James Clyburn Happy to Play His Familiar Part Once More
Once again -- and for the last time -- the Democratic primary campaign has moved into a southern state, North Carolina, with a large African American population as well as a considerable university and college town liberal vote. Once again, the Barack Obama campaign and its supporters, fresh from a stinging defeat, are trying to stir up false accusations that Hillary Clinton and her campaign have cynically injected racial animosities into the campaign.
The latest round of charges about the Clintons have come from a familiar source, Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking black leader in Congress. In January, after the Obama campaign suffered stunning defeats in New Hampshire and Nevada, Rep. Clyburn, although nominally uncommitted, joined a chorus of concerted complaint about Hillary Clinton's supposed denigration of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his contributions to the 1964 Civil Rights Act because of her observation that President Lyndon Johnson had played a crucial part in guiding its passage. (Clinton's actual remarks, rarely reported, praised King enormously and were historically accurate.)
Clyburn then jumped on flimsy accusations that former President Bill Clinton had supposedly made subtle racial remarks by calling Obama's claim to unwavering opposition to administration policy in Iraq a "fairy tale," and by likening Obama's eventual victory in South Carolina to those of Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988. (The first had nothing whatsoever to do with race: Obama had said in 2004, 2005 and 2006 that he didn't know how he would have voted on Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Iraq because as a state senator he had no access to the intelligence, and Obama voted consistently for war funding as a U.S. senator. On the second matter -- again, rarely reported in full -- Bill Clinton's remark was delivered as part of his praise of Obama's campaign in every state, and Jackson himself publicly deemed it inoffensive.) Clinton had apparently done his wife's campaign a lot of good with his work in New Hampshire and Nevada; but the targeted attack on him had the double effect of marginalizing him while advancing the race-baiter charges.
The Obama campaign had already begun injecting race into the campaign, notably on the morning after the New Hampshire primary, when its national co-chair, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois, went on national television to accuse Senator Clinton of false emotion and racial intent in her tearful description of her commitment to public service. "Those tears also have to be analyzed," said Obama's co-chair. "They have to be looked at very, very carefully in light of Katrina, in light of other things that Mrs. Clinton did not cry for." And then Jackson added, disclosing his underlying political agenda: "Particularly as we head to South Carolina where 45% of African-Americans who participate in the Democratic contest." Clyburn immediately followed up, upping the ante by ripping into Bill Clinton and telling him to "chill." At the same time, an official Obama South Carolina campaign memo surfaced, which specified innocuous statements by Clinton supporters that could be twisted into race-baiting remarks -- including the wild claim, built from distorted quotations that Bill Clinton had said his wife was "stronger" than Nelson Mandela.
The charges leveled at the Clintons by Clyburn and others in South Carolina began what has become a completely predictable pattern among Obama, his campaign, and their supporters. First, Obama loses primary campaigns in key states which he had either expected to win (as in New Hampshire and then Nevada) or had worked desperately hard to win (as in Pennsylvania, where he outspent Hillary Clinton by as much as three-to-one). Then, as the campaign moved southward -- to Louisiana and then the "Potomac" primaries following Super Tuesday, to Mississippi following the March 4 Ohio and Texas primaries, and now to North Carolina -- come the furious but false charges, reported in the press as undeniable truths, that the Clinton campaign has indulged in mean-spirited race baiting, as a prelude to upcoming contests in southern states.
Some of these claims have turned out to be hoaxes, such as the release by the campaign, in the aftermath of Super Tuesday, of a supposedly scurrilous photograph of Obama in native African garb. Posted on the Drudge Report and lifted, as it turned out, from another right-wing website, Free Republic, where it initially surfaced, the appearance of the photograph was nevertheless blamed on the Clinton campaign by Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe who called it "the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we've seen from either party in this election." (Obama himself, after dismissing the incident in a public debate with Hillary Clinton, returned to the accusation while on the stump with black voters in Mississippi.)
On other occasions, Obama suggested to mostly black audiences, in coded racial terms, that the Clintons were attempting to confuse them with their criticisms of him. Before the South Carolina, "Potomac" and Mississippi primaries, Obama cheerfully lifted the "hoodwinked, bamboozled" rant from the Spike Lee film Malcolm X, in order to convey to black voters that, whatever he might say about a "post-racial" campaign, racial solidarity against white traducers was crucial to his effort. Denzel Washington, playing Malcolm X, says: "I'm gonna tell you like it really is. Every election year these politicians are sent up here to pacify us! They're sent here and set up here by the white man! I say and I say it again, you've been had. You've been took. You've been HOODWINKED, BAMBOOZLED, led astray, run amok." Barack Obama repeatedly echoed: "Don't be hoodwinked! Don't be bamboozled!"
