Hillary Charges That Obama Campaign Is Distorting Her Martin Luther King Comments
Hillary has now directly accused the Obama campaign of distorting her controversial comments about Martin Luther King to suggest that she'd been condescending and disparaging towards the slain Civil Rights icon. Hillary made the charge in comments to reporters yesterday in Nevada:
“I was personally offended at the approach taken that was not only misleading but unnecessarily hurtful,” said Mrs. Clinton, Democrat of New York. “And I have made that clear to many people in the last several days.”Asked to whom she was referring, Mrs. Clinton responded, “I think it clearly came from Senator Obama’s campaign, and I don’t think it was the kind of debate we should be having in this campaign.”
Obama spokesman Bill Burton isn't denying that the Obama camp is questioning her MLK comments, though Burton did say that the backlash greeting them is real and isn't a creation of the Obama camp. "I think that Congressman Clyburn and other leaders across the country would take great offense at the suggestion that their response was somehow engineered by this campaign,” Burton said.
However, The Huffington Post reported that an Obama campaign memo appears to be pushing the storyline that the Clintons are using racially charged comments to gain political advantage. It's unclear who the memo has been sent to, however.
Separately, The New York Times has, for the third time now, printed a truncated version of Hillary's MLK comments, rather than share the original with readers. My take on that is here.
Comments (20)
terry hallinan wrote on January 13, 2008 8:26 AM:Let's see if I understand this:
- Bill Clinton wasn't make any derogatory comments about Obama's race when Clinton lied about Obama not opposing the invasion of Iraq?
OK, I will give him that.
When Hillary said that Martin Luther King was just making flowery speeches but it took an LBJ to accomplish change, she wasn't being racist?
OK, it's a POV. Historically inaccurate but not necessarily racist.
One can go on and on with this stuff taking each incident as not all that meaningful by itself but the pattern is telling is it not?
Best, Terry
Eve Maulsby wrote on January 13, 2008 8:40 AM:Obama's campaign didn't have to tell me Hillary's MLK comments were condescending and insensitive. I figured that out all by myself the second I heard her say it! Apparently, she also thinks anyone who is bothered by her comments is too dimwitted to have drawn their own conclusions. Her superior attitude is insulting.
green heron wrote on January 13, 2008 8:46 AM:Hillary's losing the black vote and there's probably nothing she can do about it.
Teach53 wrote on January 13, 2008 8:53 AM:Message to Senator Clinton - I listened to your attempt at drawing an analogy between the roles of MLK and LBJ (great speeches, Presidential leadership)and the ability of Senator Obama to reach rhetorical heights and your "ability to do". Your analogy was what I found offensive and condescending, along with the fact that you would invoke the contribution of MLK to demean and belittle your opponent. No one had to "interpret" your comments to me, I'm quite capabale of reaching my own conclusions, as are millions of others. We were offended by your words, period.
BBF wrote on January 13, 2008 8:55 AM:I don't know what Bill Clinton said. I thought I heard him say something about Obama's anti-war claim being a fairy tale. Didn't hear or read his whole statement. I did see a posting on Alternet.com which made me wonder about Obama's anti-war credentials:
Until he ran for president, Sen. Obama supported every funding bill for Iraq. [2005 Vote # 117, HR1268, 5/10/05; 2005 Vote # 326, S1042, 11/15/05; 2006 Vote # 112, HR4939, 5/4/06; 2006 Vote # 239; 2006 Vote # 186, S2766, 6/22/06, HR5631, 9/7/06]
Then there is his support of Lieberman against an anti-war candidate, also posted on Alternet.com:
He lent his politically influential and financially rewarding assistance to neo-conservative pro-war Senator Joe Lieberman’s (“D”-CT) struggle against the Democratic antiwar insurgent Ned Lamont. Obama has supported other “mainstream Democrats” fighting antiwar progressives in primary races (see Alexander Cockburn, “Obama’s Game,” the Nation, April 24, 2006).
Of course, he never said (I hope) as Hillary claimed, that she "would never take the use of nuclear weapons off the table".
There was one recent newspaper article on the Internet which reported Obama and Hillary voted the same 257 out of 267 times in 2007.
So, is Obama really a candidate of change or is it that the more things "change" the more they stay the same?
