The Race Turns to Race

With the African American vote in South Carolina teetering in the balance, Hillary Clinton did a surprisingly dumb thing:  she did what could be interpreted as deprecating Dr. Martin Luther King.

Mrs Clinton, trying to make a point about presidential leadership and Mr Obama’s constant references to Dr King, the civil rights icon, said: “Dr King’s dream began to be realised when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.”

If she was trying to tar Obama with the "empty rhetoric" brush, to which he is vulnerable, she picked the wrong example.  MLK wasn't a perfect saint, as we now know (psst -- Ruth Anne has told me actual saints ain't), but he put his life on the line.  He was a man of far more than words.  The eloquence of his words was given wings by his courageous actions.  And President Johnson could never have gotten the Civil Rights Act through Congress without the very real national change of heart wrought by Dr. King. 

The Clintons had a lot of African American voters on their side until that  astonishingly tone-deaf moment.  This morning, they are being scolded on the morning talk shows by many black luminaries.  Bill Clinton calling Barack Obama's claim to steadfast Iraq war opposition a "fairy tale" isn't helping either, although in that case you can argue hypersensitivity on one side more strongly than insensitivity on the other -- some black commentators took "fairy tale" as a dismissal of Obama's entire campaign.  Bill insists it's no such thing:

"There's nothing 'fairy tale' about his campaign. It's real, it's strong, and he might win," Clinton said in a phone interview for the Rev. Al Sharpton's Radio One network talk show.

Senator Obama should not be immune to strong challenge and criticism just because of his hue.  Such delicacy would, in fact, be racist.  But can you blame African Americans for being hypersensitive to subtext?  And do you think they're onto something here?

Comments

[Elyas]

I wonder it the Clintons are trying to subtly bait Obama into "playing the race card." Many voters are turned off by the Sharpton/Jackson style of race politics, and Obama has been able to successfully avoid making race a focal point of his campaign.

[jason]

What an unfortunate remark. She--unintentionally or not--took her own bait and drove the nail right into the race coffin. The question is whether or not it will be seen/heard that way amongst the voters she's trying to woo.

[peterhoh]

I thought it took a village. Now she wants to claim it takes a president?

[Meade]

Another part of her problem in this that I haven't heard mentioned is that the thing for which LBJ is best remembered is not his efforts to pass civil rights legislation. He was the "peace candidate" who botched Vietnam.

ps: Outstanding photo at the top, Annie!

[amba]

Glad y'all like it! My brother Ally has a great camera, a good eye, AND he's a lucky S.O.B. I especially like the figure on the left that looks like Kokopelli. I'll post a picture of him.

[Simon]

I'm sorry, but there's just no way that I can comprehend by which one can get from what Clinton actually said to the idea that she was running down Dr. King. I'm about as far from a Clinton apologist as you can get, but this meme is absurd and I have to assume can only spring from taking in good faith what turns out to be misrepresentative of what she actually said.

It does not insult Dr. King or those who put their lives on the line to point out that the civil rights act required Congress and the President to act. As Sean Willentz puts it here, what Clinton actually said "was simple: Although great social changes require social movements that create hope and force crises, elected officials, presidents above all, are also required in order to turn those hopes into laws. It was, plainly, a rejoinder to the accusations by Obama that Clinton has sneered at 'hope.' Clinton was also rebutting Obama's simplistic assertions about 'hope' and the American Revolution, the abolition of slavery, and the end of Jim Crow." If mere wishes and mass movements could enact legislation, we would be out of Iraq - and we aren't, because Clinton is entirely correct that Congress and the Presidency matter. And as Earl Hutchinson puts it, "[t]he Obama camp ... manufactured yet another issue out of a non-issue." The politics of "hope"? More like the politics of "I hope no one checks the actual transcript."

[amba]

If that's the case, one little word could have saved her a**, and that word is "also." It also took a president (and Congress). Either would be necessary but not sufficient.