From Daily Kos
In her efforts to take a leak on the idea of hope--because it benefits Barack Obama--Hillary Clinton decided that she needed to minimize the role that Martin Luther King Jr., and by extension African-Americans, played in securing their own civil rights.
The context, of course, lies in Clinton's regrettable statement from last Saturday's debate:
"We don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered."
Obama, not being a stupid politician, pounced.
Obama challenged Clinton's claim in a weekend debate that he was raising "false hopes" about what he could deliver for the country. Obama told his audience that hope made President Kennedy aim to put a man on the moon and Martin Luther King Jr. to imagine the end of segregation.
"If anything crystallized what this campaign is about, it was that right there," Obama said of Clinton's comment in the debate. "Some are thinking in terms of our constraints, and some are thinking about our limitless possibilities."
Well, Clinton had her chance to respond, and oh boy did she deliver up a doozy:
"Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act. It took a president to get it done. The power of that dream became real in people's lives because we had a president capable of action."
Just how awful is this, on so many levels? "It took a President to get it done?"
NO.
It took a nation to get it done. It took a mass uprising to get it done. It took brave men and women to brave Bull Connor's thugs, firehoses, and dogs. It took an overriding popular will to see it throught. It took courage. It took inspiration. It took the the blood of martyrs and patriots.
It took a movement.
And the implication here is that African-Americans didn't make it happen, but rather that the nice white father figure in Washington got it done for them.
Get her off the national stage before she disgraces herself any further.
1 comment:
I don't mean to disagree with you because the way Clinton put it wasn't the best way to say it, but I think what she meant was that President Johnson helped in completing the dream by signing the Act. What would have happened to that Act if it were sitting on the current administrations desk? Do you think the current person in the White House would sign that Act. I think that with what happened with Katrina it is a good possibility that it would have collected a lot of dust before being vetoed.
I believe that is what she meant. But, the more I hear her speak the more I realize that my father is so right about people. I would rather have a President who has common sense than one who has book smarts and lacks common sense.
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