer and everything was OK but god before that the writing was strung all the way over to the left as wide as my screen.

obama calls a truce. and then clinton surrogate charlie rangel does this:

http://thepage.time.com/ny1-release-on-rangel-interview/

I never realized that Rangel was such a lying scumbag.

Col - Am I capable of processing the English language? Nice intellectual debate tactic there.

You seriously don't see the racial subtext of what Obama was saying? He didn't mention race, but then again, neither did Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton. That certainly didn't absolve them.

You're saying it's less racially charged than Bill Clinton saying his Iraq record is a fairy tale?

Hey Gnopple, you wrote

"I would make this argument: It takes a movement AND a president and that's the crux of Obama's argument."

Actually, that was Hillary's argument in a nutshell, you tone deaf shill.

I have to say I'm impressed with the apparent ability of Obama to have his campaign get caught red-handed trying to foster the illusion that Hillary's remarks have an insulting racial meaning (see the memo I linked to above) and yet pretend that somehow he has nothing to answer for, and that, instead, he will, pulling himself up to the full height of his nobility, deign to absolve Hillary of her sins.

Imagine, if you can, how Hillary would have been savaged if such a memo had been found in the hands of her campaign. We would absolutely never hear the end of it, from either the press, from TPM, or, most especially from the little sheep who roam about these boards bleating "Obama".

What do we hear from them instead? The most fulsome, cultish praise of a man who has been completely caught out in his hypocrisy.

I have to say I'm impressed with the apparent ability of Obama to have his campaign get caught red-handed trying to foster the illusion that Hillary's remarks have an insulting racial meaning (see the memo I linked to above) and yet pretend that somehow he has nothing to answer for, and that, instead, he will, pulling himself up to the full height of his nobility, deign to absolve Hillary of her sins.

-----------------

let me get this straight, ace. the Clintons and their surrogates make MANY statements over the course of the past few weeks that are very plausibly racially insensitive. the Obama campaign says nothing publically, but circulates an internal memo cataloguing these statements. and the OBAMA campaign has injected race into the Democratic race.

man, that tortured Clinton-logic is painful.

Rnagel like all these ol school black politicians owe their souls to Hill and Bill but that does not mean the rest of Black America does.

Hill and Bill have a bad record in the black community when it comes to getting things done. They talk a good game but their deeds are sparse.

Bill was the one who cut welfare in the 90s and drove thousands of poor off the welfare rolls including black children and families.

Bill was the one who upheld mandatory sentencing for crack even thought the US Judicial Commission recommended abolishing those mandatory sentences TWELVE years ago. Bill kept them any way and as blacks are disproportionately convicted on crack so too have they been disproportionately incarcerated for exceptionally long times on minor drug offenses.

Bill was the one who along with Hill threw Lani Guanier up under the bus.

I think it is time that African Americans ask just what is the Clinton record on issues impacting them. What are their deeds?

Like Hillary says words are nice but just what did Bill and Hill do for black America?

Frankly0,

You can't possibly believe your own BS, can you? Try this:

Give me one good positive reason to vote for Shillary.

blackstar:

Is it plausable that as the South Carolina primary looms closer, that Hillary Clinton would begin to release her "racists making plausably racist comments" in order to alienate the most dependable bloc of Democratic voters there is, and who have always loved and supported the Clintons?

Gee, it's really something that all of a sudden, after all these many, many years without a whiff of "racial insensitivity" ever being connected with Bill and Hillary Clinton as persons and as politicians, and who are, coincidentally, now in a pitched campaign battle with a black candidate, all of a sudden these insensitivies begin to be "identified as such" by someone (the press, I guess - BOO!),and begin to bubble to the surface of the race card sewer. Hmmmm. Interesting, no?

Is it plausable that as the South Carolina primary looms closer, that Hillary Clinton would begin to release her "racists making plausably racist comments" in order to alienate the most dependable bloc of Democratic voters there is, and who have always loved and supported the Clintons?

