H2O Man warned that this was a big mistake

[malaise]

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/01/south_carolinas_big_dog_threat.html

<snip>
WASHINGTON — Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, said he was rethinking his neutral stance in his state’s presidential primary out of disappointment at comments by Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton that he saw as diminishing the historic role of civil rights activists.

Mr. Clyburn, a veteran of the civil rights movement and a power in state Democratic politics, put himself on the sidelines more than a year ago to help secure an early primary for South Carolina, saying he wanted to encourage all candidates to take part. But he said recent remarks by the Clintons that he saw as distorting civil rights history could change his mind.

“We have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics,” said Mr. Clyburn, who was shaped by his searing experiences as a youth in the segregated South and his own activism in those days. “It is one thing to run a campaign and be respectful of everyone’s motives and actions, and it is something else to denigrate those. That bothered me a great deal.”

[readmoreoften]

1. And what were these comments? /nt

[malaise]

2. Here

In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Mrs. Clinton, who was locked in a running exchange with Senator Barack Obama, a rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, over the meaning of the legacies of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., tried to make a point about presidential leadership.

“Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” Mrs. Clinton said in trying to make the case that her experience should mean more to voters than the uplifting words of Mr. Obama. “It took a president to get it done.”

[eleny]

4. It's right in the article

[Jane Austin]

5. One was referring to United States Senator Barack Obama

as a "kid".

[malaise]

6. Another link

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3173652.ece

[TahitiNut]

3. How quaint. Doesn't Obama want to bury all those "old divisions"??

There's that ol' "sixties politics" again. We should all shut up and let the work done then get washed away ... just like the New Deal.

[malaise]

7. Valid point

but it was a big mistake.

[H2O Man]

8. It creates an

interesting situation. Even if Senator Obama is not taking offense, it is clear that many of his supporters are. More, for many people not connected to the Obama campaign, there have been a series of statements from the Clinton camp that have an ugly edge.

We also are being exposed to similar things coming from other campaigns, aimed at Senator Clinton. And there are ugly things said about John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich.

While Barack, Hillary, John and Dennis are not perfect, I do not think any of them are racists, sexists, of hateful people. I am hoping that in the next democratic debate, they all take the opportunity to speak out against some of the hatred that is being stirred up into the public debate.

[malaise]

9. It is always the supporters and those inside the camp

as well as MSM who fan the flames. Bill Clinton cannot suddenly have changed from America's first black President into a racist. He has never been racist.

That said candidates have to be very careful what they say. Words have meaning and the Civil Rights Movement must not be dissed.

How Clyburn handles this will be worth watching since Rethugs will be delighted to watch Dems split on racial grounds. That we do not need.

[Didereaux]

15. absolutely 'right on' good job

[jbnow]

20. Bill Clinton has become

a lot angrier and bitter. Hearing him speak shocked me. Bill! Bill? Where is thy charm?

But not racist. He'd be as irritated by any young upstart in Obama's position. He has something against this black man but not because he is black and not against the black race.

But words have power.

Honestly blacks aren't the only group they could be seen as dissing, they think anyone who buys Obama's spiel are stupid and or wrong. That would include the younger voters and the young at heart of any age.

It must have been hard for Bill to see things look like they were slipping away for Hillary. It can be harder to see it happen to see someone close to you then to yourself.

Someone was asking how Hillary went from "it takes a (whole) village" to "It takes a (singular)president".
I thought that was a good summary of their mocking Obama's message. They need to find another way.

[Hoof Hearted]

27. Amen!

The idea that Bill Clinton is a racist is patently insane, but you would think he would know better by now than to let his brain fly that far ahead of his mouth and express himself so poorly.

[damntexdem]

10. I support Edwards.

And I am upset at HRC's comments. It took years of struggle, blood, and deaths to get Washington's attention sufficiently for civil rights legislation to pass.

And Johnson had considerable more 'experience' in the Senate than HRC does. He was also very dirty. And he soon turned his back on social reform in favor of involvement in a stupid war. Even aside from the slight to the Civil Rights Movement, HRC would do good to not try to draw too many parallels with LBJ.

[malaise]

11. I support Al Gore

:D

The sad truth is that all men and women do good and bad things. The war destroyed LBJs legacy but he did more than most Presidents re Civil Rights.
Add.

[H2O Man]

12. There is no one today

in either the House or Senate, or in the Executive branch, who can seriously be compared to LBJ. And it doesn't really matter if one thinks LBJ was good, bad, or any combination thereof.

[TahitiNut]

18. I remember LBJ very well, of course. I also remember the "Ev & Charlie Show" ...

... when Everett Dirksen ("the Bard of Pekin") and Charlie Halleck butted heads with the Democrats. These people had more skill and class than anyone in the 'machine Senate' today. Dirty? Yeah ... but they didn't invade countries and topple regimes for partisan political advantage. We had 'small' scandals in those days ... vikuna coats and such.

It's often claimed that only a former Southern Democratic Senator (from the bigot wing of the Democratic party) with lots of influence could have passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act ... that it wouldn't have passed if merely pushed by a "Northern Liberal" ... and I tend to think there's some truth in that. What many fail to recall was that Charlie Halleck in the House was a very strong proponent of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. His support was also HUGELY influential.

[FogerRox]

17. I've been avoiding the candidate diaries >cough

[jaysunb]

13. Many of us "old school Blacks " are not or ever were

enamored w/ Bill Clinton or his wife.

Sister Soljah, the rush to execute a retarded man, and many other "little" oopsies told/tell me lots about Mr Clinton.

