Seven Years Later: Who Wrote "The Race Memo"?

[McCamy Taylor]

Don't tell me you have forgotten the "Race Memo"! That was the document that was distributed by an Obama staffer to members of the press in order to interject race into the 2008 race. The "Race Memo" would have been devastating to the Obama campaign had it come to light in the fall of 2008, after the primary when the GOP could have used it to sully Obama's "nice guy" image. The Huffington Post realized what was up---they sprang the trap eight months too early when they published the "Race Memo" in January 2008. For some reason, the rest of the MSM pretended that they had never heard of it---even though news reporting in the weeks following the memo's release was obviously influenced by it. This strange media silence got me worried. Did the MSM plan to sit on the story and then suddenly pretend to "find" it after the Democratic convention? Not good. That was why I wrote what I wrote in 2008. There was no way in Hell that I was going to allow any corporate media whore to claim that Obama "stole" the nomination from Clinton. Obama would be nominated by a party that knew all about the "Race Memo" and did not give a fuck.

Why dig up the sorry carcass of this sorry piece of political dirty trickery now? It has come to my attention that some people think that they can take advantage of American's notorious political amnesia. (Go watch "Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia" It's on Netflix!) They think they can prompt people to recall that they heard something way back in 2008 about how Hillary Clinton made a bunch of racist attacks on Obama, as she attempted to "crib death" his campaign.

If we are going to take a trip down memory lane to 2008, then I think we should see all the sights and remember everything that made that year so much fun. So, here it is, one from the vaults. Here is what I wrote in 2008:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5692877

Putting All The Race Cards on the Table: "The Race Memo"

I. What Is the “Race Memo”?

On January 12, 2008 The Huffington Post demonstrated that it is a journal of integrity and not another corporate media propaganda organ. When someone at the journal received a document that would later be labeled “The Race Memo” from the Obama camp, rather than disseminating it to pro-Obama journalists to serve as the basis for Clinton bashing articles or depositing it in the trash, the Post decided to print it. I am sure that this was a difficult choice. The Obama camp had come in for criticism the year before when the “Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)” memo was revealed. In that instance, the memo was distributed to the press on a “you didn’t get it from us” understanding that the press promptly broke, since there was more news in “Obama smears Clinton and offends Indians” than in “Indians like Clinton.”

snip

The “Race Memo” was more of the same but even more inflammatory. Through the use of three lies and distortions of things that Sen.Clinton and surrogates had done or said, it sought to paint the Clintons as racists in the lead up to South Carolina. Here is the Huffington Post article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/12/obama-camps-me...

Here is the post a week later that makes clear that it really did come from the Obama camp, since Obama himself publicly disavowed it—after a very bad week for the Clintons in which the press accused them of being bigots out to smear their opponent. No one stopped to ask the obvious---how making racist attacks could help Hillary Clinton going into a Democratic primary in a state with a large African-American population.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/17/obama-unhappy-...

The memo, which was obtained by the Huffington Post and has been made public elsewhere, is believed to have been given to an activist and contains mostly excerpts from different media reports. It lists the contact info and name of Obama's South Carolina press secretary, Amaya Smith, and is broken down into five incidents in which either Clinton, her husband Bill, or campaign surrogates made comments that could be interpreted as racially insensitive.
The document provides an indication that, in private, the Obama campaign is seeking to capitalize on the view - and push the narrative - that the Clintons are using race-related issues for political leverage. In public, the Obama campaign has denied that they are trying to propagate such a perception, noting that the document never was sent to the press.

While the Obama camp claims that only the Post saw this memo, I will show that many journalists used the stories contained within this memo in the days surrounding its release, suggesting that the Obama camp either lied and did distribute it to others or that some in the press seized upon the Huffington Post article and used the lies it contained for articles or that some other organization, such as the RNC under Karl Rove was disseminating the same lies in an attempt to divide and conquer the Democratic Party along racial lines and boost the campaign of Barack Obama to achieve a Brokered Democratic Convention, just like in 1972.

First, about the charges contained within the Race Memo, three were based upon distortions or lies which widely read media watchdog sites such as Media Matters have debunked. For a presidential campaign to release inaccurate inflammatory statements about an opponent which a shoestring media watchdog organization can refute points to either extreme sloppiness or deliberate malice---or an RNC mole playing at 1972 divide and conquer politics. We all need to keep the last possibility in mind this election. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to the "Race Memo" as coming from the Obama camp in the rest of this article, but always keep in mind that the force pushing the narrative it contains could just as easily be the RNC.