-----------------

no, but it is plausible that she releases her surrogates to make borderline racially insensitive comments in an attempt to provoke Obama into using a racial defense (e.g. "she's picking on me because i'm a black man, see"). she could then paint him as just another black politician in the mold of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, which black voters, and everyone else, recognize cannot win a general election.

thankfully, Obama didn't fall for it one iota. the Clinton campaign has to be frustrated that he's proving to be every bit as adept a campaigner as he is a speaker.

i don't believe the Clintons are racist (and truth be told, many of their quoted supporters probably aren't either). but they will readily use race if they think it will help get Hillary elected, just as they will exploit any other issue or demographic.

Guys, there is a statement from Sen. Clinton: how about you give that relevance, too?

“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.”

I bet that, ah, voluminous statement by Clinton is what really defeated Obama (his remarks today were clearly a concession that his tactic of using magic to make the rival campaign put out insensitive and/or incompetent statements did not work) and cleverly they also pushed it only after so his terrible humiliation would be all the more glaring!

I'm an Obama supporter, but I really don't like the way he played this one. What Hillary originally said was correct, and it's no knock on Martin Luther King to say that it took LBJ's political skills to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed. When Rep. Howard Smith of Virginia, the segregationist chairman of the House rules committee indicated that he would keep the bill bottled up indefinitely, Johnson--a former Senate majority leader--cajolled and bullied enough Congress members into supporting a discharge petition. Smith had to back down, and the bill went to the Senate, which passed it by a huge margin.

No one's questioning the facts, Patrick from Takoma Park. Look closer. They're questioning her tone. And it was way off. She had to know she was aligning herself with LBJ in the MLK/LBJ paradigm, as she was in the process of discussing Obama's (supposed) comparison of himself to MLK (which never happened). That's what the issue is.

I am watching Fox (Dick Morris). He said that Clinton's highest AA appointment was Sec. of Labor. May be I forgot. Is this true?

Morris went to dissect Clinton AA record, and mentioned that it was not great. Is this a correct assessment? If yes, when are people like John Lewis support HRC. Why is Clinton called the First Black President?

(Morris give higher points to Bush for Powell and Rice - but they went for war. So, may be that was not a good stat.)

MAJOR news in Senate races: A judge has ruled that the Mississippi Senate special election has to be held by March 19th -- not in November as the governor wanted.

If I made one-dollar everytime people said something like, then I be a blog-millionaire already.

If Obama cannot handle Clintons, then wait till the GOP goes after him.

This is the biggest bull-shit I have heard. No one in the entire vast right wing GOP is any match for Clintons. No one. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not in the past.

In fact, if Obama can beat Clintons, then he will easily take on GOP.

Why not say that? Yes, why, indeed, not?

So, we go from the bullshit scenario concocted by the corporate media pre-New Hampshire to the breathless horror that they were all wrong on now to the idiotic and completely manufactured "racial remarks" controversey. Does anyone not understand that this is not real and doesn't mean anything? Our elite corporate media are incapable of covering the Democratic race for President. So, instead, they focus on trying to create a controversey between Clinton and Obama supporters about whether or not there are subtle racial remarks being propounded by the Clinton camp and one or two suggestions that perhaps the Obama people are being a bit sexist (remember the "you're likeable enough" comment?

So they have succeeded here for several days in distracting voters from the issues. The primary issue for voters is to make a decision between three candidates. Two are leading but neither with a decisive advantage. Are there any substantive differences between the three that voters might find illuminating or helpful in making their choice? We'll never know if the media continues to call the tune because they don't WANT Americans making an informed choice. Sad to say, even the blogosphere has become entangled in this foolish sideshow.

The corporate media are the most irrespnosible pack of two-bit gossips ever to have stained the pages of history. Everyone, no matter who you support, should refuse to play the stupid game the media wants you to play.

Instead, demand to know when the troops are coming home from each of them if elected, and when will national health care---not just universal coverage of a minimal nature be implemented, and what will they do to alleviate the suffering of those in poverty and improve the economy so the middle class doesn't join the ranks of the impoversihed? That's the shit that counts folks. All this other crap is just emotional bait to distract us all and get us fighting eachother. Let's refuse to do that and instead push the whole conversation to the left where it belongs.

