HispanicVista Columnists

Black Star News Editorial
March 20th, 2008

A front-page article in today's New York Times under the headline "Clinton Facing Narrower Path To Nomination," lends credibility to suspicions by some in the Black community that Senator Hillary Clinton's operatives may have had a hand in the dissemination of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright tape and the ensuing controversy.

It would not be surprising to us at all if that were the case.

Clinton certainly intends to exploit the controversy, even at the expense of exacerbating race relations in this country. She is worse than any of the old Southern red neck politicians; extremely despicable because she pretends to be a progressive liberal.

At least the red necks made their views and intentions clear.

Here's a quote from the Times article if anyone still had doubts about the danger Clinton poses to the Democratic Party and race harmony in this country (page A20): "Mrs. Clinton's advisers said they had spent recent days making the case to wavering super delegates that Mr. Obama's association with Mr. Wright would doom their party in the general election."

This is beyond race-baiting. We would hope some of the superdelegates vomited when they got off the phone with the Clinton operatives.

The implication here is that, despite what Obama said in his brilliant speech on Tuesday in which he strongly denounced Rev. Jeremiah Wright's remarks, Senator Clinton still wants to peddle the big lie that Obama share's Wright's views; especially the snippets promoted on the YouTube video.

Ironically, former Republican candidate Mike Huckabee had more class, saying, of the controversy: "…As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say 'That's a terrible statement!'...I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to cut some slack -- and I'm gonna be probably the only Conservative in America who's gonna say something like this, but I'm just tellin' you -- we've gotta cut some slack to people who grew up being called names, being told 'you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus...'"

Huckabee also added, "Decency is an underrated virtue in American politics. Not just ethically, but politically, too. If Hillary Clinton had walked in front of the press and forcefully denounced their constant coverage of Wright, noting that all of them had heard Obama lay out his political opinions in exquisite detail for a year now, and they knew better, how much stronger a political position she'd be in right now. The good cop doesn't only play good cop because he's a nice guy. It also helps elicit a confession."

How ironic that Clinton has quickly forgotten how African Americans bailed her and her husband out when some of the White community literally disowned the couple. Her husband had brought shame upon the White House when he sexually molested the intern Monica Lewinsky in the Oval office----10 times, we now learn, from Clinton's recently released documents from the National Archives.

Senator Clinton thinks she's insulated from adverse consequences from her race-baiting and smear campaigns simply because some prominent Black individuals such as Rep. Charlie Rangel, Rev. Calvin Butts, and former New York mayor David Dinkins are on her side.

Indeed, earlier this week, her husband Bill Clinton denied that he denigrated Senator Obama's South Carolina victory when he implied it was no big deal since another Black candidate, Jesse Jackson, had also won there: He told a T.V. interviewer that Charlie Rangel "the most important" Black politician had exonerated him.

The Clintons' blatant racism is only matched by their cynicism. This is what's come from the Clintons so far:

First they had a campaign official, Bill Shaheen, suggest that Obama may have been a drug dealer; they then had an acolyte, New School University President Bob Kerrey, claim Obama had been trained in a madrassa; they then sent the picture of Obama wearing the traditional Somali Islamic attire to the Drudge Report, according to Drudge himself; they darkened Obama's features in a commercial used by the Clintons; in the sinister "red phone" commercial, Harvard professor Orlando Patterson in a New York Times Op-ed credibly suggested that, by showing the sleeping white girl, they may have wanted to create the impression of danger in the form of a Black man lurking somewhere; responding to a question in a "60 Minutes" interview, Clinton maliciously said Obama was not a Muslim "as far as" she knew, when Senator Obama has categorically repeated numerous times that he is a Christian; then came the Geraldine Ferraro slur; and now, Clinton's peddling the Wright controversy.

Should Clinton use race-baiting to scare superdelegates into supporting her to steal the nomination from Barack Obama if he ends up with the most pledged delegates, the Obama coalition of hope –Blacks, Whites, Latinos, Asians, young voters, independents and even Obama Republicans-- must promote an independent candidacy by Obama. Absent a run as an independent, the coalition should consider supporting John McCain; their participation would transform the Republican Party.

Senator Clinton can't match Obama on ideas and vision. To succeed, she needs America to remain mired in racism and race politics.

Unchecked, she will destroy the Democratic Party and enhance the Republican Party.

Senator Clinton's brand of politics must be denounced, rejected and repudiated.