Clinton Seems to Dis Martin Luther King's Political Work, Turns into Gaffe, Backpedals Furiously

[Dems Will Win]

Clinton rejoined the running argument over hope and "false hope" in an interview in Dover this afternoon, reminding Fox's Major Garrett that while Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on behalf of civil rights, President Lyndon Johnson was the one who got the legislation passed.

Hillary was asked about Obama's rejoinder that there's something vaguely un-American about dismissing hopes as false, and that it doesn't jibe with the careers of figures like like John F. Kennedy and King.

"Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," Clinton said. "It took a president to get it done."

Clinton didn't explicitly compare herself to Johnson, or Obama to King. But it seems an odd example for the argument between rhetoric and action, as there's little doubt which figure's place in history and the American imagination is more secure.

"The power of that dream became real in people's lives because we had a president" capable of action, Clinton said.

UPDATE: In Salem this evening, Hillary seemed to be seeking to repair the impression that King hadn't done political work, and to contrast King and Obama.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a movement -- he was gassed, he was beaten, he was jailed – and he gave a speeh that was one of the most beautifully, profoundly important speeches ever delivered in America, the "I have a dream" speech.... And then he worked with President Johnson to get the civil rights law passed, because the dream couldn’t be realized until it was legally permissible for people of all races and colors and background to be recognized as citizens.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Clinton_and_Obama_Johnson_and_King.html

UPDATE: I spoke to a Clinton aide tonight about her quote, who didn't try to defend or parse the quote, but just said the words had come out wrong, and that she'd expressed her sentiment more accurately at the later event.

Hillary is supposedly no longer listening to Mark Penn, so this is likely something Bill and her cooked up?

Some comments from Politico:

I can't imagine why Hillary would choose to position herself that way. She's essentially offering the stance that Lyndon Johnson should be more associated with the civil rights movement than Martin Luther King. That seems like a really bad idea.

Posted By: Dennis in NH | January 07, 2008 at 03:53 PM
REPORT ABUSE

Praising Thatcher? And dissing KING??!! Has she forgotten which party she's running for?

Posted By: voter | January 07, 2008 at 03:53 PM
REPORT ABUSE

Clinton downplaying King ought to go over well. Who is running that campaign?

Posted By: Dead Horse | January 07, 2008 at 03:54 PM
REPORT ABUSE

It took a movement to get the President to get it done. I'm sorry, but this is really tacky. Questioning Dr. King's impact? In January no less? While simultaneously drawing a comparison between her rival and one of the most celebrated Americans in history? Who is asleep at the wheel here? I did not support her candidacy, but I was also not interested in seeing the first viable female Presidential candidates go down in flames. What in the world would she say that for? Please, robert ethan et. al, defend!

Posted By: squintz | January 07, 2008 at 03:56 PM
REPORT ABUSE

Waiting for the astronaut Hillary to claim she walked on the moon.... ..or was that Kucinich?

Posted By: I_E_Democrat | January 07, 2008 at 03:56 PM
REPORT ABUSE

Well, this one will backfire. In other words, black folks sure can talk nice and pretty about the future, but it's us white folks, the grown up realists, who need to be in the halls of government to bring those "dreams" to fruition. Witch.

Posted By: Kelley | January 07, 2008 at 03:56 PM

Unfortunately for Hillary, it's all on video:
http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/01/07/clinton-talks-tears-with-fox-news/

I don't think she disses MLK here, but this has turned into a gaffe nonetheless. The truth is Obama being black and like King gives him a Double Teflon with Spikes armor. Try to attack and you just get hurt yourself.

It will be the same when he trounces the Repubs in November.

[rodeodance]

1. another Politico Hil hit piece--and IP'er passes along this junk!

[terisan]

2. Already debunked.

[stillcool]

3. the video?

Maybe you should watch it.

[Dhalgren]

4. Well for one thing, Obama and Edwards are right not to have anything

to do with the Fox-shit-shovelers; clinton should do the same (Murdock's money notwithstanding). But,at least on a technical level, Clinton is right that Johnson is the one who made it the law of the land - no doubt about that. But the role, the sacrifice, the impact of Dr. King cannot be measured. Johnson should be honored for his actions for and stand on Civil Rights, but not at the expense of King. This was surely not her intention, so I hope she can straighten this out...

[displacedtexan]

5. Politico? The site George W. Bush plugged on national TV?

Mike Allen, chief political correspondent for Politico.com, the new online/print publication from TV station/cable news channel owner Allbritton, got a plug from an affable President George W. Bush.

In the President's press conference Wednesday, he stopped Allen, former Time magazine White House correspondent, in mid train of thought to train a spotlight on his new digs.

--snip--

Not surprisingly, the Web site did indeed turn the shout-out into a plug, running the video on its home page.

[ccpup]

6. her point is irrefutable

MLK Jr. brought passion and made Civil Rights the huge, inevitable issue it was and should have been. President Johnson did everything politically a President can do, working with the mechanisms inherent in the Congress and Senate to get the legislation passed.

MLK Jr.'s passion and sacrifice for change was necessary and instrumental, but may not have been as influential in the long run had it not been supported by LBJ's political and legislative know-how, making the ramifications of MLK Jr's experience an irrefutable legal Reality.

Hope is not enough. Legislation and experience is not enough. The two are, and should be, intertwined.

[stillcool]

7. I think it distorts history....

to suggest that Martin Luther King Jr., needed President Johnson to get the Civil Rights Act passed.