Some choice!
Tapper wrote on January 13, 2008 9:13 AM:So the Obama Slime Machine is deployed against HRC. Again.
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!
All one has to do is review his snide and snarky performances during the debates, where he prefered fatuous denigration and blatant misogyny to actual debate, to hear his "true voice".
Then we have the Obamaniacs who are nothing more than latter day Naderites or gop fellow travelers.
Will someone tell me exactly what Obama has actually accomplished beyond his broken record recitation of cha cha change?
Are the Obamaniacs not troubled by his refusal to take a progressive stance on everything from Iraq to Choice to Juvenile Justice?
And now, when what we need is a real debate about policy, all Obama has to offer is the recycled
Hymie Town Jackson and Tawanna Sharpton race card.
The truly sad thing is that HRC is as much a tool as Obama.
Shall we elect the Tool or Fool? Fool or Tool?
Bill and Hill are rapidly becoming a disgrace to the Democratic party.
Their Southern strategy although a little more sophisticated than the Republicans is apparent to anybody who is watching.
I dont think there is anything that this power mad couple would not stoop to.
Hillary so-called 35 years of experience.
Most of it was allowing Bill to hide behind her skirts and fight off Bimbo eruptions.
The Huffington Post reported that an Obama campaign memo sent out to reporters...
According to the Huffington Post report, the document was never "sent to reporters":
In public, the Obama campaign has denied that they are trying to propagate such a perception, noting that the document never was sent to the press.
I think that deserves a fix.
rssrai wrote on January 13, 2008 9:59 AM:Hillary was diminishing MLKs accomplishments and there is no excuse for it period. Bill Clinton is trying to swiftboat Obama by distorting comments that Obama made about the Iraq war when John Kerry was running for president. Bill Clinton should be ashmaed of himself. He is lying to distort a man who could be the greatest president of the United States. Bill Clinton has lied when he was president, and he looks like he hasn't changed his ways. I am ashamed of the Clintons.
Elizabeth wrote on January 13, 2008 10:36 AM:Fact check time:
In Sam Stein's article in the Huffington Post, he states "the Obama campaign has denied that they are trying to propagate such a perception, noting that the document never was sent to the press." --- The post on TPM says "The Huffington Post reported that an Obama campaign memo sent out to reporters appears to be encouraging them to write stories...."
----- Which is it? It makes all sorts of sense that the Obama campaign would list these incidents in order to consider whether they should say or do something about them. It's very different to make such a list and "send it" to reporters. Which was it?
Ah, the Cult of Hillary again trots out the charges of sexism and misogyny. It's easy to see that anything getting in their way will have these insults thrown at them repeatedly. They make me sick. Unfortunate to see that the neocons have the Cult of Bush and the, I'm not quite what to call them yet, have the Cult of Hillary. for whoever has access there's a great article on salon.com by Camille Paglia. I suppose she and all other women not worshipping Hillary are also sexists and misogynists.
DonnaG wrote on January 13, 2008 10:38 AM:I think it is time to get a wider perspective than who is distorting another's words. We are now deep into some hardening of sensibility and loss of flexibility which accompanies the temporary [hopefully] debilitative contractions and knee-jerk flailing which follow assumptions of 'being attacked'.
We have two front runners in the democratic party, both historic candidates by virtue of gender and race. That fact alone should be cause for joy, even if it also brings the obvious uncertainty that comes from entering unknown territory when one of them becomes president, as we hope one will.
Each of us as supporters and voters have an absolutely guaranteed Constitutional right to our personal preference between these two candidates. But, at the same time, the bottom line is that no voter is required to explain or justify their choice, nor any duty to persuade others to join them in their preference. I think we here at TPM EC share a deep concern about our country and our future, and that is our common ground.
This competition between two historic democratic top contenders has devolved here into a nasty scene full of mud-slinging and really unconscionable name-calling to the point of threatening to damage and scar our party, poison our fertile common ground and dim our collective future.
Years ago in a graduate school class in community development, the professor invited us to his home to do an experiment in 'creating' a utopia. We were given a four hour time frame that evening to design and work out the specifics of 'an ideal community' among ourselves. At first, everyone's better self came out and we expressed lots of generalized grand ideas which resonated around the room. But, hey, after a couple of hours, we were fighting each other over details......and folks were getting tight faces and meaner voices and the whole dynamic changed.
