The media created the racial problem between Clinton and Obama

[Quixote1818]

Hillary's exact words:

"Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President 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," she says. "That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became a real in peoples lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it, and actually got it accomplished."

How media reported the comments. This was also how they were presented her on DU the other day:


"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."

[DURHAM D]

1. Honestly, I think Hillary's problem is that she assumes too much.

She assumes that voters and citizens have more knowledge of history than they do. She assumes people can put comments into context - that they have accessible information stored in their personal data banks.

To me this whole thing has highlighted the failures of our educational system and the press.

Back to the drawing boards.

Two hundred and thirty years and the wonderful goal of an informed electorate seems to be nothing more than a failed experiment.

[FrenchieCat]

2. Why make the coment? A week shy of MLK's Birthday?

What was the purpose of the comment? :shrug:

[wiley]

3. You should just let it go. Senator Obama has been magnanimous.

Please follow his lead.

[FrenchieCat]

6. Maybe you should have mentioned this to the OP......

I'm just asking a question.

I've already moved on.

But if one OP read questions I asked, maybe one will have to scratch their ass.

[wiley]

18. I don't understand your last sentence, but following the rest of the thread

I agree that the original OP itself was more selective unproductive and uneccesary wordsmithing. I should have responded to the OP. Pardon. My bad.

[annie1]

7. It was in respone to Obama saying that Hillary was dashing...

dreams of Obama's and how silly would it have been if she had been dashing the dreams of MLK.

that's what it was in response to.

[FrenchieCat]

8. You mean his response to her "false Hope" comment made in the NH debate?

SEN. CLINTON: making change is not about what you believe. It's not about a speech you make. It is about working hard.
<>
So, you know, I think it is clear that what we need is somebody who can deliver change. And we don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered. The best way to know what change I will produce is to look at the changes that I've already made.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/us/politics/05text-ddebate.html?pagewanted=10&_r=1&bl&ei=5087&en=00f36b3fcbb1c21a&ex=1199768400

Was she playing President LBJ to Obama's MLK? :shrug:

[annie1]

9. because he was the president during the time the legislation went through...

and they are both running for president, so she tried to tie the argument back into the job.

[FrenchieCat]

10. So what was her point? She is a senator, just like Obama....and hasn't done all of this

Hard work she keeps referring to while Obama's been just talking.

See, my point is that she didn't even need to compare or contrast LBJ to MLK....cause she is neither...nor is Obama.

[annie1]

11. But they are both running to be president. that's what she was trying...

to tie the argument back to. he started with MLK in regards to her talking about what he would do as president. so he brought up mlk, and she tried to bring it back to the job they are both running for.

[FrenchieCat]

12. I didn't see this "he said" that you are talking about. Gotta link?

Thanks.

PS. I barely understood what you were trying to say.

Neither Obama or Hillary are the President. MLK was not a President. Johnson was a President.

OBama and HIllary are both senators.

Hillary only says she does hard work, but when looking at her record in the Senate, I don't see it.

But beyond that, why even bring up MLK a week shy of his birthday and state that it was LBJ that got it done? What was her point?

If she was going to talk about the Nobel Peace Prize winner who gave his life to a movement near his Birthday, why bring up a President? Who cared? It is not like it was LBJ's birthday too.

I think that she was reaching...for the wrong thing.

[annie1]

13. hey there...

sry, i should use real quotes, i got lazy, i used ' to paraphrase. :D.

so first in that debate on sat he and she got into the HOPE debate to which she is saying words are great and everything, but then what. and he's trying to say words inspire people to action, and he often refers to her camp calling him a hope monger because she makes that argument words versus action, etc, then he said in a few of his speeches

"Imagine -- imagine Dr. King standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking out at those crowds -- a quarter million people around the reflecting pool -- and saying, "Ya'll go home." The dream has died. It can't be done. It's too hard."

So there some take that as he is comparing himself to MLK. and there he is also saying she is the one who is dashing the hopes and dreams..

so then she she says:
“Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964...etc...it took a president to get it done" there she was trying to say 'its not just the words (referring to Obama), action has to be taken' and she referred to policy, legislation and the presidency.

she goes onto her next stop and says it again, but it full form.
“You know, today Senator Obama used President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to criticize me. He basically compared himself to our greatest heroes because they gave great speeches.

“President Kennedy was in Congress for 14 years. He was a war hero. He was a man of great accomplishments and readiness to be president. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a movement. He was gassed. He was beaten. He was jailed. And he gave a speech that was one of the most beautifully, profoundly important speeches ever written in America, the “I have a dream” speech.

“And then he worked with President Johnson to get the civil rights laws passed, because the dream couldn’t be realized until finally it was legally permissible for people of all colors and backgrounds and races and ethnicities to be accepted as citizens.

“I’m running for president because I believe that there is not a contradiction between experience and change.”

and i think that's what she meant all along, it just came out awkward because she only used a few sentences.

[FrenchieCat]

14. You need to provide links, number 1

What Obama said about the fact that we don't need anyone to tell us that We Can't hope, and the use of JFK saying we "can't" go to the moon was valid. Obama had every right to deal with the comment that Hillary had stated (you're the dreamer, I get it done), since the whole Hillary point was saying that Hope ain't enough, you need someone to get it done.

Again, it ain't like Hillary as "done" as much as she professes!
She "Talks" about what she'd done, but her list really is relatively short, and old too!

And so, when one implies that their opponent only talks, or only hopes....I believe that the opponent has a right to challenge you on that any way he sees fit as long as he is not calling you out of your name.

Her coming back with the MLK/LBJ nonsense at yet another stop was her mistake.
What she said didn't make sense, and she would have been better off not saying it.

If you turn up the heat in the kitchen, then you get to smell the fire that you started.

[annie1]

15. i think if she had said...

at the 2nd stop what she said at the first one she woulda have been ok. i think her was her truncating her point that was the problem. obviously they would have still disagreed, but it was her truncated version that sounded dismissive towards mlk, but she meant by it what she said it her longer statement. jmo.

[FrenchieCat]

17. Let's be honest and keep it real.

She didn't need the "highlight" LBJ's accomplishment on MLK's birthday. It didn't make sense, so why bother to even say that.

She has not "done" enough (like name something recent) to attempt to put herself at the level of LBJ, and so he could have just been left out.

It was stupid. She said it. and then she dug the hole deeper. She should have simply apologized about that comment and called it a day. She didn't.

And not only didn't she, she attempted to make it appear as though something else was the issue.

If you support her, good luck. You'll have a hell of a time defending her without having to compromise your intellectual honesty. That's a lot to have to give up. In fact, there are some who believe that it is everything.

[question everything]

4. Right. When black commentators bristle and claim

that "MLK is ours" I see a problem.

Martin Luther King Jr. is an American treasure and "belongs" to all of us, just as Abraham Lincoln is.

There were many whites who were active in the Civil Rights movement. Of the three young men who were brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1964, two were whites.

But this makes it politically correct and the black votes will go to Obama. The sad result will be that if Clinton is the nominee and many of the pundits and the Obama camp will convince them to stay home, will convince them that they were wronged, this can really split the party for generations to come.

[avaistheone1]

5. The media may have created the problem, but it is up to both Clinton and Obama to solve it.

Remember, the unanswered Swift Boat attacks of the 2004 campaign.

[Sherman A1]

16. Precisely

The media needs conflict and a horse race to keep viewership and ratinigs. They spend more time reporting on the jabs and who's on first than what are the proposals on the issues. It's just a circus and an echo chamber at this point.