Lies, lies, and damned distortions
By Kara Owl
Between the lies about "experience" and the distortions about the lack of information about what Obama truly stands for, if you didn't know where to look, you'd never know the truth.
As the televison show once said, the truth is out there, though, and here is a taste.
The truth is, Barack Obama is the candidate with the most practical experience currently running. His 8 years with the Illinois Senate plus his three years with the US Senate trumps both Hillary Clinton's 7 years with the Senate or John Edward's 6 years.
Hillary's claim of 35 years of experience, when examined under a microscope, falls apart. In 1972, she was in law school, and unless she wishes to claim that her experiences in law school were political, that particular claim fails to hold water. She was on the board of Wal-Mart, among others, while her husband was Governor of Arkansas, which would put her in the same position that Dick Cheney resigned to avoid as Vice President.
John Edwards resigned during his first term as a senator to run for president in 2004, and when he failed at his Vice-Presidential bid, began working for the political action committee he founded in 2001. His sum experience as a politician is less than one total term as senator.
The other attack often thrown at the Obama campaign, that he stands for "change" but nothing else, is also an empty one. A simple visit to his website, Barack Obama.com will show you a laundry list of issues with detailed plans to fix the problems inherent in each.
Obama's plan to fix the economy would begin with a tax credit to the working class (including self-employed small business workers), then he would create a universal mortgage credit, expand the earned income tax credit, eliminate income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000, expand the child and dependent care tax credit, and simplify filing of tax returns by giving Americans the option to receive pre-filled tax forms should they desire. And that's just the beginning.
Obama believes that strengthening the economy starts with education-- and his education plan is one that will truly begin at the beginning-- with a Zero to Five plan that he hopes will quadruple the number of children going into Early Head start and he plans to increase funding for Head Start and thus improve the quality of both. He also plans on working to ensure that all children have access to pre-school or some alternative affordable and high quality educational alternative that will ease the burden on families that find it difficult to work and pay for child care at the same time. His goal during his first Presidential term would be to create a Presidential Early Learning Council in order to promote a collaborative program across across federal, state, and local levels.
To Obama, teachers are an invaluable resource that can aid in all of his plans for the economy and education, and he wishes to promote education of current teachers, the development of bright new teachers, and the retention of experienced teacher-mentors with ongoing movements in teacher education, mentoring, and incentives for shared planning and learning time. He would also support service scholarships to recruit and prepare teachers who commit to working in underserved districts, and career pathways that provide ongoing professional development and reward accomplished teachers for their expertise.
Finally, he believes we need to increase our math and science graduates, and encourage our undergraduates studying math and science to pursue graduate studies in order to strengthen our workforce and promote innovation.
This is just scratching the surface of the Obama plan-- a detailed plan for the American people that starts with change that we can all believe in.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Prof. Melissa Harris-Lacewell weighs in on Steinem, feminism, and the gender/race issue in politics...
From DemocracyNow.org
Race and Gender in Presidential Politics: A Debate Between Gloria Steinem and Melissa Harris-Lacewell
In the race for the Democratic nomination, a victory for either Senator Hillary Clinton or Senator Barack Obama—as the first woman or African American Democratic nominee—would be unprecedented in U.S. history. We host a discussion on race and gender politics with feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem and Princeton University Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell.
Transcript is here.
Race and Gender in Presidential Politics: A Debate Between Gloria Steinem and Melissa Harris-Lacewell
In the race for the Democratic nomination, a victory for either Senator Hillary Clinton or Senator Barack Obama—as the first woman or African American Democratic nominee—would be unprecedented in U.S. history. We host a discussion on race and gender politics with feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem and Princeton University Professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell.
Transcript is here.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Editorial
The Personal is Political. What the Democrats need to learn from the Republicans
By Christopher Fung, Ph.D.
It's not news to anyone who's been paying attention to US politics for the last 20 years, but one of the things that the Democrats appear not to understand (and why Republicans since Reagan have been caning the Democrats in national elections up until very recently) is the crucial difference between policy and personality.