Other claims have either been either outright fabrications or hysterical distortions: false charges leveled by one popular pro-Obama website, Daily Kos, that the Clinton campaign "blackened" their candidate to make his look menacing by purposely darkening a another photograph of him; and the strained Geraldine Ferraro fracas, in which an awkward remark buried in the Torrance, California Daily Breeze was trumpeted nationally by prominent Obama supporters such as Keith Olbermann of MSNBC's Countdown into accusations said that the Clinton campaign had descended into the politics of a former Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke. Then there was the false claim by one of Obama's best known supporters in academia, Orlando Patterson of Harvard, published on the op-ed page of the New York Times, that there was no black child in Clinton's "3 a.m." television ad on national security, a supposedly racist move worthy of D. W. Griffith and Birth of a Nation -- when, in fact, there was a black child in that commercial.
Which brings us back to Representative Clyburn, on the eve of North Carolina, which some have called Obama's firewall state -- a state he must win convincingly in order to head off his latest slide in the primary race. Last week, Bill Clinton belatedly observed that the Obama campaign "played the race card on me" in South Carolina, and cited a conversation he had had with Jesse Jackson to prove his point. Clyburn jumped back in, getting the attention of The New York Times by charging that "black people are incensed" at Clinton and claiming that it is "an almost 'unanimous' view among African-Americans that Mr. and Mrs. Clinton are "committed to doing everything they possibly can to damage Obama to a point that he could never win." Clyburn may well be correct about perceptions of the Clintons among some black voters; but he simply hides how Obama, his campaign, and their supporters have willfully created that impression.
Remarkably, reports about the Clintons' alleged race-baiting have been reproduced so often and so uncritically in the press that they have attained the status of incontrovertible truth. Evidence and arguments to the contrary can expect either to be ignored (with their arguments dismissed, as Ryan Lizza recently and sarcastically did in The New Yorker, as "mysterious"). Or they can expect to be greeted by ad hominem attacks which do not engage the evidence, and which can even stray (as I have learned directly) into attacks on the author as a racist -- the sort who, back in 1860, sneered at Abraham Lincoln as a "Black Republican." There is no honest dialogue on this issue: only constant reiteration by Obama's supporters of the undeniable truth of the charges against the Clintons, and the personal disparaging of any who dare call the charges into question.
Yet, there are, to be sure, some stray signs that the press may be catching on to what is going on here. After Rep. Clyburn's latest tirade, Maureen Dowd of The New York Times -- who has until now been consistently anti-Clinton and pro-Obama -- raised an eyebrow in her column about Clyburn's endorsement of what Dowd called the "Tonya Harding conspiracy theory," that the Clintons and their supporters were out to destroy Obama by the foulest of means. And playing the race-baiter card runs the enormous risk of deepening the racial divide that will make it more difficult for Obama to appeal to white voters, as it has in the past.
But there may not be time for the Obama campaign to worry about that, given the Pennsylvania results, given the possible outcomes in Indiana, West Virginia, and Kentucky, and given the growing perception (deepened by the continuing outbursts by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright) that Obama may not be electable in November. Incensing black voters in North Carolina -- as well as college and university liberals in the Chapel Hill-Durham area -- would be one way to gain the large majority that Obama needs to regain his footing. And so, yet again, the by now routine charges against the Clintons as race-baiters reappear -- with Representative Clyburn of neighboring South Carolina happy to play his by now familiar part once more.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
What exactly did Bill Clinton, the self-professed first black president, actually do to “earn” the undying support of African-American notables that would cause them to openly attack the first viable African-American candidate for president?
Was it to sit idly by while genocide unfolded in Rwanda and the Congo? How can they justify contesting Obama, not on principled issues, but because he has not risen through their patronage network? Is their support of Hillary Clinton simply a manifestation of the politically diverse nature of African-Americans? In my view, the answer is very simple, no. Bill and Hillary Clinton lauded the African-American elite class, composed of civil rights era legacies, old school black political elites and African-American entertainers with unfettered political access, appointments, contracts, awards and other rewards such as “slumber parties” at the White House. In doing so, the Clintons unwittingly empowered an authoritarian civil rights class of blacks to the disadvantage of younger non-civil rights era black leaders like Obama.
