|
DEMOCRATS COMMITTING SUICIDE..AGAIN! AS ONE WHO BECAME A DEMOCRAT TO SAVE AMERICA, I PLEAD WITH HILLARY TO ACT PRESIDENTIAL, NOT BILL-LIKE! When will this kind of CAMPAIGN crap AS EXPOSED BELOW stop? ************************************************** To UNSUBSCRIBE from Media Matters for America emails, click here: http://mediamatters.org/users/unsubscribe?u=6944e84b00e81295d2064214dd9b3b9e&rid=1521372. NY Times repeatedly truncated Clinton civil rights comments http://mediamatters.org/items/200801120003As blogger and media critic Greg Sargent noted, a January 11 New York Times article by Carl Hulse truncated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton's January 7 comments about civil rights, omitting Clinton's reference to former President John F. Kennedy. A January 9 New York Times editorial, as well as a January 7 blog post by Sarah Wheaton on the Times' politics blog, The Caucus, and a January 7 blog post titled "Clinton and Obama, Johnson and King" by Politico senior political writer Ben Smith, also omitted the reference to Kennedy. Each of these pieces quoted Clinton saying that "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964" and that "it took a president to get it done." But each of them omitted the middle portion of Clinton's full quote, which was: "I would point to the fact that that Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon 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" .
As Sargent also noted, the full quotation including the reference to Kennedy appeared in a January 11 post in The Caucus.
Smith later repeated Clinton's full comment in a separate post on his Politico blog titled "Clinton, Kennedy, King" and updated his earlier post to provide a link to the later post.
In a January 7 interview, Fox News political correspondent Major Garrett asked Clinton if she would react to a portion of a quote from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama: "False hopes? ... Dr. King standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial looking out over the magnificent crowd, the reflecting pool, the Washington Monument: 'Sorry, guys. False hope. The dream will die. It can't be done.' " Clinton said:
I would, and I would point to the fact that that Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon 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 real in people's lives because we had a president who said, "We are going to do it," and actually got it accomplished.
The Times article, editorial, and January 7 Caucus blog post as well as Smith's January 7 post titled "Clinton and Obama, Johnson and King" all omitted the words "when was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried."
From the January 9 editorial:
In Mrs. Clinton's zeal to make the case that experience (hers) is more important than inspirational leadership (Mr. Obama's), she made some peculiar comments about the relative importance of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Lyndon Johnson to the civil rights cause. She complimented Dr. King's soaring rhetoric, but said: "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. ... It took a president to get it done. "
Why Mrs. Clinton would compare herself to Mr. Johnson, who escalated the war in Vietnam into a generational disaster, was baffling enough. It was hard to escape the distasteful implication that a black man needed the help of a white man to effect change. She pulled herself back from the brink by later talking about the mistreatment and danger Dr. King faced. Former President Bill Clinton, who seems to forget he is not the one running, hurled himself over the edge on Monday with a bizarre and rambling attack on Mr. Obama.
From the January 11 article:
In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Mrs. Clinton, who was locked in a running exchange with Senator Barack Obama, a rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, over the meaning of the legacies of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., tried to make a point about presidential leadership.
"Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964," Mrs. Clinton said in trying to make the case that her experience should mean more to voters than the uplifting words of Mr. Obama. "It took a president to get it done."
Quickly realizing that her comments could draw criticism, Mrs. Clinton returned to the subject at a later stop, recalling how Dr. King was beaten and jailed and how he worked with Johnson to pass the landmark law. Clinton advisers said her first remark had not captured what she meant to convey. And they said she would never detract from a movement that has driven her own public service.
From the January 7 post on the Times' The Caucus blog:
Only a few hours later, she brought up the civil rights legislation herself in remarks to a Fox News correspondent.
Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have been in a running feud arising from her suggestion at Saturday's debate that he was raising "false hope."
Mr. Obama responded that Mr. Kennedy did not decide going to the moon was a false hope and that Martin Luther King, Jr. did not see ending segregation as such.
"Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," Mrs. Clinton said when asked about Mr. Obama's rejoinder by Fox's Major Garrett after her speech in Dover. "It took a president to get it done."
Smith's January 7 blog post titled "Clinton and Obama, Johnson and King" in its entirety:
Clinton rejoined the running argument over hope and "false hope" in an interview in Dover this afternoon, reminding Fox's Major Garrett that while Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on behalf of civil rights, President Lyndon Johnson was the one who got the legislation passed.
Hillary was asked about Obama's rejoinder that there's something vaguely un-American about dismissing hopes as false, and that it doesn't jibe with the careers of figures like like John F. Kennedy and King.
"Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," Clinton said. "It took a president to get it done."