For those of us who saw Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" one of the most striking things was the way in which Al Gore as a person came across: wonky sure but also immensely concerned, human and competent. Some reviewers actually went so far as to dub the movie an extended commercial for a possible Gore run at the presidency for 2008. Of course they were wrong, but the point is well made: The Al Gore of "An Inconvenient Truth" was light-years away from Al Gore, Presidential Candidate of 2000 in terms of that elusive but gold-standard term in American politics: likeability. Had Al Gore of 2005 run in 2000 he wouldn't have needed Gore v. Bush to adjudicate the outcome of the election. But of course, this didn't happen. Not because Al Gore the man was different, but because he came across in a more humane and emotionally intelligent way from the focus-grouped middle manager he appeared to be in the 2000 election. Similar arguments can be made about John Kerry in 2004 and are also true for Hillary Rodham Clinton in this election cycle.
It's no accident that the only Democrat to break through the Republican lock on the White House was a man who had immense personal charisma. While Bill Clinton may not have been the "first black president" as some of his boosters have designated him, he was certainly a man who understood image and charm. He connected with people on an emotional level. Whether genuinely or not, George W. Bush was able to do this for enough people to give him the election in 2004 and enough votes to get appointed to office by the Supreme Court in 2000.
THe United States in the late 20th-early 21st century is a nation that has increasingly sought to define itself primarily in personal terms. Social issues are now understood in terms of the ways they affect people personally, your health status is now in the hands of personal trainers, your understanding of the world is defined more and more narrowly by commercial culture, and by the purveyors of folk libertarianism in terms of personal wants and interests. These have even become seen as the engines of evolution via the intellectually problematic, but highly popular rise of evolutionary psychology and radical human sociobiology.
In this kind of terrain, a policy wonk is a candidate with one hand tied behind his or her back. While some of us do pay attention to the issues, it's clear that for many people in the electorate, "the issues" are way too abstract and way too "intellectual" for easy emotional comprehension. And whether we like it or not, emotional comprehension is the actual battleground on which politics is fought in this country.
I'm no great fan of this development. Believe me. As David Edwards says in "Burning all illusions", the primacy of emotionality as the dominant way of thinking about the world has lead to huge levels of self-delusion and consequently our complicity in many, many terrible things. But since this is where people actually are, it would be foolish to act as if people really were better than they are at this specific moment in time. If you want to reach people with a progressive agenda you have to realize that many people will not recognize the merits of the argument on their own because their whole lives have been oriented in exactly the opposite direction for so long that envy, fear, malevolence and ultra-competitiveness have become expected and to some extent "normal".
Barack Obama is important because he has good ideas but he's even more important because he is the one candidate who is able to engage uncommitted American voters on emotional grounds and bring them over to his side. While John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich may have more progressive policies, they are not able to close the deal emotionally with the electorate. And while I like the idea of a woman as president, I have grave doubts over whether Hillary would be a progressive president because she is unable and unwilling to break out of the corporate-driven strategies of the Clinton 42 presidency.
Obama projects interest, he projects vision and he projects a determination to do well by the people he is talking to. HRC may well have many of the same personal qualities but she isn't able to embody those qualities in the same way that Barack Obama can.
This argument is not meant to apply to everyone. It will not work for those who are fully-committed to white supremacy or to robber-capitalism. It does not need to work for real progressives who already understand the importance of a candidate like Barack Obama. But it is VITALLY important to reach those people in the middle who have a vague inkling that something is wrong but have no idea how to go about dismantling the problematic parts of our collective heritage for fear that they would end up losing what small gains they feel they have been able to make.
Enough of these people voted with the wingnut base to give George W. Bush the election in 2004. But rather than adopting Republican-lite policies a la Joe Lieberman and the Democratic Leadership Council, what progressives should be doing is connecting the powerful messages of progressive politics to an emotionally authentic person.
