All:

The link is to an NYT Op-Ed by David Brooks, which may well be the most cogent, on-target assessment of the situation that I have read so far.  And note that Brooks is a conservative who is DEFINITELY no Hillary supporter, and I rarely if ever agree with him.

Peace.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/opinion/15brooks.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

He said that she said ... no that’s not right. She said that he said that she said ... uh, that’s not right either. He said that she said that he said that .... oh forget it!

Obama and Clinton supporters trade barbs

Yeh! That’s it!

Meanwhile the war still kills, the nation still struggles, the economy still slides, and sick people keep getting sicker!

Just in case anybody running for president has forgotten ...

The nomination will do the clintons no good.  They are handing the election to McCain with their racist attacks.  Many democrats like McCain and would have no problem voting for him if the clintons choose to destroy themselves.

TO SAVE A LOT OF SPACE CYRENA, I’LL JUST SAY YOU’RE STUPID…PROBABLY WHAT SANTA CLAUS SAYS AS HE RIDES OFF…

The Clinton campaign is a violation of the 22nd amendment because blow job boy will be back in the white house sharing power if they win.  If the country hadn’t been turned into a banana republic in the past eight years people would know that.

Re: Both the Clintons are…

By cyrena, January 14: “It’s time to run the HillBillaries out of dodge. I’m sick of ‘em. Let ‘em take this shit back to Arkansas, and quarantine the whole state…”

You really are going TOO FAR, cyrena. You have not only become rude but foul as well with your own disgusting “shit”.

I don’t know what you are on these days, but “running people out of town” and all those other Dodge City/Wild West/KuKluxKlan terms are really NOT WELCOME.

The fact that they are coming from a black person on Truthdig who once stood up for truth and justice and honesty is peculiar, to say the least.

Nobody has said such things about Obama - but they, and you, seem to have no hesitataion in saying it about Hillary, cowardly as it is.

I’m personally sorry to have to hear it all from you…...

“Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson, while stumping for Clinton, made a thinly veiled reference to Obama’s admitted drug use…”

Johnson said it so Hillary must be guilty, uhh. Talk about “launching a personal, divisive attack”. It is Hillary who is being made the victim, it is SEXISM at the root of it all and it is being made to sound like a proposed lynching!

What was wrong with having a white president helping to finally realize King’s “dream”? Oh, we are NOT allowed to talk about it - we are NOT allowed to have an opinion about it! Talk about misrepresentation and mischaracterization…. the dream must remain a dream.

We only have to go back to recent topics that already discussed here on Truthdig how Obama’s Iraq speech was essentially pro-war. Hillary has pointed that out and BO has sidestepped the facts, recoloring them to suit himself. Are we going to have the same arguments over and over again???

Perhaps the problem is really that the black community is finding itself divided over Hillary and Obama and are now starting to feel rather uncomfortable about it. Instead of being - or being able to be - forthright about it, they suddenly have discovered a lot of personal and community baggage of their own to disentangle.

Frank Cajon

I agree with this 100%

•  Obama’s even-keeled, on task response shows that despite my lack of real admiration for his candidacy there is light-years of class between him and Billary. If only Kucinich had some of this guy’s charisma, there would be a legitimate candidate with some real ideas and a chance to win out there. But, alas, no…

BUT, ya know what? At this point, I say DAMN the charisma, I’m voting for Kucinich anyway. Hell, take a chance. Obama can be his VP, and then he’ll get a chance to put his money where his mouth is.

It’s time to run the HillBillaries out of dodge. I’m sick of ‘em. Let ‘em take this shit back to Arkansas, and quarantine the whole state. They could even throw in the rest of the south for all I care.

As Mr. Reagan used to say, “There you go again.” This is now the fourth time I have seen this incorrect and inflammatatory claim: “and calling Obama’s political career a ‘fairy tale’.”

If you watch the video, and listent to the statement in context, it is clear that BC is referring ONLY to Obama’s position on the Iraq War and NOT to his entire “political career.”  Get your facts straight.

