I realize many (perhaps most) people around here are unwilling to see the truth... that Obama did NOT "play the race card," but was in fact baited into a media frenzy set by the Clinton camp. The Clinton camp had for a week been race baiting and engaged in NASTY smearing from all angles, trying to bait the public discourse into racialized tensions. It's standard politics. Bait the black opponent into showing indignation, then say they are playing the race card and hold up black leaders on your side.
There was a huge smear campaign that started the day before the NH primary and continued for like 10-12 days. Even after a "truce" was called, Bill Clinton was race baiting and getting nasty.
This is an inconvenient and uncomfortable truth for party die-hards... but the truth nonetheless.
Consider the facts/sources/quotes of the entire smear campaign:
### Clinton aids confirm race baiting agendaIt isnt a direct quote and it's the Guardian after-all, but it's on record. "Aides believe that, combined with a surge of support among women, Clinton's 'crying' incident, and the possible role of race in bringing white voters to the New York senator's side, they see the makings of a reconfigured strategy to carry the campaign forward."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/11/as-new-hampshire-dust-set_n_81159.html### He's likely to get assassinated. Somebody who introduced Hillary Clinton emphasized the comparison with JFK and how he got killed. “Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated." The Clinton admin distanced themselves from his comments, calling them inappropriate, but the damage was done.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/civilrights/### He's no MLK. And dreams need a President not speeches.She dissed MLK, suggesting REAL change only happened because of President Johnson (not MLK's dream or the civil rights movement). She then implied that he doesn't remotely compare to MLK or Kennedy. "You know, today Senator Obama used President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to criticize me. He basically compared himself to our greatest heroes because they gave great speeches." Sad.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/civilrights/Let's look at the statements in more detail.
“Dr. King’s dream
began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act.” “
It took a president to get it done.” (Read: it took a
white president)
“You know, today Senator Obama used President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to criticize me. He basically compared himself to our greatest heroes because they gave great speeches. President Kennedy was in Congress for 14 years. He was a war hero. He was a man of great accomplishments and readiness to be president. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a movement. He was gassed. He was beaten. He was jailed. And he gave a speech that was one of the most beautifully, profoundly important speeches ever written in America, the “I have a dream” speech. And then he worked with President Johnson to get the civil rights laws passed, because the dream couldn’t be realized until finally it was legally permissible for people of all colors and backgrounds and races and ethnicities to be accepted as citizens."
Somebody remind Hillary that she supported Barry Goldwater back then... o.0
### Al qaeda will strike!! "Look what happened in Great Britain," she said. "Tony Blair leaves, Gordon Brown comes in, the very next day, there are terrorist attacks." Sorry, but that's a disgraceful comment, directly suggesting terrorists will strike with the election of Obama.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0801/05/cnr.06.html### The hip black male who can't provideIn the words of a Clinton adviser: "If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2238148,00.html### False hope. "An untested man who offers false hope." "We don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered." Clinton herself said this.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/Story?id=4088317&page=1 &
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_01/012851.php### Obama just "shucks and jives"Andrew Cuomo, NY Attorney General, and Clinton fan... came out swingin at Obama after NH primary. “You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference,” he added. “All those moves you can make with the press don’t work when you’re in someone’s living room.”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Dept_of_word_choice.html### Hispanics won't vote for himClinton pollster Sergio Bendixen: “The Hispanic voter—and I want to say this very carefully—has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.”
http://thepage.time.com/2008/01/12/racial-tensions-a-potential-boost-for-clintonNo... no... that's not an attempt to be divisive and race bait at all.
### "99 problems and a bitch aint one of them." The New York Post said: "As Obama and his wife, Michelle, strolled triumphantly into his victory party in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 3, Jay-Z's "99 Problems" was blaring. In it, Jay raps, 'I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one.'" Almost the entire article revolves around Clinton spokesperson commenting on the situation. Considering it was blatantly false and easily "checked" with a youtube search, it's fairly naive to believe the Clinton campaign accidentally bought into this lie and would comment on it without intent to give the story life.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/01142008/gossip/pagesix/hillary__barack_rap__rock_142152.htm &
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rAXAemXaivY## Obama is an Uncle Tom who was doing drugs when the Clintons were fighting for blacksBET founder Bob Johnson jumped up on stage with Hillary like a few other spineless black leaders, to attack Obama. The media focused on his comment about Obama's drug use, and Johnson later apologized. However, few cared to notice how Johnson compared Obama to Sidney Poitier's character in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” This is the modern equivalent of calling somebody an Uncle Tom. While Obama accepted the apology, do not believe it's acceptable to careful & critical observers.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/bet-chief-raps-obama-in-sc/### Blacks support Obama just because he's black. The day after a "truce" was declared between Clinton and Obama, Bill Clinton went on a viscious but subtle attack with more desperate race baiting. He said: "Hillary has an enormous amount of African American support and Barack Obama has a lot of white people for him," he said in Sparks.