That person is Barack Obama. He has the ability to connect to the folks in the middle, and just possibly convince them that they CAN have prosperity and justice at the same time. It's the emotional possibility of the goal that needs to be worked, not the philosophical righteousness of the position, or the "electability" analyses of the cowering, timorous (and well-paid) corporate shills of the current Democratic establishment.
Twenty-five years ago Ronald Reagan was the focal point of a turning point rightwards in US politics. It's about time true progressives learned to put his tactics to their own uses.
By Christopher Fung, Ph.D.
It's not news to anyone who's been paying attention to US politics for the last 20 years, but one of the things that the Democrats appear not to understand (and why Republicans since Reagan have been caning the Democrats in national elections up until very recently) is the crucial difference between policy and personality.
For those of us who saw Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth" one of the most striking things was the way in which Al Gore as a person came across: wonky sure but also immensely concerned, human and competent. Some reviewers actually went so far as to dub the movie an extended commercial for a possible Gore run at the presidency for 2008. Of course they were wrong, but the point is well made: The Al Gore of "An Inconvenient Truth" was light-years away from Al Gore, Presidential Candidate of 2000 in terms of that elusive but gold-standard term in American politics: likeability. Had Al Gore of 2005 run in 2000 he wouldn't have needed Gore v. Bush to adjudicate the outcome of the election. But of course, this didn't happen. Not because Al Gore the man was different, but because he came across in a more humane and emotionally intelligent way from the focus-grouped middle manager he appeared to be in the 2000 election. Similar arguments can be made about John Kerry in 2004 and are also true for Hillary Rodham Clinton in this election cycle.
It's no accident that the only Democrat to break through the Republican lock on the White House was a man who had immense personal charisma. While Bill Clinton may not have been the "first black president" as some of his boosters have designated him, he was certainly a man who understood image and charm. He connected with people on an emotional level. Whether genuinely or not, George W. Bush was able to do this for enough people to give him the election in 2004 and enough votes to get appointed to office by the Supreme Court in 2000.
THe United States in the late 20th-early 21st century is a nation that has increasingly sought to define itself primarily in personal terms. Social issues are now understood in terms of the ways they affect people personally, your health status is now in the hands of personal trainers, your understanding of the world is defined more and more narrowly by commercial culture, and by the purveyors of folk libertarianism in terms of personal wants and interests. These have even become seen as the engines of evolution via the intellectually problematic, but highly popular rise of evolutionary psychology and radical human sociobiology.
In this kind of terrain, a policy wonk is a candidate with one hand tied behind his or her back. While some of us do pay attention to the issues, it's clear that for many people in the electorate, "the issues" are way too abstract and way too "intellectual" for easy emotional comprehension. And whether we like it or not, emotional comprehension is the actual battleground on which politics is fought in this country.
I'm no great fan of this development. Believe me. As David Edwards says in "Burning all illusions", the primacy of emotionality as the dominant way of thinking about the world has lead to huge levels of self-delusion and consequently our complicity in many, many terrible things. But since this is where people actually are, it would be foolish to act as if people really were better than they are at this specific moment in time. If you want to reach people with a progressive agenda you have to realize that many people will not recognize the merits of the argument on their own because their whole lives have been oriented in exactly the opposite direction for so long that envy, fear, malevolence and ultra-competitiveness have become expected and to some extent "normal".
Barack Obama is important because he has good ideas but he's even more important because he is the one candidate who is able to engage uncommitted American voters on emotional grounds and bring them over to his side. While John Edwards and Dennis Kucinich may have more progressive policies, they are not able to close the deal emotionally with the electorate. And while I like the idea of a woman as president, I have grave doubts over whether Hillary would be a progressive president because she is unable and unwilling to break out of the corporate-driven strategies of the Clinton 42 presidency.
Obama projects interest, he projects vision and he projects a determination to do well by the people he is talking to. HRC may well have many of the same personal qualities but she isn't able to embody those qualities in the same way that Barack Obama can.