As for the King/Johnson flap, the following is from Sean Wilentz’ article in The New Republic:

“In a pair of television interviews earlier this week, Clinton made the uncontroversial historical observation that Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement put their lives on the line for racial equality, and that President Johnson enacted civil rights legislation.

“Her point was simple: Although great social changes require social movements that create hope and force crises, elected officials, presidents above all, are also required in order to turn those hopes into laws. It was, plainly, a rejoinder to the accusations by Obama that Clinton has sneered at “hope.” Clinton was also rebutting Obama’s simplistic assertions about “hope” and the American Revolution, the abolition of slavery, and the end of Jim Crow.

“The historical record is crystal clear about this, and no responsible historian seriously contests it. Without Frederick Douglass and the abolitionists, black and white (not to mention restive slaves), there would have been no agitation to end slavery, even after the Civil War began. But without Douglass’s ally in the White House, the sympathetic, deeply anti-slavery but highly pragmatic Abraham Lincoln, there could not have been an Emancipation Proclamation or a Thirteenth Amendment. Likewise, without King and his movement, there would have been no civil rights revolution. But without the Texas liberal and wheeler-dealer Lyndon Johnson, and his predecessor John F. Kennedy, there would have been no Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“Hope, in other words, is necessary to bring about change—but it is never enough. Change also requires effective leadership inside government. It’s not a matter of either/or (that is, either King or Johnson), but a matter of both/and.”

Peace.

Both the Clintons are, at the end of the day, Arkansas Democrats who were raised in a racist culture and slip back into that belief system often enough whenever going off-script. It should surprise no one that they pull in an African-American today to TV-smear Obama after they step in the verbal dog crap of their own making crediting LBJ with the Civil Rights accomplishments of Dr King and calling Obama’s political career a ‘fairy tale’. These are two people who are so immune to original, truthful ideas that I am frankly surprised it took this long for them to go below the belt and whip out the race card. Obama’s even-keeled, on task response shows that despite my lack of real admiration for his candidacy there is light-years of class between him and Billary. If only Kucinich had some of this guy’s charisma, there would be a legitimate candidate with some real ideas and a chance to win out there. But, alas, no…

Cyrena:

Once again, you don’t do the research, so your fact-challenged diatribes only make you look silly:

“Paul Krugman is a professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University…He earned a Ph.D. from MIT in 1977 and taught at Yale, MIT, UC Berkeley, the London School of Economics, and Stanford University before joining the faculty of Princeton University, where he has been since 2000…Krugman is well known in academia for his work in trade theory, which provides a model in which firms and countries produce and trade because of economies of scale…”

Yes, he is an economist.  A very highly respected one, too.

As for Goldwater, repetition of a statement does not make it true, so you can stop repeating your fact-challenged mantras.  I have provided the FACTS about Goldwater, and what he actually DID, rather than the kind of broad-brush smearing that ideologues like you engage in.

Nice try.

Peace. (porridge hot…)

FACTS STRAIGHT?

Like, Paul Krugman is an ECONOMIST?

You’re a joke Maani. And, it doesn’t take long for anybody posting here, to figure that out.

You should get out of the lecture business, for the purposes of distoring information, and slathering on innuendo.

We know that Hillary was a Goldwater supporter, and we know that Goldwater was basically a racist. Period. He was NOT in favor of Civil Rights issues, in so far as they assisted full equality for the then very marginalized black population of America. (not to suggest that the black population hasn’t remained marginalized).

So, I don’t know how much the Clinton campaign is paying you for this troll activity, but take a message back to the camp. You’re starting to piss us off, which means that your efforts are likely to backfire.

Sforb:

You said, “Bill Clinton insinuated that Obama running for President is some sort of fairytale.”

Nope.  If you watch the video and listen to what he says in context, he was speaking solely of Obama’s position on the Iraq War, and the way BO has milked it, despite the fact that his actions don’t fully support his words (i.e., his votes in the Senate, etc.).

Re the Hillary/King/Johnson flap, you say, “The President at that time had no choice but to sign the civil rights bill.”

Poppycock.  A president never HAS to sign ANY bill, no matter how mcuh popular support there is for it.  History provies this over and over.  Hillary’s wording may have been unfortunate, but her point was true.

troublesum:

You say, “A few years ago Hillary made a derogatory comment about the fact that so many service stations in NY are run by Indians.”