There's yet to be a black President,and I for one am still trying to find out where that came from and why.

[ellisonz]

30. Toni Morrison

African-American men seemed to understand it right away. Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children's lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas. And when virtually all the African-American Clinton appointees began, one by one, to disappear, when the President's body, his privacy, his unpoliced sexuality became the focus of the persecution, when he was metaphorically seized and bodysearched, who could gainsay these black men who knew whereof they spoke? The message was clear "No matter how smart you are, how hard you work, how much coin you earn for us, we will put you in your place or put you out of the place you have somehow, albeit with our permission, achieved. You will be fired from your job, sent away in disgrace, and--who knows?--maybe sentenced and jailed to boot. In short, unless you do as we say (i.e., assimilate at once), your expletives belong to us."

http://ontology.buffalo.edu./smith/clinton/morrison.html

[sam kane]

14. I still don't understand her point.

What was she trying to say? That only politicians get laws passed? Um, Duh. So, if only postal workers and newspapers then let everyone know about change in law, etc. etc., does that make *them* the real agents of change?

It sounds like she is suggesting that Obama is MLK and she is Johnson. Which is not only incorrect, but repulsive.

I really want to like her and then she speaks the indefensible.

I agree with the DU poster who said that she might have well said that the city of Montgomery is responsible for desegregating the buses, not really Rosa Parks.

[malaise]

16. Put simply

It was a comment bereft of thought, because the implications were so obvious. That Rosa Parks analogy is very good.

[David Zephyr]

19. Yeah. That was a lousy statement about LBJ and MLK.

I don't know if I will ever get past it. It was about as shitty as it gets.

[H2O Man]

21. I felt that ir

was disrespectful to MLK and JFK. I do not think it was intentional on her part. In my opinion, it was more a case of being careless and even rather thoughtless, two things that might be attributed to being tired and stressed. However, if you want to be on the big stage, you have to be able to deal with stress and exhaustion, without becoming careless or thoughtless.

[David Zephyr]

22. Howard Zinn.

Howard Zinn wrote that the Civil Rights Act only came about because of the riots in the urban centers that scared whites into acting fast. Direct action over electoral action. I agree.

But to equate LBJ's good efforts with the death of MLK pisses me off!

[H2O Man]

23. I remember that

when Martin was in jail in Selma, Malcolm went and spoke to high school and college students. Andy Young asked him to be careful not to provoke the students. Malcolm replied, "Remember this: no one puts words in my mouth."

A while later, Mrs. King approached Malcolm. He assured her that he wasn't there to cause problems; he only wanted the authorities to understand that their choice was to deal with Martin, or deal with him. Mrs. King understood exactly what he meant.

In a sense, although Malcolm was never associated with any riots, that incident in Selma kind of symbolizes what Mr. Zinn was speaking of. It brings the infamous Hoover memorandum, from March 4, 1968, about the need of the Counterintelligence Program to prevent "the rise of a 'messiah' who could unify, and electrify, the black nationalist movement. Malcolm X might have been such a 'messiah' ...."

[David Zephyr]

25. Thanks for helping prevent the erosion of MLK's greatness.

:thumbsup:

[trashcanistanista]

24. I agree. I remember watching the protests and the riots,

fireguns and police dogs on the news every night. There was a level of discontent in the country especially urban areas that was very frightening. If it weren't for the people marching and rioting we never would have had civil rights legislation. Credit where credit is due. Add that to the generation who grew up in the sixties. We were fighting, marching and discussing civil rights issues and the Vietnam War in junior high. Oh, and yes, it was tricky Dick who pushed through affirmative action by making deals with southern bigots. It was heartbreaking and gut wrenching for me to see all of this unravel over the past 20 years and I too, have no love lost for the Clintons for their role in this unravelling.

[David Zephyr]

26. For you.

:)

[malaise]

32. The bigger lesson for this generation is that

politicians act when citizens are engaged. Revising the events distorts that message.

[goclark]

29. So right ~ the Clinton machine should know better

Even though I am for Obama, I have always loved the Clinton family.

IMO, either they are so desperate for power that they don't care if they step on the souls of my people or they are trying this to win votes of those that are NOT African American.

Either way you slice it,I am shocked by their approach to OBAMA.
If that puts them back in the White House, it's shameful.

[malaise]

31. I have no real understanding of the stress of non-stop

campaigning, but no matter how tired, stressed or angry I am, I think through the consequences of comments before I make them. I don't think my marriage or other lifelong friendships could have survived any other way.

No comment should be made until the key question is answered -is it true?
It really was a thoughtless comment and it has diminished the speaker which cannot have been her intended consequence.

[Tatiana]

28. This was such a HUGE blunder, Bill Clinton had to go on the Steve Harvey Morning Show this morning

(a syndicated urban radio program) to clarify his wife's remarks. And Steve really seemed to want to give him the opportunity to clean up Hillary's remarks. Though Bill was engaging and at times funny, he couldn't triangulate his way out of that mess. He said Hillary was trying to link the results of the civil rights movement with actions. He mentioned that Hillary's first job out of law school was working for Marian Wright Edelman's Children's Defense Fund and that her first chief of staff was an African-American woman.

I have to give it to him, he really tried. But I still went away shaking my head. I don't know why, but his arguments in defense of Hillary sounded more like the age-old, "See, I have black/gay/disabled friends!"

[mmonk]

33. That's usually what it ends up sounding like

when having to explain something to cover or smooth one's tracks concerning civil rights matters.

[BronxBoy]

34. He must of made the rounds

I heard him on the Michael Baisden show and the interview was pretty much the way you described it.