This argument is not meant to apply to everyone. It will not work for those who are fully-committed to white supremacy or to robber-capitalism. It does not need to work for real progressives who already understand the importance of a candidate like Barack Obama. But it is VITALLY important to reach those people in the middle who have a vague inkling that something is wrong but have no idea how to go about dismantling the problematic parts of our collective heritage for fear that they would end up losing what small gains they feel they have been able to make.
Enough of these people voted with the wingnut base to give George W. Bush the election in 2004. But rather than adopting Republican-lite policies a la Joe Lieberman and the Democratic Leadership Council, what progressives should be doing is connecting the powerful messages of progressive politics to an emotionally authentic person.
That person is Barack Obama. He has the ability to connect to the folks in the middle, and just possibly convince them that they CAN have prosperity and justice at the same time. It's the emotional possibility of the goal that needs to be worked, not the philosophical righteousness of the position, or the "electability" analyses of the cowering, timorous (and well-paid) corporate shills of the current Democratic establishment.
Twenty-five years ago Ronald Reagan was the focal point of a turning point rightwards in US politics. It's about time true progressives learned to put his tactics to their own uses.
Editorial
The Clintons and the myth of the black community
by Tressie CottomIf I had said it once I have said it two trillion times – there is no such thing as the “black community”.
That is not to say that black Americans do not share a great many social and cultural markers. We do. However, in the world of politics it would be a mistake to think we all share the same left-leaning principalities. We run the gamut from small business owners deathly afraid of mandatory minimum wage increases to green citizens who wants our government to tackle the issues of global warming.
We are not a monolith.
Neither are we children.
In light of the Clinton’s latest guerilla political attacks I find it necessary to assert both of these simple truths.
The 90s were great for America in general and for black Americans in particular. President Bill Clinton became for many of the face of that relative prosperity. Then there is his obvious love of a round ass and soul food. Add all of that up and you get a community happy to, for once, have a president with whom they can identify. We even crowned him, with a wink and smile, our first “black” President.
It would seem Bill didn’t get the wink. Neither did he or Hillary get the notice about black Americans not being foolish children in need of chastising. That is the latest ploy of the Clinton camp as they run against a dynamic, talented, qualified challenger in Barack Obama, you know, the guy who could actually be America’s first black president.
First, Hillary made it clear that civil rights would be nothing without a benevolent white president. She says MLK was great and all but it was Lyndon B. Johnson who made the real difference. From there a shrieking Bill wagged his finger at us and told us not to fall for the slick talking Obama campaign. It would seem we should just trust him on this matter – Barack means us no good for Mr. Clinton certainly provided no logical reasons for why we should not elect him. It would seem his word should be enough?
Then they rolled out one of the wealthiest black Americans, Bob Johnson, to speak that “colored talk” to South Carolina voters. He was also, presumably, charged with painting the Illinois Senator with the crack dealing brush that made his company, BET, one of the financially successful coon shows ever created. Again, black Americans were expected not to ask questions, not to demand substantive proof of any of these claims. We are only to look to the great white hopes and their shiny lawn jockey for direction. “Rest your simple little minds” they seem to be saying to us.
“Screw you buddy” is my eloquent response.
Bob Johnson no more speaks for me than Michael Jordan speaks for the child laborers who make the shoes bearing his name. Even if our community was a monolith Bob Johnson would not be one of us. He left our community long ago, deciding to exploit our images for his own personal gain. Now, that is his right and privilege as an American. As an economics student I can appreciate his hustle. But as a black American I reserve the right to revoke his “black spokesperson” card. When BET Uncut hit the airwaves Bob Johnson ceased to be relevant, if he ever was.
Then there is Bill. While our community is not a block of nameless, faceless sameness we do have some similarities. One of which is the drunk uncle. You know him – Rufus, Leroy, Little Man. He used to be a star running back in high school. Maybe he joined the military and has some benefits thanks to the shrapnel still lodged in his skull. He use to be good looking, had a lot of potential. The ladies loved him, money followed him. He was stylish, the life of the party.
But time has not been kind to your drunk uncle. His mojo don’t pull like it use to. The liquor has left hanging jowls and bitter tirades in its wake. He’s still welcome at the cook-out but people pull the kids closer and hide their purses. He is almost always the last one to leave, reluctant to relinquish this, his last shot at an audience.