Nope.  Get your facts right.  Hillary was giving a speech at a fund-raising dinner and mentioned Gandhi.  When she saw some blank faces, she joked, “You know, he ran a gas station down in St. Louis.”  There was some laughter and applause, but she following it immediate with, “No, Mahatma Gandhi was a great leader of the 20th century.”

Certainly a faux pas as a bad joke, but hardly something to get all up in arms about unless one is obsessively and absurdly P.C.

You also say, “Clinton asserted that she first heard Martin Luther King speak when she was 14 and from then on he was one of the people she admired most in the whole world.  She neglected to mention that someone else she admired at the time was Barry Goldwater who despised King and voted against every piece of civil rights legislation which came his way during his senate career.  She even went to work on his ‘64 presidential campaign.”

Do you know ANYTHING about history?  Goldwater was among the first to support the NAACP, and worked to desegregate the Arizona National Guard.  He supported the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, as well as the consitutional amendment banning the poll tax.  It is true he opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but did so on grounds other than its furthering freedoms for blacks.  Hillary did work on his 1964 campaign anyway, believing that he would change his mind, since he had supported the previous two Civil Rights Acts.  Thus, she could very well have admired both King and Goldwater at the time without philosophical conflict in that regard.

This is not to say that Goldwater was a particularly sympathetic figure in American politics, given his role in creating the conservative movement.  But let’s make sure we have our facts straight before making statements like the one you made.

Peace.

I saw Meet the Press on Sunday.  It was vintage Clinton.  We are supposed to “get it” that the Clintons are not racist regardless of anything they say or do.  A few years ago Hillary made a derogatory comment about the fact that so many service stations in NY are run by Indians (Hindus).  We were supposed to “get it” that that was not a racial slur.  This seems to have been going on for a long time.  In her dust up with Russert, Clinton asserted that she first heard Martin Luther King speak when she was 14 and from then on he was one of the people she admired most in the whole world.  She neglected to mention that someone else she admired at the time was Barry Goldwater who despised King and voted against every piece of civil rights legislation which came his way during his senate career.  She even went to work on his ‘64 presidential campaign.  Russert, who undoubtedly knows that she supported and worked for Goldwater in ‘64, did not ask her why if she admired King so much she wanted to help elect a man who strongly opposed everything King stood for.  She said recently that “It took Lyndon Johnson to make King’s dream a reality” and of course it was Johnson whom she was working against in ‘64.  But we are deep into Clinton territory here and we are just supposed to “get it.”

Tired of these Clinton’s Obama did not accused the Clinton’s of racism, they brought the issue of race into focus during the New Hampshire primary.  Bill Clinton insinuated that Obama running for President is some sort of fairytale.  Hillary Clinton realizing that her chances of winning New Hampshire primary was dwindling away, stated that the civil rights bill did not pass because of Martin Luther King efforts, but basically because it took a politician (President) to actually sign the bill.  She seemed to forget without King’s mobilization of people, I mean all people, blacks, whites, Jews, Hispanics etc. we would not have such a bill today.  The President at that time had no choice but to sign the civil rights bill, that is what movements are all about people organizing to create change.  I’m a registered democrat, and I realize now the Clinton’s would do anything to get back into the White House, but as far as I’m concerned if Hillary Clinton wins the nomination I will vote for other democrats running on the party line, but I will not give Hillary Clinton my vote, my vote for President will go for the Republican nominee whoever is the candidate, I can’t stand the crap these Clintons are doing.

SF

This is going to be the future of Democratic Party politics.  If issues of class are not allowed, the future will be identity politics instead.  It’s going to get wild.

Will we ever get any relief from the Clintons?

WHAT I’D LIKE TO KNOW IS WHY DOSEN’T OBAMA BUY HIS GRANDMOTHER IN KENYA A BETTER RADIO TO LISTEN TO ??SHE SHOULDN’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO AN OLD PANASONIC TO HEAR HER GRANDSON….WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MATERNAL SIDE OF THE FAMILY ?????