In a call on Friday to Al Sharpton’s nationally syndicated talk radio show, Mr. Clinton said that his “fairy tale” comment on Monday about Senator Barack Obama’s position on the Iraq war was being misconstrued, and that he was talking only about the war, not about Mr. Obama’s overarching message or his drive to be the first black president.
“There’s nothing fairy tale about his campaign,” Mr. Clinton said. “It’s real, strong, and he might win.”
I understand in politics one has to watch every word that comes out of their mouths and sometimes a politician (ok more than just sometimes, but often) simply trips over their own tongue and to see the Clinton campaign that enjoys using the "gender card" at every available opportunity, get called out on the race card, seems ironic and amusing.
When trying to dig yourself out of a hole, whether that hole was justly dug or not in the first place, it behooves a person not to make the hole deeper and I cannot imagine how Bubba's mouth managed the words "He might win" in relation to Obama.
Mr. Clinton’s fairy tale line and a comment by Mrs. Clinton that some interpreted as giving President Lyndon B. Johnson more credit than the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for civil rights laws have disturbed African-Americans, who saw them as unfair and diminishing the role of civil rights activists. The frustration comes as a Jan. 26 Democratic primary looms in South Carolina, where up to half of the Democratic electorate could be black.
Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina and the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, said this week that he was disappointed in the comments, a worrisome matter for the Clintons since an endorsement of Mr. Obama by Mr. Clyburn could carry weight in the primary.
Will politicians ever learn to say as little as possible at a critical time?
Doubtful.
Many of the battles I am seeing fought the hardest are battles I truly believed would be between Republicans and Democrats after their respective nominees had been chosen, but I see that I underestimated the level of stupidity of the Democratic campaigns and especially Hillary Clinton's campaign where her foot has been IN her mouth far more times over the last few months than it has been OUT of her mouth.
At this point she is simply taking one foot out to replace it with the other and amazingly enough, Bill is doing it too.
Outside the Beltway makes a point that their comments, while seeming to worry members in the black community, were not said with malice and could have been misconstrued, but if that was the case, why not let it doe a natural death instead of making it worse?
By the way, both statements can be found, on video, over at Outside the Beltway, look for yourself and decide if those are deliberate cuts to the black community or whether it was just ignorant phrasing without intended malice.
I tend to think that the Clinton's are trying to use race against Obama, but of course, they are trying to do it in such a "subtle" manner as to not have it be apparent and they got called on it and are now trying to do damage control and failing miserably at that too.
At this point it is snowballing out of control with buzz all around the blogosphere, news articles being written and it is developing a life of its own at a very crucial time....right before the South Carolina primary on Jan. 26.
Statements from Obama and Clyburn can be found at The Caucus.
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