Mr. Clinton you are the drunk uncle and while we entertain you no one is much listening to what you have to say. We see you for what you are – an aging statesman who has, perhaps, found Viagra not to be the wonder drug it claims? You are overstaying your welcome and destroying the legacy you had a shot at building. You sound shrill and desperate and condescending. Black America needs your tirade on fairytales about as much as you need to believe in another one. Your chance at Camelot ended with a thick-thighed girl and a stained dress. The only decent thing to do would be to leave before we pack up the potato salad.
And then there is Hillary Clinton. You may be qualified for president. Indeed, I think you are. In another time you may have cake-walked your way into history. But your plans met up with destiny. While you may still win, you are going to have to earn it. You will also have to earn the “black vote”, if there is indeed such a thing. The way to do that does not include telling us how to think. Neither should it include refusing to respect Barack Obama as the worthy candidate he is. You meet equals with bigger guns. You outwork them. You outhustle them. You out politic them. You disparage those you find beneath you.
It would seem you don’t think the senator worthy of your best fought campaign. That is unfortunate. Because one of those other things that seems to run through black communities is our capacity for forgiveness, our ability to see beyond the very race thinking we are so often accused of to see a person as an individual. You had that chance until you refused to extend to us the same courtesy.
We are not a monolith.
We are not children.
We are not bargaining tools.
We are not sheep to be shepharded at the whims of a benevolent leader.
We are Americans.
We are voters.
And I dare to speak for this “black community” of which so many are fond of imagining when I say we look forward to divesting you of all these misconceptions in the voting booth.
Tressie Cottom
www.tressiemc.com
Weekend update...
The real "fairy tale"
Contributed by Paul Collins
During the New Hampshire debates, Barack Obama warned that we should not underestimate the power of words.
He was clearly referring to their positive effect but the Clintons, ironically, have illustrated Obama's point on the negative end of the spectrum.
As Laura Washington writes in the Chicago Sun-Times:
(Full article)
Listen to the words indeed.
The Clintons have spent the past week backpedaling.
Attempting to clean up the mess they made with black voters because of their words.
Beginning with Bill Clinton's tirade at a rally for Hillary in New Hampshire.
Frank James, reporting for The Chicago Tribune, provides the transcript of Bill's rant (along with the oft-replayed video clip):
While Clinton's point was to distort the truth about Obama's opposition to the Iraq war (The Chicago Tribune also provides video of Obama's response to Bill Clinton, setting the record straight), the outburst had the more immediate consequence of appearing to suggest that Barack Obama's entire campaign was a "Fairy tale".
There's a great gem at the end of James' article that draws a comparison to another one of Bill Clinton's famous finger-pointing tirades:
Next came Hillary's poorly worded and altogether ill-advised statement about the roll of President Lyndon Johnson in making the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a reality.
There is a general sense, from both black leaders, and the black community at large, that these remarks appear to diminish the role of Dr. King in the struggle for civil rights, while elevating that of President Johnson.
In both cases, the Clintons have attempted to falsely accuse Barack Obama's campaign for allegedly taking the quotes out of context and putting a negative racial spin on them.
A claim that Obama himself has consistently and truthfully refuted:
Indeed, South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn (among others) rebuked the Clintons for their remarks on his own accord (and with good reason).
As reported by Carl Hulse for The New York Times:
Clyburn continued to keep the heat on the Clintons by releasing an additional statement the following day:
All this is to say that the real "fairy tale" here is the Clintons' belief that they can say and do whatever they wish without paying the price.
Hillary Clinton has learned a hard lesson about the power of words. One that will impact her standings among black voters, not just in South Carolina, but all across the U.S.
Obama currently outpaces her in polls of black voters nationally by enormous margins.
Contributed by Paul Collins
During the New Hampshire debates, Barack Obama warned that we should not underestimate the power of words.