There have been a few over-zealous folks out there in both camps, who have said unsavory things, but unless you have evidence that the folks you rant about had been authorized to speak for Clinton, you cannot in all honesty try to pin those statements on her, just as it would be dishonest if I tried to pin Jesse Jeackon Jr's statements on Obama

I do not think that this is quite a fair comparison. Jesse Jackson Jr's statements were indeed boneheaded, but he was just one person. The Clinton campaign, by contrast, had any number of remarks running towards this theme. As Josh Marshall admirably summarized the matter on the main page

We seem to be at the point where there are now two credible possibilities. One is that the Clinton campaign is intentionally pursuing a strategy of using surrogates to hit Obama with racially-charged language or with charges that while not directly tied to race nonetheless play to stereotypes about black men. The other possibility is that the Clinton campaign is extraordinarily unlucky and continually finds its surrogates stumbling on to racially-charged or denigrating language when discussing Obama.

Now I agree that the MLK/LBJ comparison was not a racist claim so much as just a stupid analogy and that the "fairy tale" remark was in no wise racist, but Shaheen's drug dealer remark, Cuomo's "shuck and jive," Johnson's "something in the neighborhood" and the anonymous adviser's "hip black friend" remarks all definitely do carry racial intimations. The attempt to refocus this on the MLK remarks is deft for both campaigns because it 1) allows the Clintons to pretend that they were not race baiting by suggesting that all of the genuinely racist remarks were misunderstood in the same way that the MLK remark was (using one counterfeit coin to discredit the far-more-common legitimate currency) and 2) it allows Obama's campaign to defuse the issue gracefully before it does long term damage to the democratic coalition. That said, I belive that Obama is doing the Clintons at least as much of a favor as he is doing himself here.

Good for him, that.

Great post by Dick Polman, one of my favorite political writers from the Philly Inquirer
(http://www.dickpolman.blogspot.com/)

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 2008
Hillary's "Florida Republican tactics"
One week from today, the Nevada Democratic caucuses will be receding in the rear-view mirror, and the story I'm about to describe may well be relegated to a footnote. But let us live for today. What we have here is a classic demonstration of the disconnect between what a politician says and what a politican does.

At the same time that Hillary Clinton is extolling herself (on Meet the Press yesterday) as a tireless champion of working women and people of color - "I've worked all my life on behalf of civil rights and women's rights and human rights" - her allies and surrogates in Nevada have filed a lawsuit that is designed to undercut the voting rights of working women and people of color.

This is how the game is played when the stakes are high: The Clinton surrogates - who have no direct links to the Hillary campaign, and are thus supposedly acting on their own - don't like the fact that the Nevada Democratic party is making it easy for unionized casino workers to participate in the Saturday caucuses. So they've sued to stop the process.

The state Democratic party has been busy setting up meeting sites at nine big casinos, so that members of the powerful Culinary Workers Union - as well as any non-union workers within a two-mile radius of the sites - can choose a candidate during their work break. That seems like a reasonable idea - so reasonable, in fact, that the Democratic National Committee overwhelmingly approved the plan last spring; and so reasonable that nary a whisper of dissent was voiced by any of the Democratic presidential candidates.

Indeed, when Hillary left Iowa last week, she lamented the fact that so many working people were unable to participate in those caucuses, due to their work schedules. As she told ABC News, "You have a limited period of time on one day to have your voices heard. That is troubling to me. You know, in a situation of a caucus, people who work during that time - they're disenfranchised."

But all of a sudden, Hillary's surrogates are now claiming that the Nevada Democratic plan violates the U.S. Constitution, and that therefore these "at large" caucus sites - which are actually intended to enfranchise more working people - should be eliminated.

I'm just wondering: Could this lawsuit, filed late Friday, have anything to do with the fact that the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union gave its much-coveted endorsement, 48 hours earlier, to Barack Obama?

Kirsten Searer, the state party's deputy executive director, is quoted as saying that, ever since the caucus rules were OKed by the national Democrats last May, "the campaigns have been fully informed throughout the process." There hadn't been a shred of protest from the Hillary camp about the plans for casino caucus sites; nor had there been any protest from the pro-Hillary folks who have now filed the lawsuit. In fact, some of those pro-Hillary folks are members of the state party, and they participated in the March 31, 2007 meeting that OKed the plan...unanimously.

