Alright … who dissed Dr. King? We have a bona-fide, life-enhancing public discourse going on right now between Hillary and Obama with a side of Bill (Clinton) jumping into the mix here and there (although I think Bill sort of backed off after being called to account for his ‘fairy tale’ remark by Al Sharpton). The following is an edited Tongue-In-Cheek transcript of a sound-bite conversation that has been going on between Hillary and Obama. Until now, dear reader, you have had to wait until the next day’s paper to find out what one said in response to another. As a public service to the informed voter, I have assembled the latest conversation and its bits and pieces into one easy-to-read format. I hope you find it as informative as I did.
Hillary: “Yes, you did ..”
Obama: “Nuh-uh”
Hillary: “I am more …”
Obama: “Nuh-uh … me.”
Hillary: “You don’t get it …”
Obama: “Oh yeah? YOU don’t get it!”
John Edwards: “But, but …”
Hillary: “Nuh-uh … YOU!
Obama: “Oh no she didn’t!”
Bill: “She didn’t say that; I did. But that’s not what I really said. The general public is not intelligent enough to understand me. I was misquoted. I was taken out of context. I am misunderstood. I’m way more black than he is!”
Well, I think you get the point. At least I hope you got the point, that being that these two (well, three if you count John Edwards) are SERIOUS contenders for the Democratic nomination. People are actually getting in line to vote for these people and what’s worse: they both currently serve in the US Senate. To be fair, however, we must also realize that some dialogue between two or more of the Republicans can be as easily reduced to such a level, but there seems to be no current spitting match among the Republicans over who is the “blacker” candidate.
Primaries in the south will be make-or-break contests for those who are barely holding on. In fact, these early primaries may well end two or more campaigns depending on the outcome. Political campaigns operations issues are not what is at stake here, however. The fact that there has been such a low level of discourse between Hillary and Obama each trying to stake some sort of political and/or racial claim to Dr. Martin Luther King and the movement he led indicates to me that these candidates and their political operatives really do have a low opinion of the intellect of the typical American voter. It is also very clear that as each of these “top” candidates has been very pointed in accusations against President Bush as the cause for divisiveness in this county, they are doing their level best to divide voters by color. Of course each will take whatever “white” votes they can get, but they really … really …. REALLY want the “black” vote. And to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure what that is. Don’t we all essentially want the same things?
I had hoped that the certain positive thing that might come from this race with Hillary and Obama would be that color would not play into it since there is a serious contender who is not white. Yet it did, and they each fell into a public spitting match, from what I can gather, about who knew more about Dr. King’s part in the fight for civil rights. And Mr. Clinton jumped into the fray by insisting that it took a white, Democratic president to get the job done. Is he serious about trying to lead us to believe that President Johnson single-handedly passed this ground-breaking legislation? President Johnson was no more alone in this landmark than was Dr. King (let us not forget that Dr. King was not walking alone all those times). How did it come to this, and where will it go from here?
I can’t wait to see.
2 comments:
It was a stupid, stupid move by the Clintons. A White person playing a race card against a Black person. What were they thinking?
The more I read about this silly exchange, the more I can see that they all went overboard and it all seemed to start with Mr. Clinton's "fairy tale" remarks regarding Obama's opposition to the Iraq war which seemed to have been misconstrued as a "diss" against black Obama's candidacy. It is just more example of too many people walking around with a chip on their shoulders just daring someone to knock it off.
In my opinion, however, Hillary went over the top by trying to claim that President Johnson alone was solely responsible for that legislation. She failed to mention that it came from the US Congress and that northern Republicans had to overcome southern Democrats to get the necessary, veto-proof votes. It did not "take a president to get it done". He was just the final stop.
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