He was clearly referring to their positive effect but the Clintons, ironically, have illustrated Obama's point on the negative end of the spectrum.
As Laura Washington writes in the Chicago Sun-Times:
Their words raised hackles. Apologies followed. We like this Obama guy, they said. We meant no harm, they said. We were misunderstood, they said.
They may have meant one thing. But many will hear something else.
Obama is "the other." He is dangerous. He is hustling, criminal, back-alley black man.
Racial code words are not new to American politics. The Rev. Jesse Jackson joked about "Hymietown." George H.W. Bush trotted out Willie Horton. A campaign ad starred a Playboy-esque blond bombshell beckoning to Senate candidate Harold Ford. George Allen had his "macaca" moment.
This campaign must be different. Hillary Clinton's stunning New Hampshire upset last week came courtesy of her overactive tear ducts, the pundits say.
Obama had just beat Clinton --badly -- in Iowa. She is tired, defeated, maybe afraid.
At a New Hampshire coffee shop, a woman asked if she was OK. Clinton teared up, her voice quavered: "I have so many opportunities from this country, I just don't want to see us fall backward," she replied. "This is very personal for me -- it's not just political, it's not just public."
Listen to the words. "I just don't want to see us fall backward." Backward to what?
To that black man. That black man who beat Hillary. That black man who made the white woman cry.
White New Hampshire voters came to her rescue. Poor Hillary. Don't worry -- we will protect you. We will save you.
Our racial wounds are deep, their impact subliminal. Words have consequences. In these sensitive times, they can activate our most unconscious fears and tap the deepest recesses of our ugly history. Every black man in America knows it. Especially Barack Obama.
Listen to the words.
(Full article)
Listen to the words indeed.
The Clintons have spent the past week backpedaling.
Attempting to clean up the mess they made with black voters because of their words.
Beginning with Bill Clinton's tirade at a rally for Hillary in New Hampshire.
Frank James, reporting for The Chicago Tribune, provides the transcript of Bill's rant (along with the oft-replayed video clip):
"But since you raised the judgment issue, let's go over this again. That is the central argument for his campaign. 'It doesn't matter that I started running for president less a year after I got to the Senate from the Illinois State Senate. I am a great speaker and a charismatic figure and I'm the only one who had the judgment to oppose this war from the beginning. Always, always, always.' "
"First it is factually not true that everybody that supported that resolution supported Bush attacking Iraq before the UN inspectors were through. Chuck Hagel was one of the co-authors of that resolution. The only Republican Senator that always opposed the war. Every day from the get-go. He authored the resolution to say that Bush could go to war only if they didn't co-operate with the inspectors and he was assured personally by Condi Rice as many of the other Senators were. So, first the case is wrong that way."
"Second, it is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, numerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, 'Well, how could you say, that when you said in 2004 you didn't know how you would have voted on the resolution? You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war and you took that speech you're now running on off your website in 2004 and there's no difference in your voting record and Hillary's ever since?' Give me a break.
"This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen...So you can talk about Mark Penn all you want. What did you think about the Obama thing calling Hillary the Senator from Punjab? Did you like that?"
"Or what about the Obama hand out that was covered up, the press never reported on, implying that I was a crook? Scouring me, scathing criticism, over my financial reports. Ken Starr spent $70 million and indicted innocent people to find out that I wouldn't take a nickel to see the cow jump over the moon.
"So, you can take a shot at Mark Penn if you want. It wasn't his best day. He was hurt, he felt badly that we didn't do better in Iowa. But you know, the idea that one of these campaigns is positive and the other is negative when I know the reverse is true and I have seen it and I have been blistered by it for months, is a little tough to take. Just because of the sanitizing coverage that's in the media, doesn't mean the facts aren't out there.
"Otherwise I do not have any strong feelings about that subject."
While Clinton's point was to distort the truth about Obama's opposition to the Iraq war (The Chicago Tribune also provides video of Obama's response to Bill Clinton, setting the record straight), the outburst had the more immediate consequence of appearing to suggest that Barack Obama's entire campaign was a "Fairy tale".