Officially, Hillary's campaign says it knows nothing about the laswuit and, as the candidate herself said this weekend, "I have no opinion on the lawsuit." So we are supposed to believe that she and her campaign have no connection whatsoever to the plaintiffs, who happen to include the Nevada State Education Association teacher's union, whose deputy executive director is a founding member of Hillary's Nevada Women's Leadership Council. And it's perhaps sheer coincidence that the law firm pushing the suit is Hillary-friendly; several senior partners have given her money, and one prominent lawyer in the firm, ex-congressman James Bilbray, has endorsed her and has been campaigning for her. (Here's Hillary, yesterday: "I don't think it's supporters of mine. There seems to be some misunderstanding about that.")

Hillary has complained for years that the 2000 post-election Florida crisis was an insult to democracy, an attempt by Republicans to disenfranchise minorities by suppressing their votes. It's hard to see how she is well served today by exposing herself to that same charge in Nevada - particularly when it is being leveled by a pro-Democratic union official whose members include large numbers of working-class Hispanics ("This is an attempt to wholesale disenfranchise people who are largely women, largely people of color, and people who do the kind of work that makes this town go").

On the one hand, we have Hillary repeatedly declaring that she has fought for minorities all her life; on the other hand, we have her surrogates suing to shut down caucus rules that have been designed to help minorities (again, state party official Searer: "The at-large precincts were included to increase participation in the highest concentration of shift workers - many of whom are minorities"). On the one hand, we have Hillary inveighing for years about Republican suppression tactics; on the other hand, we have D. Taylor, the Culinary union official, accusing Hillary's surrogates of "Florida Republican tactics."

Barack Obama should be pleased, because Hillary has handed him a hot one. She comes off looking like a typical pol who says one thing but does another, somebody who lawyers up to change the rules, even at the risk of alienating the minorities and working stiffs whom she claims to best represent.

Seems the Australians think we're following their example in our arguments over experience vs. change.

http://acropolisreview.com/2008/01/kevin-rudd-barack-obama-australian.html

Yesterday, you went on and on about how the Clintons' recent comments were racist or race-baiting, and now that Obama comes out and bursts that bubble (no one with an ounce of intelligence could have interpreted the "fairytale" and LBJ/MLK comments as racist, unless they had an ulterior motive for the pushing the meme), you are still making the same claims?

--------------

not JUST the recent comments, but yes. both Clinton's remarks are easily construed as racially insensitive (i believe i also noted that they could not enact this strategy explicitly, any comments that they did make would have to be vague but heavily laced with possibility), and they are 2 of many more similar statements made by Clinton surrogates in the past few weeks. Obama has chosen to let the possibilities slide to regain a new, healthier perspective on the race; i have the luxury of not running for president and thus am able to speculate more freely. he's made the right move for his campaign once again, but his dismissal of the recent comments doesn't in any real way undermine the point i expressed last night [namely, that the Clinton campaign was pushing its surrogates to make borderline racially insensitive statements in an attempt to provoke Obama into taking a race-centered defense that he thankfully did not do].

so feel free to pontificate however you like, but the pattern of statements is there for anyone to see (or willfully disregard, in your case).

not JUST the recent comments, but yes. both Clinton's remarks are easily construed as racially insensitive

Obama says not so. End of story. As for 'surrogates", please check out my preceding post. Do you really wish to continue pushing this meme?... my sense it that you need to get another issue to rant about. This one is dead, and not a day too soon...

SUSA Poll Results for CA:

CA DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY: At Edwards' Expense, Obama Creeps to Within 15 Points of Hillary -- In a Democratic Primary in delegate-rich California today, 01/14/08, three weeks to the vote, Hillary Clinton defeats Barack Obama 50% to 35%, according to SurveyUSA tracking poll data conducted for KABC-TV Los Angeles, KPIX-TV San Francisco, KGTV-TV San Diego and KFSN-TV Fresno. Compared to SurveyUSA's most recent CA poll released one month ago, before Iowa and New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton is up 1 point, Obama is up 5 points, and John Edwards, who finishes today at 10%, is down 4 points. In October, Clinton led Obama by 37 points. Obama has gained material ground since then, but Clinton has not lost as much ground, so the advantage remains hers. Obama today leads among men by 9 points; Clinton leads among women by 33 points -- a 42-point Gender Gap. In greater Los Angeles, Clinton leads by 14. In greater San Francisco, Clinton leads by 6.