Clinton didn't explicitly compare herself to Johnson, or Obama to King. But it seems an odd example for the argument between rhetoric and action, as there's little doubt which figure's place in history and the American imagination is more secure.
"The power of that dream became real in people's lives because we had a president" capable of action, Clinton said.
The interview was taped, and I listened in. It's set to air later today.
UPDATE: Here's the video.
UPDATE: In Salem this evening, Hillary seemed to be seeking to repair the impression that King hadn't done political work, and to contrast King and Obama.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a movement - he was gassed, he was beaten, he was jailed - and he gave a speeh that was one of the most beautifully, profoundly important speeches ever delivered in America, the "I have a dream" speech.... And hten he worked with President Johnson to get the civil rights law passed, because the dream couldn't be realized until it was legally permissible for people of all races and colors and background to be recognized as citizens.
UPDATE: More on what she said, here.
On January 7, TPM Media editor and publisher Josh Marshall wrote that "the edited quote that's circulating from The Politico is misleading."
In his final update to the post, Smith linked to a separate January 7 post responding to Marshall that contained the full quote from Clinton.
Contact: The New York Times Daniel Okrent, NY Times public editor [email protected] New York Times [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
Clark Hoyt, NY Times public editor [email protected] New York Times [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
************************end************************* HAVE WE NOT HAD ENOUGH OVER THE SWIFT-BOATING OF KERRY? DO WE NOW NEED THE RACE-BOATING OF THE CLINTON-OBAMA PRIMARIES RACE?
IF THERE IS A RACIAL ISSUE BETWEEN CLINTON AND OBAMA THEN LETS TALK IT OUT FAST, HONESTLY AND NOT LEAVE IT AS A WATER TORTURE OF CLINTON AND WATER-BOARDING OF OBAMA. There will be a very sad SECRET rejection of Obama by many WHITE AND LATINO voters because he is black and there are complicated black-white psychological issues Obama's campaign creates, so well stated by Shelby Steele, a back Conservative scholar: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01112008/transcript1.html
So to now add to this word games such as the MediaMatters Blog mentions is to poison the well's precarious amounts of water still left in it: the Democratic Presidential Well.
Today on MEET THE PRESS, Hillary sounded defensively like the "Come Back Kid" himself, Bill Clinton-- obfuscating and attacking and avoiding taking a stand. THAT IS NOT HILLARY. SHE IS REALLY THE LADY WHO EXPLAINED THAT SHE'S IN THIS THING TO AVOID AMERICA CONTINUING TO SLIDE BACK-- let's all remember that. BUT IF "CHANGE" FOR HER MEANS MORPHING INTO BILL, SHE MAY WELL WIN THE NOMINATION BUT, LIKE KERRY, THE NOMINATION CAMPAIGN WILL COME TO HAUNT HER LIKE A DEADLY POISON IN THE ELECTORAL PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN.
It was not easy for me to choose Hillary over Obama. I think Obama will be a great president, especially with an ACTIVIST FIRST LADY LIKE HIS WIFE. But, reading Rove's psychopathic essays in the WALL STREET JOURNAL, I have to admit that criminal dements like Rove have indeed warped, twisted and traumatized the American collective mind as they duped and exploited it. Obama will be seen by too many by now ill Americans as of one side of the many polarized raged warring factions that Rove had created to keep Bush's presidency from defeat and from impeachment. Most Americans can believe Hillary-- especially as a woman who, because she's a woman, reminds them of their mom keeping the typical American family from coming apart; only a woman would bring us together, exactly as Obama so eloquently advocates. Over the next eight years Hillary could really stop the slide she worries about, making America ready for Obama in 2016, for him to lead America in its unified and educated socio-economic take off as a rocket into yet another decade. Just as JFK set up America for the takeoff in technology and civil rights that LBJ led us through (despite the Vietnam War), in 2009 Hillary can make us all see each other as members of one family before Obama leads the family in 2017 out of the darkness. Our re-unification that Obama speaks of so eloquently requires preparation by the uniting genes in a woman's genome rather than all the male polarization that the Republican candidates will be promoting during the Presidential Campaign of 2008. We need a woman president to shame the Congress into mensch so they can have courage and ideals again...And then, our Democrat Moses, Obama, can take us out of the self-destructive ignorant and violent dark middle age bravado Bush has sunken us into; then, AND ONLY THEN, we again can be a leader nation rather than a pariah. But that requires a woman's skill. It requires the holding-the-family-together instincts of a woman that Hillary has, for better or worse, had probably more experience with doing than any other woman in America; the very Hillary, who used the gimmick of a "wide right wing conspiracy" to say to Bill: I will work to save us all from evil, not to forgive, not to forget, your very injurious recklessness. It was, in fact, Hillary who kept the Clinton White House staff from collectively saying: "F---ck you Bill," and walking out.