I have never forgotten that evening, and the lesson for me was to realize that we harbor within us the seeds of disharmony, exactly opposite of the usually unexamined assumption that the seeds of disharmony come from without.
I think it is time realize that the divisiveness happening in our party could teach us something about how to heal the divisiveness in our nation, if only we can be brave enough to heal ourselves.
Good job of factchecking Elizabeth.
Greg,
you need to make a correction. This is much worse than a simple truncation of a quote that you keep attacking the NY Times for.
Greg,
On the Horse's Mouth, you took the NYT to task for, you say, distorting Sen. Clinton's quote regarding MLK. Yet today, in this post, you say this:
However, The Huffington Post reported that an Obama campaign memo sent out to reporters appears to be encouraging them to write stories saying that the Clintons are using racially charged comments to gain political advantage.
When, in fact, the Huffpo story in question says this:
The memo, which was obtained by the Huffington Post and has been made public elsewhere, is believed to have been given to an activist and contains mostly excerpts from different media reports.
Where do you get the contention they've been circulating it to reporters? If they were, don't you think they'd have given it to Ben Smith at Politco? Evidently, they didn't:
The Obama campaign wouldn't discuss these in detail, and it's not clear to me how widely-circulated they were. When I was working on a story on the subject Thursday, the only research document I got from the Obama campaign was one with a series of his quotes on racial reconciliation. Still, the document does seem well off the campaign's message.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Obamas_Talking_points.html
For that matter, did the Obama Campaign give it to TPM?
Greg, this distinction is important, if only because TPM has made it important. Josh put up a post yesterday pointing out that TPM was being equally abused by the supporters of both campaigns for bias. You put up a post taking the NYT to task for misquoting Clinton on the MLK story. The Clinton spin on this imbroglio is that it is being manufactured by Obama whereas there is every indication that the real anger is coming from the African American grass roots and netroots. If you can't get to the bottom of which is true (if either is true, that is), it behooves you to at least do the conventional journalist thing and give both sides of the issue.
grover_rover wrote on January 13, 2008 11:33 AM:I read her entire quote and I thought it was offensive and disparaged MLK's leadership and achievements that were pivotal to the civil rights movement. It isn't like when the Clintons distort past quotes by Obama, because even with the full quote it was bad and could easily be taken as racist in the AA community. Trying to blame (once again, blame blame blame others) Obama for what people are independently thinking about a bad quote is pathetic.
Obama's campaign has only indicated that there seems to be a pattern of racially insensitive comments out of the Hillary campaign, this only being ONE of many. They weren't targeting this single comment, they were commenting on what many of us have been commenting on, which is a distinct pattern of the Clintons and their surrogates putting racial themes into the race. There is nothing wrong with pointing that out. The Obama camp is right to do so.
sarahNYC wrote on January 13, 2008 12:39 PM:Love this quote from Obama's spokesman:
"I think that Congressman Clyburn and other leaders across the country would take great offense at the suggestion that their response was somehow engineered by this campaign,” Burton said.
mcc wrote on January 13, 2008 2:22 PM:Personally I think the full quote is if anything WORSE than the truncated quote. I wish they'd start running the full quote instead just because if the full quote were provided, then Clinton wouldn't have this "distorting" defense.
arks wrote on January 13, 2008 3:08 PM:One truncated quote deserves another. Bill Clinton, as TPM has pointed out, has repeatedly truncated and misrepresented Obama's 2004 statements about the Iraq War.
PlumWdhse wrote on January 13, 2008 11:51 PM:Folks, this is what High Tech lynching looks like. Bill and Hillary Clinton, not withstanding their 40 years record, are now charged with subtle and subliminal racialism.
Set the cameras and let the pundits roll.
Plum, I disagree. Hillary didn't need to and should have never even gone "there". The whole point of her MLK remark was to dismiss Obama. That's a pretty tawdry reason to inject yourself into a history you had nothing to do with.
It was a stupid and petty point to make, even more so when you consider that at the time Hillary was supporting the Republican who ran against Johnson.
