Sunday, January 13, 2008

Hillary Clinton Keeps Digging That Hole Deeper

The Clinton's appear to attack Obama, in a not so subtle way, the black community speaks out publicly saying they took offense, Bill Clinton goes on Al Sharpton's show to try to minimize the damage and ends up saying publicly that Obama might win with his campaign and in a desperate attempt to undo the damage, Hillary Clinton goes on Meet the Press and blames Obama?

Will either Clinton ever learn, first, to accept some personal responsibility for things they say and second, to stop digging a hole they created and making it deeper and harder to get out of?

Doubtful.

You can go to YouTube and see the videos of Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton for yourself.

Even giving them the full benefit of the doubt and running with the assumption that they were just carelessly made remarks that were taken wrong by the black community (which isn't my take, but for the sake of argument, lets just say all that is true), criticisms came from a variety of places, one of which Jim Clyburn, one of the leading Democrats in South Carolina and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus,that expressed "disappointment" in the Clinton campaign over what she had said as well as former President Clinton's remark in New Hampshire about Obama telling a "fairy tale" in his opposition to the Iraq war.

The State, South Carolina's largest newspaper said:

Sharp criticism of Barack Obama and other comments about Martin Luther King Jr. — all from people associated with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign — have generated resentment among some black S.C. voters.


Representative Bakari Sellers a 23-year-old legislator says he is angry about Clinton's remarks "I think those comments were insensitive. I think they showed a lack of concern about the struggles of African-Americans. I thought those comments were inappropriate."

Sellers is an Obama supporter.

Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr., Democrat of Illinois and an Obama supporter has also taken issue with the Clinton's remarks.

“Following Barack Obama’s victory in Iowa and historic voter turnout in New Hampshire,” Mr. Jackson said in a statement, “the cynics unfortunately have stepped up their efforts to decry his uplifting message of hope and fundamental change.”

Many have come out criticizing Hillary and Bill's comments, all except Barack Obama, which is why when Hillary Clinton says that Barack Obama was “deliberately distorting” her remarks, it is completely disingenuous and deliberately inaccurate and that type of attack is meant to do nothing more than try to duck the responsibility that she and her husband made remarks that offended members of the black community.

At this point it doesn't even matter whether they were trying to subtly use the race card, or whether their comments were misconstrued or not, the fact of the matter is: members of the black community were offended.

Period.

“This is, you know, a, a — an unfortunate story line that the Obama campaign has pushed very successfully,” she said. “They’ve been putting out talking points. They’ve been making this — they’ve been telling people, in a very selective way, what the facts are.”


Then she makes a clear accusation "Clearly, we know from media reports that the Obama campaign is deliberately distorting this. It is such an unfair and unwarranted attempt to, you know, misinterpret and mischaracterize what I’ve said.”

Does she have a clue how deep that hole is that she continues to dig?

Finally, after her attempt to attack Barack Obama on Meet The Press, Obama responds in a conference call after her appearance:

“What we saw this morning is why the American people are tired of Washington politicians and the games they play,” he said. “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."

Obama expressed incredulity that, he said, he was being blamed for Clinton’s “ill-advised remark” and said that any suggestion that he hadn’t fully opposed the Iraq war was “flat-out wrong.”


Instead of trying to blame Obama for something that Bill and Hillary did, perhaps Hillary should learn what the words "personal responsibility" means and start taking responsibility for their own words and actions.

Here is the full Meet The Press transcript to read for yourself.

Quick reminder if you didn't see my previous piece, more trouble between the Obama campaign and the Clinton campaign, by proxy, is happening in a political court battle in Nevada leading into the Nevada caucuses.

Get your popcorn out folks because this is just getting started and it is already very ugly.

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