Why did Obama call Hillary's MLK comments "unfortunate" and "ill-advised"?

Yesterday on MSNBC, Jesse Jackson, Sr, an Obama supporter, said Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson were a team. He further noted anyone who attacked Hillary for the comments she recently made about the two was in error. Below is a link to a summary of Joseph Califano's account of the way King and Johnson worked together. So if what Hillary said is true, why did Obama criticize her and call her remarks "unfortunate" and "ill-adivsed"? Was he ignorant of the history of how King and Johnson worked together? Was he playing the race card to try to stem losses from Hillary's win in New Hampshire and shore up his position in South Carolina? Why did he say what he said?

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/011754.php

Thursday :: Jan 17, 2008
King and Johnson

by Turkana

Joseph Califano's long public career included a stint as President Lyndon Johnson's special assistant for domestic affairs, from 1965 to 1969. He has first-hand knowledge of the actual relationship between President Johnson and Dr. Martin Luther King. On Tuesday, he wrote this insightful commentary, in the Washington Post.

The greatest fairy tale of the 2008 campaign so far is the accusation that there is some tint of racism or putdown of Martin Luther King Jr. in Hillary Clinton's comment that "it took a president," Lyndon Johnson, to realize the civil rights leader's dreams.

The visionary preacher and the tough-talking master politician would be the first to say that they needed each other. I know how they came to work together, in a complex partnership, to produce a social revolution that has saved this nation.

Within days of President Kennedy's assassination, King was already telling Johnson directly that he would risk his life by forcing dramatic confrontations in the South, if that's what it would take to get government action.

He knew it would take presidential leadership, he said, and he shrewdly held out the potential of supporting Johnson in the 1964 campaign.

Johnson appreciated King, and decided to push ahead with what became the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

more...

Exactly, they used it as far as they could and then pulled back.

Total contradiction of themselves.

Killed two birds with one stone. Very clever...yet devious.

Took Rangel half a second to figure out what was going on.

against his own race.

Maybe I'm just fantasizing, but my guess is Charlie Rangel held his own caucus and then called Obama with the results. He warned him that he was going to give an interview to Channel One spanking Obama in public and giving Obama the facesaver of getting out in front of the interview. Once he was sure Obama got the message, he called Clinton and told her to get her statement ready. When Obama and Clinton released their pacifying statements, he did his interview.

That's what a mature, experienced politician does.

What was her point. After she made her remarks and just thought, "and...".

What was she trying to say?

He played the race card because he was afraid the Clinton reputation in black communities would siphon off votes and he needs the win in SC. He was publicly spanked for it by Charlie Rangel and other, more mature and experienced black leaders.

We can anticipate President Obama whipping out the race card every time Congress looks cross-eyed at him. Gonna be fun.

I started out liking Obama but thinking him green. Now I actively dislike him.

advantage of what you perceive as mistake or misstatement by your opponent.

competitive situation trying to take advantage of a perceived mistake of their opponent. That simple.

she had suggested in the debates that had just occurred that somehow she was a "doer" who got things done, while Obama only "talks" and gives false hope. The linkage and association was obvious, as she was the one that made the comments directly.

whether they intended to or not.

Actually that's not true. They were only "ill-advised" or "unfortunate" if they were not intended to start trouble. If they were intended to start trouble they were reprehensible.

"Hypocrite preacher."

- LBJ, on MLK.

they were not racist.

they were disrespectful.

Not even a little.

Unless, of course, you're suddenly desperate for black votes in South Carolina.

It was an ugly ploy but it obviously worked on some less discerning people.

MLK just didn't have what it takes.

She used the name of a great man to try to and cleverly score political points.

She's a doer, Obama's just a talker...like MLK

Give me a break.

Got to love that boomerang effect.

was relegated to avoiding the area of the city that the street named after him is located.

but it takes a white President for anything meaningful to happen.

That's one highly possible interpretation, making the comments unfortunate and ill-advised.

...but a white President who didn't think too highly of blacks.

they knew the media would seize on race as an issue and that Obama would eventually have to respond. They were willing to lose black votes (which they may have calculated were gone after Iowa and New Hampshire anyway) in order to weaken Obama with whites and Hispanics. As always with the Clintons, it was a cynical and crudely effective idea until Obama headed it off at the pass this week and called for a truce while at the same time complimenting the Clitnons for their record on racial equality. That's something they clearly weren't counting on.

Her remark sounded minimizing of King's work. I think Hillary respects Martin Luther King, Jr, enormously, but the point she was trying to make was expressed poorly.

Didn't you get the memo?

Probably an Obama/Gray Lady conspiracy.

It was in an editorial about unity and division in the NY Times jan 9

....remember, he said he won't be a hands-on executive.

Injecting race was in the script. And just before the Nevada and South Carolina caucuses/primaries were the right times.