Wowsers. I'm only going to respond to the Rowanda situation. Do you think all black people are linked in some way? I'm white, my family is from Italy, I don't think I'm someone linked to all white people or all Europeans for that matter. So to act as though you are outraged that the US didn't step into Rowanda, as if it's somehow a slap to anyone who's skin color is black is just not fair IMO. I will state that I wish we did do something, but because I'm all for fighting against Genocide on any level.
It's Rwanda
I think his point was, the Clintons really haven't done much for blacks. They say they have. But haven't.
Thank you Professor Wilentz for not letting this issue be buried by the MSM. Please try to get this on TV so the word is spread. People deserve to know the truth and make informed decisions.
I am moire concerned with the fact that Hillary Clinton has gotten $2.3 billion dollars for wasteful earmarks. 3 times more than any other Senator has ever had.
That is wasteful and is more proof that only John McCain (who will be as bad or worse than Bush) is a worse Candidate than Clinton.
Obama is the best left standing.
drblack Again with the "shiny keys" look over there....don't focus on the real issue being covered here.....no look over here.
that's exactly what you're doing getting caught up in this non-issue.
except the claim is not true
Today, The Hill reported that Hillary requested $2.3 billion in earmarks. This is false.
Earmarks are generally defined as specific programs and grants, usually for one's home state. Hillary requested just $22 million in earmarks for three critical projects in New York State.
Details: http://clinton.senate.gov/newyork/requests.cfm.
The rest of her requests are to increase funding for national programs, most involving health and public safety. These are not earmarks, just as someone who requests an increase in Medicaid funding is not requesting an earmark.
Details: http://clinton.senate.gov/newyork/requests_USA.cfm
Congress should now pass a law that you, Sean Wilentz, and you alone must bow and kiss the feet of President Obama as benediction to the Inauguration Day ceremony on January 20, 2009. At this stage, it is the only acceptable cherry to top your delusional-hate sundae.
really, do you think if Obama becomes president we should pass laws stating that no one xcan say anything critical of him? That sounds like Bush / Cheney to me.
Big difference between attacking Obama on substance and pandering to racism. There's a double standard. I am still waiting for Hillary or MSM to focus on Clinton's suspect religious affiliations. Has John McCain or any Republican ever been made to "renounce and deject" fringe evangelists?
The more the Obama campaign motivates black votes by attacking implicitly or explicitly Clintons as racist. The more it will divide the democrat party. And comes November, he and the country will pay a price. As voters are not stupid. Racism is not just about suffering of the blacks. Racism is about people are treated unfairly because of his/her race. When over 90% of blacks supports Obama unconditionally and attack Clintons who has been serving for the interests of blacks in their political life time. It shows how narrow minded and politically convinient Obama campaign is, even at the expense of destroying an life long ally of the blacks unfairly. Now my friend, that's real racism.
Although it now seems to have been eons ago, it's worth noting that for much of this presidential contest, Hillary Clinton enjoyed overwhelming support among African Americans. Even as late as December and January, Washington Post-ABC News polls showed Clinton trouncing Obama among black registered voters, garnering the support of 60 percent of those polled as compared to only 20 percent who preferred Obama. The black vote was, in the early days of the campaign, hers to lose. And lose it she did. Like various aspects of Hillary's mismanaged campaign, she found a way to let this advantage pass her by.
that's kind of the whole point to this article. She lost the support of the black community by the Obama campaign making false claims of playing the race card against Clinton.
There was another article published, I wish I had the link now, that said that anti-Clinton persons in the dem party specifically were looking for a candidate that could beat Clinton. They knew there was only one way to beat her and that was by taking the support of the black community away from her. they searched for a candidate that they would be able to do that with and came up with Obama.
What are you talking about? You are talking about POLLS NOT ACTUAL Voters. Name me one state where HRC has even been close in the AA vote???? Did anyone really expect her to carry AA voters against a viable AA candidate? Of course not, and don't tell me it's because they like his platform better. I'm not even saying that it's not expected or that it doesn't even have merit considering the struggles of AA's in this country. BUT to ignore it and act as if it's not the case is very ignorant.
Clintons who has been serving for the interests of blacks in their political life time. It shows how narrow minded and politically convinient Obama campaign is, even at the expense of destroying an life long ally of the blacks unfairly. Now my friend, that's real racism.