1870 The 15th Amendment is passed. It gives former slaves the right to vote and protects the voting rights of adult male citizens of any race
1889 Florida adopts a poll tax. Ten other southern states will implement poll taxes.
1890 Mississippi adopts a literacy test to keep African Americans from voting. Numerous other states—not just in the south—also establish literacy tests. However, the tests also exclude many whites from voting. To get around this, states add grandfather clauses that allow those who could vote before 1870, or their descendants, to vote regardless of literacy or tax qualifications.

1915 Oklahoma was the last state to append a grandfather clause to its literacy requirement (1910). In Guinn v. United States the Supreme Court rules that the clause is in conflict with the 15th Amendment, thereby outlawing literacy tests for federal elections.

1944 The Supreme Court outlaws "white primaries" in Smith v. Allwright (Texas). In Texas, and other states, primaries were conducted by private associations, which, by definion, could exclude whomever they chose. The Court declares the nomination process to be a public process bound by the terms of 15th Amendment
1957 The first law to implement the 15th amendment, the Civil Rights Act, is passed. The Act set up the Civil Rights Commission—among its duties is to investigate voter discrimination

1965 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., mounts a voter registration drive in Selma, Alabama, to draw national attention to African-American voting rights.
1965 The Voting Rights Act protects the rights of minority voters and eliminates voting barriers such as the literacy test. The Act is expanded and renewed in 1970, 1975, and 1982.
1966 The Supreme Court, in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, eliminates the poll tax as a qualification for voting in any election. A poll tax was still in use in Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia.
1966 The Court upholds the Voting Rights Act in South Carolina v. Katzenbach.
1970
1970 Literacy requirements are banned for five years by the 1970 renewal of the Voting Rights Act. At the time, eighteen states still have a literacy requirement in place. In Oregon v. Mitchell, the Court upholds the ban on literacy tests, which is made permanent in 1975. Judge Hugo Black, writing the court's opinion, cited the "long history of the discriminatory use of literacy tests to disenfranchise voters on account of their race" as the reason for their decision.

[KharmaTrain]

8. Hillary's Catch-22

The politics of triangulation have come full circle and has trapped Hillary. Anything she says...or a surrogate does...is either viewed as being an attack or a dodge. She's now constantly on defense and as others have written, her campaign was arrogantly designed as if they wouldn't have any competition. The further behind she falls, the worse her troubles as as more people view her actions and responses as purely political actions.

A lot of what I see happening to Hillary in the corporate media is piling on and score-settling. They've loved to hate her and the Obama surge is letting the dogs loose...weasels who'd be singing her praises now if she had won in Iowa and led on NH...now they can't find fault with her fast enough.

Hillary isn't used to playing on defense and its showing. If she invokes the 90's, she gets blamed for carpetbagger her husband's positives and bringing back his negatives. If she attempts to show her own credentials, she opens herself up for many of the same complaints of inexperience as Obama as well as spotlighting her votes on Iraq and Iran.

Consultants didn't build this record, they only try to spin it...but you can't spin something that's spun out of control. Today will be a test. If Hillary loses by less than double digits, will the corporate media say this was a comeback?

[Dems Will Win]

9. I don't African Americans are going to like this MLK gaffe, even tho it isn't a gaffe

I think "Pulled A Hillary" may be the new term for "just can't win no matter what"

[ccpup]

10. you bring up an interesting point

but what you might miss -- or perhaps not -- is that this same corporate media doesn't appreciate the sense of inevitability in anyone. The story is never in the "win" and always in the "stumble", the "whiff of desperation", the "campaign in disarray". And I suspect the same rules will hold true for Obama.

When he wins tonight, I expect to see within a week or two stories questioning his candidacy, throwing subtle hints about this thing or that. Nothing huge, mind you, but not the overflowing of glassy-eyed puppy love from the National Media we're basically seeing now. And this will only be exacerbated when he either places Second in NV or doesn't win by the margins he has been. The media needs blood to sell whatever they're pushing, so expect the coverage around SC to be absolutely brutal.

As for the Clinton Comeback? I trust the campaign will spin it that way, but I don't know that the Press will necessarily bite. If she were to win the Big States on Super Tuesday and prove them wrong, then we'd see those stories, but I don't think it'll happen in the next week or so.

They'll be too busy sharpening their pencils (and tongues) for the coming jabs at Obama.

[Dems Will Win]

11. I O wins by more than 10 in NH, he will take the Culinary Workers Union and NV

And O has already hit the 50% mark in an SC poll.

The race would then be over BEFORE Feb 5. Edwards will endorse Obama in hopes of the VP spot before January 27.

[KharmaTrain]

12. It's All A Storyline

Many times when I watch the village idiots of the corporate media, I see a group stuck in 8th grade mentality...and assume the rest of the country works the same way. It's short attention spans where sound bites and broad strokes are easier to deal with than nuance or detail. This entire primary circus has proven that as they've turned this process into a reality show...using those endless debates to build their narratives and turn this election into a popularity contest.

Nothing excite the corporate media than a "sexy story"...Obama's always been one for them. I saw it here with his rise in Illinois and (thanks to David Axelrod), it's trancended him to a big win tonight in yet another primary.

I share your cynicism of how the corporate media will now treat Obama if he continues to be the "front-runner" or captures the nomination. Assuredly there will be attacks on him from the very same "scribes" who are amazed at him right now. But the one thing that's impressed me of Senator Obama's operation is how they've stood up to the hits they've taken so far and have spun it to their benefit.

The interesting battle in the upcoming general election could be for the relevancy of the corporate media. We're already seeing Repugnicans rejecting the Faux Noise approved candidates and I suspect there will be a wider backlash and greater scrutiny of the media this election season. Any hit piece on Obama may just boost him as the old saying goes...a negative from a negative is a positive.

Cheers...