I would never wish on Obama the task of bringing together the sick and demented middle aged America that Bush leaves behind-- a sort of collective Imus-- back to health. But I think Hillary can heal us back--though that will historically prove to be a thankless task, unappreciated as women usually are. But she wants the job and she is ready to nurse America back to health so that Obama can lead it to renewed vigor as once again a leader with sparking potential. A century from now, people will talk about what Obama did in his post-Hillary eight years as President to raise America out of its Middle Ages, not about the healing so that Obama could do that which Hillary will bring about over the next eight years. Women are indeed taken for granted and invisible, whether as homemakers or President. But if Hillary wants the job-- as she said, not for fame but out of caring-- then, remembering the family-saving job mommies do everyday all over America, I say YES, HILLARY, THANK YOU, WE NEED YOU-- NOW!
It is gravely unfair that Obama-- WHO IS VERY VERY QUALIFIED TO BE THE PRESIDENT OF UNITY AND CHANGE-- should have to pass up the job in 2008 because America now needs a woman's touch and would reject a black leader because racism is the vestige inheritance of the Rove created Bush "compassionate conservatism." I WOULD VOTE FOR OBAMA WITHOUT A BLINK. But I wouldn't want him to be forced into a failed position just because the timing is wrong. I don't want him to be marked as the Black Democrat candidate that made possible a Republican victory-- even when every American hates Bush-- because they chose a Republican so white that he suffers from melanoma who is too old, too weak and too much of a Mr. Gimmick to bring about the changes he really, in his heart, though a Republican, wishes to bring about.
In medicine, students are taught first and foremost: ABOVE ALL DO NO HARM. If you give a patient the wrong drug and not only it doesn't stop the pathology but leaves the patient vulnerable to other illnesses, no matter how dedicated you are to making that patient well, you will be remembered as the wrong doctor who gave the wrong medicine at the wrong time and made the patient worse. DEMOCRATS SHOULD REMEMBER THAT CLINTON, OBAMA AND EDWARDS ARE ALL FANTASTIC POWERFUL MEDICINES, BUT THE VOTER MUST BE GIVEN THE RIGHT PRESIDENTIAL MEDICINE FOR THE RIGHT ILLNESS FROM WHICH SUFFERS AMERICA, AT THE RIGHT TIME. Right now, Obama would be victim of the racism middle aged America uses as an outlet for its frustration and self-doubt because it can't get it up. The immigration issue is a code word for dark skin, which itself is a code word for what makes us sick: BLIND BLAME-- it's the fault of the "others" in America. When a nation of math and science illiterate, lazy and full of get-rich-quick irresponsible parasites calling themselves "entrepreneurs" who suck the life out of America on the assumption that there's a new sucker born every day-- blaming all the legal and illegal immigrants which THEY THEMSELVES ENCOURAGE TO COME TO AMERICA AND DO THE JOBS AMERICANS CAN'T OR WON'T DO (high and low tech), then Americans show disease symptoms with a poor national prognosis. All this is America unwilling and unable to realize that is is getting middle aged and thus not dealing with why it can no longer get it up. We've all been GW Bush high on Viagra, shooting "preemptively." Back when we were young, premature ejaculation led to humiliating derision. You were seen as someone who can't control his own drives, like Bill Clinton. Now we all worry that we can't get there and swallow pills whose side effects we neither know nor care about.
THAT HILLARY STUCK WITH BILL, DEFENDED HIM AND SUPPORTED HIM SO THAT, LIKE CARTER, HE COULD BE TEN TIMES THE MAN AS AN EX-PRESIDENT THAT HE WAS AS A PRESIDENT, BESPEAKS HER SKILL AT STANDING BY HER MAN. IN EXACTLY THAT WAY, WE CAN SEE HER AS PRESIDENT STANDING BY HER COUNTRY TO NURSE US THROUGH OUR RECOVERY OF DIGNITY AND ABILITY IN MIDDLE AGE-- AFTER WE CAN'T GET IT UP ANYMORE.