********************************************
Put the Clinton Koolaide Down. The Clintons are racial opportunist.
In 1989, then-Gov. Bill Clinton was sued as one of three top Arkansas officials responsible for the intimidation of black voters in his state as part of a legal action brought under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, NewsMax.com has learned.
And a year earlier the U.S. Supreme court ruled that Clinton had wrongfully tried to overturn the election of a black state representative in favor of a white Democrat.
In the 1989 case, "the evidence at the trial was indeed overwhelming that the Voting Rights Act had been violated," reported the Arkansas Gazette on Dec. 6, 1989. (The paper later became the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.)
IT'S DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
Try again Republican,
Je111
You have a right to speak your opinions, but they are not based in reality. Based on your comments -- It is clear that you have no earthly idea about what motivates African Americans. You are projecting NONSENSE - No African American would recognize the points that you are trying to make.
When it comes to Racism-- You are confusing Racism with prejudice. Racism has clear historic roots. It was a system designed to take resources from Black people and hand them over to White people. It is not just about negative feelings that one group may have for another group. That is PREJUDICE that can lead to DISCRIMINATION. Racism is a clearly constructed socio-economic system designed by Whites to be used against Blacks. Name one instance when Black people have created a similar system in the United States?
I can bet that you know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about Black people, yet you write as if you have some knowledge. Your points are utterly incomprehensible
Here are Claire McCaskill's remarks.
McCaskill told the Kansas City Star., “He, for the first time, I think, as a black leader in America, has come to the American people not as a victim, but rather as a leader.”
Adrianne Marsh, communications director for McCaskill, offered the following clarification to McCaskill’s statement.
“This is a classic case where Claire simply misspoke. She’s sorry it came out wrong. In her enthusiasm to applaud Barack Obama, it appeared that she was trying to diminish other black leaders. That was not her intention. Claire was electrically charged by Sen. Obama’s extremely candid speech about race in America. It was her intention to applaud Sen. Obama, as a black politician with so much at stake, for being as honest as he was about such a controversial topic. She was particularly impressed that, while he recognized it, he did not dwell on those who felt like victims, but rather approached the discussion as a leader who was interested in moving our country forward,” Marsh said.
Asked about McCaskill’s comments, the Obama campaign noted that her office issued a clarifying statement.
“Obama has said repeatedly he has deep and abiding respect for the many leaders who came before him and upon whose shoulders he stands,” LaBolt said.
So, when an Obama supporter says something "racial", their clarification is accepted. Did anyone accept the clarification of Bob Kerrey?
Come on, black victimization is a big business in Chicago, that is the stock-in-trade for Wright, Jesse, the Nation of Islam and Farrakhan. You can tell that Obama's wife has been listening to that crap all her life, but Obama moved to Chicago to embrace that idea and Wright's church. Obama himself is playing the race card when he uses Malcolm and Farrakhan favorite words used to incite black crowds, it's like CODE for blacks but goes over the heads of white folks, BAMBOOZELED, HOODWINKED and OKIE-DOKE, it shows Obama is down with farrakhan and malcolm
By and large, yes. What's your point?
Neither Jimmy Carter nor Bill Clinton won the majority of white votes. Hillary will not win the election without black support. Say what you want about Obama having problems with white voters, Hillary's problems with black voters are far worse. She will not take the white house if she is the nominee, and it will be because of her insulting behavior towards the most loyal democratic voters in the country.
Thank you, Mr. Wilnetz. How refreshing to see in Obamaton Post an article telling it like it is about this campaign.
Obama's campaign may have damaged the Clintons with black voters. If this is true, the damage is also to the democratic party, if our most loyal and solid supporters choose to stay home if Hillary is the nominee.
A lifetime of support by the Clintons of black Americans is being destroyed by the Obama campaign. Very sad!
I'm Sorry, did Obama liken himself to Jesse Jackson, or did Bill do that in the south with no repudiation from Hillary?
Face it, The Clintons stabbed African Americans in the back and they did it right at that moment. Dammage done. The Clintons will NEVER be trusted by the black community again.
Your assignment: reread the article... this time, for content.
the content? of a whining Clinton apologist? Not much to it.
Your assignment. Talk to a handfull of African Americans and ask how they felt about the Jackson Obama comparison by Bill in the south.
We like to call it blowing the dog whistle.
