Oh...they better have double checked that. I hope to all hopes that child is not actually black.

It looks like the same dark screen they put over Obama in that Hillary ad.

I haven't read the original op/ed, but judging from the way you characterize it, it was ridiculous on its face. Of course, I also thought that saying Obama's health care mailer was a sly referrence to the Harry and Louise stuff was also a giant reach.

I'm not sure why the Clinton camp would feel the need to respond unless they view it as a way to hopefully get the news shows to run that ad one more freaking time for free.

I think Orlando is off the mark. My understanding is that this is old stock footage. Frankly, I've complained incessantly about the lack of minorities in commercials in general. That being said, he's REACHING with this one. At least in my opinion.

Oh...they better have double checked that. I hope to all hopes that child is not actually black.

It looks like the same dark screen they put over Obama in that Hillary ad.

That child looks like she could be Hispanic to me. I hope that for Clinton's sake that her assertion isn't proven to be wrong.

She's probably grown up to become a 17 year old Obama supporter.

I don't think this a big deal compared to the Ferrero comment, even if it is what the professor suggests. It's no surprise that the Hillary campaign and Greg would want to focus on this though.

Orlando is off the mark. But it's hard to deny that there was something off about the ad. It felt a lot more like a home invasion ad, then it did like a foreign policy ad. I don't know that it was racial overtones, but it just didn't feel right.

The kid's grown up now and is Nader's veep.

Um, can the Democratic nomination process please be over? Please. This is getting stupid. Really stupid.

Not only do they have a black child in the ad, but some of Clinton's best friends are black. And she even listened to a hip hop record once. And likes to get jiggy.

The op-ed was stupid. Clinton feeling the need to respond to it was even stupider.

Mike, I guess you missed our big post on the Ferraro stuff, huh?

This whole thing is a bad joke.

Also, someone has to tell the clintons that not being blonde may not be enough to represent blacks or any other of us, the minorites of this land.

Since that is stock footage, how would they know?

I would love to see if they could prove that.

They obviously didn't know who the other little girl was.

Dream Ticket

Obama/Fallon 2008

Let McCain try and play the National Security card then.

My money is on her being Filipino.

Ok, this thread is officially stupid now.

As an Obama supporter and a media studies professor, I read Patterson's column and thought he was off the mark and a little silly. There were many reasons to be offended by the ad. I don't think his was one of them. It's not that I think the Hillary camp is above injecting race (see SC), it's just that I think they didn't do it in this particular case. I do see the similarity to the home invasion ads- but I think this was unintentional on their part- more a result of stock footage versus and overt attempt to bring in race. Still, after the campaign they have run and their willingness to get in there in the muck and play Rovian politics, I think they have reaped the suspicion they sowed. I don't agree with the op-ed, but I can understand why someone would be looking at the Clinton camp for racist messages.

Turns out that the children in that ad are now at an age where Military recruiters can try to bullshit them into getting blown to smithereens in Iraq. Regardless of their race or skin color, Hillary did the exact opposite of what she is claiming in the scare ad. She voted for a War that made it far more likely that they could become cannon fodder instead of being protected by Hillary. Hell she voted in 2007 to allow the same thing to be started against Iran. Hillary talks Peace and Votes for Wars.

John McCain declares that he plans on keeping US Troops in Iraq for up to a hundred years. Hillary swoons about how that proves that McCain has crossed the Commander in Chief Threshold. Senator Clinton has endorsed McCain over Obama.

Hillary is the new Lieberman.

Isn't this the scene where the blanket says "NIG"...? Oh, good, the black child moment appeals to another subliminal ploy...

I saved the image of the child, lightened the image with photoshop, and the child does look African-American but light-complexioned. If what the Clinton campaign says is true, as this photo indicates, Prof. Patterson is going to be a more than a little embarrassed. I for one did not see any racial overtones in the ad.

I thought the ad's sinister line was the fact that it was making unfounded allegations about Obama's readiness to lead, but I saw no racial overtones.

Fear Card: yes
Race Card: no
On this ad anyways.

Let's concede, though, that Patterson is dead wrong, just for the sake of argument. This ad would be the fourth or fifth time that Senator Clinton has caused a part of her base to wonder whether or not she's willing to sell them down the river since the beginning of this still-short year. Remember, she had the black vote in the bag before the whole "the kid is black" meme started. Obama, you'll recall, wasn't "black enough," and it was a crapload of downstate white IL voters who sent him to Washington in the first place. Clinton basically gave Obama the black vote.

Add to that: "Mississipians are to sexist to vote for a woman;" "Iowans are too provincial too vote in the national interest;" "You don't count;" "I can't tell the difference between Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, but they're all to racist to vote for a black guy;" and "I'm a pro-woman woman who'll happily accept the endorsement of a man who happily and regularly invites women to shake their ass for cash on my TV." The woman has the political skills of a box of rocks.

Senator Clinton could easily have achieved the same goals with images of clearly multi-racial children playing on a playground, with some present fathers. Nighttime skyline scenes of NYC-sans-towers, Dallas, and Houston oil refineries would have done the trick. The specific imagery she chose left her open to charges of race-baiting. Any Democrat, especially operating at her level of prominence, should have known better (again, assuming for the sake of argument that it wasn't intentional.)
The "# 1" job of the Prez in CinC? No, the #1 job is to lead through persuasion. She couldn't persuade a dying man to water, and seems particularly gifted at pissing off her own base.

Maybe that's why she's spent the last 35 years "working" on this, that, and the other instead of actually getting anything done. From Kimba Wood to her health care initiative to his campaign, she f!cks everything up.

And there remain voters who actually believe that she would make a good president?? Just because its "her turn"?? It boggles...

I don't think the column is far from the mark. The ad was aimed at lower income white urban women who probably fear crime more than they fear terrorists. It's designed to provoke an emotional reaction and a vote based on emotion not fact.

The Patterson Op-Ed was ridiculous. I am rather surprised that the Clinton campaign chose to respond at all.