There's still some African Americans who support Barack, even though they like Hillary, because they think he is the first African American to have a chance to be president," Clinton said. "And there's a lot of women who are voting for Hillary, even though they like Sen. Obama, because they think it would be better if a woman broke the glass ceiling." Re-read that. He says blacks
all like Hillary, but some 'still' like Obama (merely} because he's black. A smart man like Bill doesn't use these words without full grasp. Words like "chance" and "still" are no accidents. Notice he then plays the gender card. This was AFTER the truce.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-01-15-bill-clinton-nevada_N.htm### Obama is just poetry. She's been stumping with comments about how he's just talking poetry and she's ready to "govern with prose." Cute. "
a doer, not a talker." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080107/ap_on_el_pr/democrats_rdp
### Obama is just a fairy tale.
Bill Clinton's rant the other day that i think shocked more than a few of us. Clinton flat out called Obama a liar, said he was a fairy tale. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLDx4NZr2u4
### Muslim (danger danger!).
Several Clinton campaign folks were removed over this. One may argue this absolves her from responsibility, yet anybody paying attention realizes this smear is arguably one of higher impact ones. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/10/second-clinton-volunteer-_n_76047.html
Not like Bob Kerrey and others kept this issue alive in the public dialog or anything, right? http://themoderatevoice.com/religion/islam/muslims/16573/clinton-support-bob-kerry-continues-to-raise-obama-muslim-issues/
### Drug record makes him unelectable.
Top Clinton advisor steps down after making various arguments about how Obama can't get elected due to his drug use. In the context of all the other stuff, this most certainly has racial overtones and will be taken that way by many minorities. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004077664_obama17.html
### Obama is in this only because of blind media.
Bill Clinton also suggested it was "wrong" that Obama has been able to get through 15 debates without being called a liar by the press. He implies the blind, uncritical media is the problem. "The press never reported on" yadda yadda. "Give me a break!" He thought Hillary was going to lose NH and was basically blaming the media for this "fairy tale." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLDx4NZr2u4
### Obama lacks depth and reality.
"On a lot of these issues it is hard to know where he stands, and people need to ask that." "As famously was said years ago, 'Where's the beef?'" Clinton said that herself. In the context of the other smearing, this takes on racial overtones (onfortunately, because it otherwise is fair game). http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4088317&page=1
### Male chuavanism and the gender card.
Folks may reasonably disagree on the interpretation, but she's clearly playing the gender card lately - even implied that her gender alone equates to meaningful change in the White House (just imagine the outcry if Obama said that about being black). She said that in the 1/5/08 debate. Similarly, the spin out of NH is that his comment was rude and poor Hillary's being beaten up on by the boys *tear*. That's how i intepret this spin, and it seems very clear to me. And if you question her crying about her campaign hardships, she implies THAT is male chuavanism too. http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4092530 & http://bourbonroom.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/01/07/clintons-candid-assessment/
And additionally... i'd like to just focus on this clip from the NH Debate. She was attacked on the issue of likability. She joked that he's likable. He DEFENDED HER in return. She even says "i appreciate that," yet all the Clinton spin doctors (and Rove) are trying to pretend he attacked her. Watch for yourself and be honest. These 2 were just handling an obnoxious question with grace, but now the Clinton base is trying to turn this into a chuavanistic attack by him? Get real. Watch it. It was friendly. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ac7RuzYvtCw
Lying about a black man's "tone" towards a white woman is easy to get away with in 2008, I guess.
### Obama is Bush 3.0
"He’s very likable . I agree with that…. You know, in 2000 we, unfortunately, ended up with a president who people said they wanted to have a beer with." “I think it’s good to have a likeable president. But if I remember right, many people said they wanted to have a beer with George W. Bush. Maybe they should’ve left it at that – have a beer, don’t vote him in as our president.” It's a slick way to deflect the likability argument, but she even tries to imply this has policy implications, electing an inexperienced guy just because he's likable.
### Flip flopper (abortion swiftboating)
Just watch the ABC debate from 1/5/08. She repeated this charge in various ways, although in fairness she did get into specifics in a few cases (which i think is fair game if you challenge the record itself on the issues). However, for a couple months... this has been her primary charge against him. http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4092530
However, when they intentionally distorted his record on abortion to effectively swiftboat him in NH, that's really the kind of politics the democrats cannot afford in the primary. http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080106/NEWS01/801060396/1043
### Obama is too liberal.
"Hillary's aides point to Obama's extremely progressive record as a community organizer, state senator and candidate for Congress, his alliances with 'left-wing' intellectuals in Chicago's Hyde Park community, and his liberal voting record on criminal defendants' rights as subjects for examination." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/04/new-hampshire-will-be-key_n_79873.html
### Obama is too conservative.
They claimed he was "unwilling to take a stand on choice." His controversial gay marriage position is a legitimate issue, for sure, but they've tried to paint him as too conservative. http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/hillary_mailer_hits_obama_on_abortion.php
### Obama is soft on crime.
"Mandatory minimums take too much discretion away from judges." "Barack Obama's kind of change is where you sit down and you cut a deal with the corporate world." All the attacks on his record now are going to be cast in racial terms, unfortunately. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4088317&page=1 & http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/04/hillary-hits-obama-for