There has been no insulting behavior. The lies being spread need to stop. It's become old and frankly ridiculous.
Bill Clinton in S. Carolina:
Obama = Jesse Jackson *3
It's not old to African Americans whom feel stabbed in the back by Clinton
Thank you.
Sean: You've been watching too many movies !
"Coded Racial Terms" ? PULEEEZE !
YOU are the one who has been BAMBOOZLED !
Maybe you, Wolfson, & Penn could start a "Support Group" after Obama's nomination.
"Hillary Clinton seems to view black voters the same way plantation owners viewed slaves – they are her property, they will do what she says, and she will make their lives hell-on-earth if she doesn't get her way." -- Kevin McCullough, WND column, Feb. 16,
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,
says another Clinton apologist.
Boo hoo, Hillary Clinton is getting out-politicked by the novice. Boo hoo, woe is Hillary that poor innocent and virtuous Hillary. Why have we foresaken thee?
Because she's corrupt, ethically challenged, can't be honest about anything and has sold out the Democratic Party.
non-biased analysis of the LBJ comment by Bill Moyers
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011908A.shtml
NCMan:
Thanks for this link. I appear to be one of the few that have researched the biography of David Axelrod. This article shows that Obama has been groomed for this race as much as four years before his announcement. David Axelrod created the perfect candidate and used the same tactics he used with Deval Patrick in Mass. and Barack Obama in Illinois. Proven tactics of race-baiting and destruction of the opponent.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/magazine/01axelrod.t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
April 1, 2007
When Barack Obama decided in January that he would run for president in 2008 and quietly began calling up his staff members and close supporters to tell them so, the choice had many effects, but one of the most immediate and parochial was that it sent Obama’s chief political and media adviser, a Chicago consultant named David Axelrod, into his editing studio. For four years Axelrod has had camera crews tracking virtually everything Obama has done in public — chatting up World War II vets in southern Illinois, visiting his father’s ancestral village in western Kenya — and there were days when the camera crews have outnumbered the civilians.
The telling quote in the above article shows that David Axelrod was willing to destroy both Bill and Hillary Clinton for MONEY. Am I the only one who thinks he is political SCUM for what he is doing to the Clintons? He is worse than Mark Penn ever could be.
"It was January 1999, President Clinton’s impeachment trial was just beginning in the Senate and Hillary Clinton was scheduled to speak at the foundation’s fund-raiser in Chicago. Despite all the fuss back in Washington, Clinton kept the appointment. She spent hours that day in the epilepsy ward at Rush Presbyterian hospital, visiting children hooked up to machines by electrodes so that doctors might diagram their seizure activity and decide which portion of the brain to remove. At the hospital, a local reporter pressed her about the trial in Washington, asked her about that woman. At the organization’s reception at the Drake Hotel that evening, Clinton stood backstage looking over her remarks, figuring out where to insert anecdotes about the kids. “She couldn’t stop talking about what she had seen,” Susan Axelrod recalled. Later, at Hillary Clinton’s behest, the National Institutes of Health convened a conference on finding a cure for epilepsy. Susan Axelrod told me it was “one of the most important things anyone has done for epilepsy.” And this is how politics works: David Axelrod is now dedicated to derailing this woman’s career."
BRAVO!!!
Mr. Wilentz, this needed to be said. I applaud your courage and love for the truth.
................and your incesant whining about how succesful the black guy has been in this race over the white woman with the presidential last name.
Please explain to me if this was created by the Obama campaign that so many black politians have denonuced the Clintons?
"It's a mistake for Bill Clinton to believe that there has been given to him this mantle of authority to be able to speak for and to be dismissive of African-Americans,"
-Doug Wilder served as Governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994. He is currently Mayor of Richmond, Virginia, having taken office in 2005.
When are the Clintons going to realize that black people are not there children and that they have minds of there own? It does not matter anyway because the Clintons will never have to worry about the black vote ever again.
You are wrong Mr. Wilentz. My family and friends know what we heard, know how it was said, know what was meant and know how we felt when we heard it. We black people don't need anyone to tell us what is going on. We have a lifetime of experience and evaluate these matters based on that, and not on anything else. You are in deep denial if you believe anything else. The Clintons have no one but themselves to blame for their loss of black support.
And as my grandmother who grew up in the JIm Crow south says, these people are playing the oldest, ugliest game in the book. The Clintons have permanently lost the majority of black support.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