THERE'S A TRANSITION TO MIDDLE AGE THAT REQUIRES REALIZING WHAT YOU CAN NOW DO BUT COULDN'T WHEN YOUNGER AND HOW MUCH MORE PRODUCTIVE AND SIGNIFICANT IS WHAT YOU CAN DO WHEN MORE MATURE THAN WHAT YOU COULD ONLY DO WHEN ADOLESCENT IN BODY AND MIND. ONCE WE BECOME DISCIPLINED AND GATHERED TOGETHER AS A NATION NURSED BACK TO HEALTH-- HOPEFULLY IN EIGHT YEARS-- I WILL DEVOTE WHAT'S LEFT OF MY LIFE-- IF STILL ALIVE THEN-- TO MAKE OBAMA THE FIRST BLACK AMERICAN PRESIDENT-- NOT BECAUSE HE IS BLACK, BUT BECAUSE HE IS A BORN LEADER WITH A WIFE WORTH HER WEIGHT IN GOLD TO BRING OUT AMERICA'S GREATNESS. BUT, NOW WE NEED HILLARY TO NURSE US THROUGH OUR TRANSITION TO ACCEPTING OURSELVES, OUR LIMITATIONS AND THE EFFORTS WE HAVE TO MAKE TO HEAL OURSELVES AS A GREAT NATION THAT IS VERY, VERY SICK.
BUT I CAUTION HILLARY: she will not be credible as the American Joan of Arc agent of "CHANGE" that we need to save us from ourselves and our ROVE VIRUS if she lets the stupid farts around Bill put the words into her mouth or Bill play "bad cop" to her "good cop" in the campaign against Obama.
ISN'T IT BAD ENOUGH THAT THE VERY "REAGAN DEMOCRATS" THAT CAME BACK TO THE PARTY WILL CAUSE OBAMA TO LOSE THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDACY BY A HAIR, DESPITE HIS MESMERIZING APPEAL AND OBVIOUS BRILLIANCE, ONLY BECAUSE HE IS BLACK. CALLING OBAMA'S LIFE "FAIRY TALES" IS TYPICAL OF THE ONLY KIND OF SLANDER AND OBFUSCATION BILL COULD COME UP WITH TO DRAW ATTENTION AWAY FROM THE CONSEQUENCES OF HIS OVERACTIVE PITUITARY. IN POLITICS, HIS ADVICE IS BASED ON THE ONLY THING HE HAS TO OFFER, ***HIS*** EXPERIENCE, AND IT AIN'T PRETTY...IT CERTAINLY AIN'T ***CHANGE***.
So Hillary, I love you and admire you for your courage and caring so much for America as to become the transition president nurturing us thanklessly back to health so that Obama can follow you and turn healing into rebirth. I will devote day after day to your campaign. BUT PLEASE, STOP LISTENING TO THE ROVE-WANNA-BES AROUND BILL. Try to remember what they all said on C-SPAN the day after Kerry was defeated in 2004. IT WAS ***ALL*** OF BILL'S SCUM BAG ADVISERS WHO PRAISED ROVE AS AN OMNIPOTENT MAGICIAN. IT WAS ***THEY*** WHO INSISTED THAT UNLESS THE DEMOCRATS BECOME ROVE-AND-BUSH-LIKE THEY WILL LOSE.
HILLARY, YOU LISTEN TO BILL AND HIS SCUMBAGS AS A SENATOR AND NOW YOU CARRY IRAQ ON YOUR BACK AS A MUCH HEAVIER SAC THAN DOES MCCAINE. WHEN THE INSURGENTS RAISE OUR WEEKLY CASUALTIES BEFORE THE ELECTION-- PROVING THAT PETREAUS REALLY DID BETRAY US OR WAS A FOOL-- PEOPLE WILL BLAME YOU, NOT MCCAIN BECAUSE HE'S A REPUBLICAN.
35% OF AMERICANS STILL SEE IRAQ AS THE NUMBER ONE ISSUE; BUSH BEAT GORE BY ABRA CADABRA OVER A FEW THOUSAND VOTES....DON'T LET THAT BE YOUR FATE BECAUSE YOU ***STILL*** FOLLOW THE STUPID ADVICE OF BILL'S "EXPERTS" WHO ARGUE THAT YOU HAVE TO PRETEND THAT YOU ARE HARRY TRUMAN IN 1948, TOUGH ON FOREIGN POLICY!
PLEASE, HILLARY, BE YOUR OWN WOMAN AND WIN SO YOU CAN SAVE AMERICA BY NURSING IT BACK TO SANITY IN THESE TIMES OF SELF-DOUBT AND MIDDLE AGED FEAR.
YOU CAN DO IT BUT YOU MUST NEVER ATTACK OBAMA ON RACE AND YOU MUST ALWAYS EXPRESS GRATITUDE TO HIM FOR GIVING YOU THE CHANCE, THE SAME GRATITUDE THAT HE WILL EXPRESS IN EIGHT YEARS WHEN YOU GIVE HIM A HEALTHIER AMERICA TO LEAD.
Daniel E. Teodoru
|