There's a great gem at the end of James' article that draws a comparison to another one of Bill Clinton's famous finger-pointing tirades:
Another problem: when he gets angry as he did Monday night, he reminds people of some of the worst moments of his presidency, especially the infamous, finger wagging performance when he asserted that he didn't have a relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
That's poison for the New York senator's campaign. The downside of the Clinton years and the specter of a repeat of such messy drama in another Clinton White House is what makes many voters reluctant about voting for the senator.
Next came Hillary's poorly worded and altogether ill-advised statement about the roll of President Lyndon Johnson in making the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a reality.
"I would point to the fact that that Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became a reality in peoples lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it, and actually got it accomplished."
There is a general sense, from both black leaders, and the black community at large, that these remarks appear to diminish the role of Dr. King in the struggle for civil rights, while elevating that of President Johnson.
In both cases, the Clintons have attempted to falsely accuse Barack Obama's campaign for allegedly taking the quotes out of context and putting a negative racial spin on them.
A claim that Obama himself has consistently and truthfully refuted:
"This is fascinating to me. I mean I think what we saw this morning is why the American people are tired of Washington politicians and the games they play. But Senator Clinton made an unfortunate remark, an ill-advised remark, about King and Lyndon Johnson. I didn’t make the statement. I haven’t remarked on it, and she I think offended some folks who felt that somehow diminished King’s role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act.
"She is free to explain that, but the notion that somehow this is our doing is ludicrous. I have to point out that instead of telling the American people about her positive vision for America, Senator Clinton spent an hour talking about me and my record in a way that was flat out wrong.
"She suggested that I didn’t clearly and unambiguously oppose the war in Iraq when it is absolutely clear and anyone who has followed this knows that I did. I stood up against the war when she was voting for it, at a time when she didn’t read the intelligence reports or give diplomacy a chance. She belittled the most sweeping ethics reform since Watergate despite the fact that she stood on the sidelines during that negotiations on that bill.
"I have to say that she started this campaign saying that she wanted to make history and lately she has been spending a lot of time rewriting it. I know that in Washington it is acceptable to say or do anything it takes to get elected but I really don’t think that is the kind of politics that is good for our party and I don’t think it is good for our country and I think that the American people will reject it in this election."
Indeed, South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn (among others) rebuked the Clintons for their remarks on his own accord (and with good reason).
As reported by Carl Hulse for The New York Times:
Mr. Clyburn, a veteran of the civil rights movement and a power in state Democratic politics, put himself on the sidelines more than a year ago to help secure an early primary for South Carolina, saying he wanted to encourage all candidates to take part. But he said recent remarks by the Clintons that he saw as distorting civil rights history could change his mind.
“We have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics,” said Mr. Clyburn, who was shaped by his searing experiences as a youth in the segregated South and his own activism in those days. “It is one thing to run a campaign and be respectful of everyone’s motives and actions, and it is something else to denigrate those. That bothered me a great deal.”
Clyburn continued to keep the heat on the Clintons by releasing an additional statement the following day:
“There are many things I have fought for in my life, and first and foremost is my belief that every man, woman and child should be given an equal opportunity to succeed. That is my guiding principal in the upcoming South Carolina Democratic Presidential primary. I told the DNC, the South Carolina Democratic Party and the South Carolina General Assembly that I would do everything I could to ensure this first in the South primary is a success. My position and my focus remain the same, and I have conveyed that to the campaigns of Senators Obama, Clinton and Edwards.
“I encourage the candidates to be sensitive about the words they use. This is an historic race for America to have such strong, diverse candidates vying for the Democratic nomination. I want what is best for South Carolina and the nation – a successful South Carolina primary and a strong Democratic nominee.”
All this is to say that the real "fairy tale" here is the Clintons' belief that they can say and do whatever they wish without paying the price.
Hillary Clinton has learned a hard lesson about the power of words. One that will impact her standings among black voters, not just in South Carolina, but all across the U.S.
Obama currently outpaces her in polls of black voters nationally by enormous margins.
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