Blackstar sez:

you may mindlessly follow every opinion of your candidate, but i do not do the same with mine. i know why Obama is trying to move past this issue,

Ladies and gents: That there is the mind of a would-be rogue and over-zealous "surrogate" agent. Obama, having decided that his strategy was not working, decided to negotiate a truce, but this disappoints a 'blackstar' who had wanted to keep on. Now, you can imagine someone that over-zealous deciding to bypass the campaign's wishes and begin to "free-lace", with disastrous results for the campaign that he'h tried to "help."

why should we trust the judgment of a woman who didnt know her husband was cheating on her multiple times. And why should anyone trust Bill Clinton, a man who has lied under oath.

It would be easy for a candidate to state, "We know campaigns are huge, not always perfectly events, and overeager supporters will make regrettable mistakes. Many will parse candidates statements looking for any way to take offense. We think all the candidates have good intentions. We intend to stay focused on real issues, like..."

No mention of who, what, when or where. No need to bring up race or gender to say we're not going to talk about race or gender.

Speaking of issues, I'm getting tired of anti-Hillary people writing off her efforts for children, women and anti-poverty. She led - since the 60's. Maybe you find more important issues - that's your choice, but if I were to dismiss Obama's work in organizing and advocating civil rights, it would be just as insulting and misleading.

Attention Obamaiacs: You lost this one! Big Time!
As Obama furiously back peddles on his stupidities you try to tell the world it actually is a Great Victory! More Orwellian NewSpeak in lieu of substance. And once again you find yourself reduced to spouting GOP talking points. Ha Ha Ha!
This is just as much a Fairy Tale (oops I did it again!) as the original antiClinton slurs.
All of Obama's petty and desperate attempts to pry black votes away from Clinton paint him as just that: petty and desperate. And willing to support racist homophobic misogynists if he thinks it will get him a few more ballots.
He was, inexplicably, given a pass on Donny Mac Cracker and Oprah's War Cheerleading; do you think that he will get one on Farrakhan too?
Oh those size thirteen feet of clay are showing cracks!

MLK choose to fight and die for freedom. LBJ did not. He was a some what accidental President, who would never have been elected to the office if JFK had not been murdered. LBJ knew that he had to do something dramatic to have a chance to win a term of his own. Look what he did with his own term. Created the mess in Vietnam. This is the guy that Hillary is elevating to the rank of top civil rights pioneer! The two million or more Vietnamese who died in Johnson's vanity war prove that LBJ did not give a rat's arse about human rights.

Hillary voted for Bush's Iraq invasion, and recently voted for the Kyl/Lieberman Iran war ploy. No wonder she touts LBJ over the Anti-War MLK

I recommend that WaPo piece by Joe Califano to anyone who still thinks that Hillary's factually accurate comment was racist.

Posted in transit from and hand-held....

I am appalled that someone would repeatedly, over and over, incessantly call me a racist. Obama can't open his mouth without calling me a racist. Hillary's a racist. Bill's a racist. Bob Johnson's a racist. Everyone. It's all he says. He's done it like 30 or 40 times. Racist racist racist.

This is how it is for white people. You try and try and try to be polically correct, and yet these people are just so oversensitive that inevitably you end up being smeared as a racist. You just can't win as a white person. You're lucky if you don't get sued or fired because of this kind of thing. And black people are just automatically assumed to be innocent. But like Robert Johnson said between stints trying to abolish the death tax, sometimes they are actually "doing something in the neighborhood," if you know what I mean. "Community organizing" I mean. And god help us white people if we say boo about it. They are all saints. You just can't win. Oh well. You with me sister?!

Obama has really blown it in his futile attempt to turn Fairy Tale into a racial slur.
The charge was so stupid and such a transparent ploy that he will not be able to play his race cards again. Another attempt on his part will be met by derision and calls of crying wolf no matter how egregious the offense
Now think about that.
Assuming that he gains the nomination, he will have shot his wad over a few extra votes from the Blacks of South Carolina, maybe enough to win there. But he will be unable to fully respond to the real racist Repub attacks we know will come.
It would be bad enough if he won this misbegotten battle on his way to losing the war. I think though that this will be viewed as the tactic that destroyed his strategy.
Doubly sad as it was basically a creature of his wife's febrile imaginings.