The Clinton MLK LBJ misrepresentations have been thoroughly debunked by Media Matters

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801120003

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801160002

Clinton’s full quote was a statement that LBJ passed the Civil Rights laws that JFK hoped the pass but could not. In her analogy, Obama was JFK and she was LBJ. The press later admitted that the reason Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama was because he took offense at the slight to JFK.

snip

Half of the drug use charge is an out and out lie, as David Axelrod is well aware since he was there at the time. The Hardball episode in question was an All-Obama All-Drugs show in which Matthews kept asking “Do things really go better with coke?” His guests were Axelrod, Penn and Trippi. Since Axelrod was there, the Obama camp must have been fine with an hour long discussion of Obama and drugs. Tweety kept asking Penn what he thought of Obama’s drug use, a subject that most people only know about from the Senator’s autobiography. At first, Penn was reluctant to answer. Finally, when Penn attempted to answer a question put to him point blank, Trippi and the others accused him of introducing the subject of “cocaine” even though Mathews had been alluding to it all show. In retrospect the possibility that Penn was set up by Matthews and Axelrod must be explored since a number of MSNBC pundits including Schuster later went on the repeat the lie that Penn introduced the topic of Obama and drugs out of the blue, and the Obama campaign has repeated the lie. Here is Media Matters again.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801240011

http://mediamatters.org/items/200712140011

http://clips.mediamatters.org/items/200712170004

http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/msnbcs-odonnell-claimed-p... /

http://clips.mediamatters.org/items/200801240011

As for Bill Clinton calling it a “fairy tale” for Obama to dream of being president, I think that most people know by now that he was referring to the Senator’s statement that his public opposition to the war has never varied. Now, this is a matter of opinion, and as they say, everyone is entitled to their opinion. I have never understood why the Obama camp got into this one, because it isn’t a good fight for them. But once engaged, they apparently decided that there were political points to be had from misrepresenting the ex-presidents words. Because here we have a document that criticizes “Bill Clinton For Comparing Obama To A "Fairy Tale" ‘ Once again, Media Matters had the situation in hand.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801150015?f=s_search

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801170009?f=s_search

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801260002?f=s_search


II. Why Haven’t I Heard About the Race Memo?

If you have heard the three lies above a hundred times but have not heard a word about the “Race Memo”, blame it on the corporate media, which chooses to craft a narrative that goes Hillary is a dirty trickster but does not choose to craft a narrative that goes Obama is a dirty trickster even though Obama’s campaign is led by David Axelrod who does not have a reputation for playing nice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/magazine/01axelrod.t....

Note that the NYT article that include “Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)” placed that story on the second page of an article about Clinton. It was not a headline piece. It was an afterthought. Clinton bites Obama is news. Obama bites Clinton is “so what”. The mere choice of where to put a story can influence to public perception of candidates. If a very real “The Race Memo” appears only in the Huffington Post, it will not affect anyone’s perception of the candidates, whereas the mindless repetition of the same lie---Clinton called Obama’s campaign a “fairy tale”---becomes a huge dirty trick by the process of amplification.

Here is how the WasPo chose to deal with the “Race Memo”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

“Clintons Move to Ease Some Racial Tension” Ann Kornblut and Shaliagh Murray Jan 12, 2008 Washington Post


Note the misleading title, and the fact that the article opens by listing several of the charges in the “Race Memo” as if they are fact.

Publicly, Obama's campaign has so far only echoed the concerns expressed by others, without directly accusing the Clintons of trying to inject race into their primary showdown.

Buried in the article is a mention that a memo was released but without a link so that it will be difficult for anyone to find the document. The article also quotes Donna Brazile early on with more anti-Clinton criticism before vaguely addressing the point that Bill did not call Obama a “fairy tale” and that the Obama camp is once again having to disavow another smear memo aimed at Hillary Clinton.

This is not an unbiased attempt to cover the “Race Memo”. This is an attempt by the Washington Post to bury it.


Here is Eric Boehlert on the Media Bias against Hillary Clinton

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200801150004

The press has literally forgotten how to do its job, forgotten how to simply be spectators instead of trying to insert themselves as players. As Tom Brokaw famously mentioned on MSNBC on primary night, (arrogant) journalists need to remove themselves from the process and stop trying to affect the outcome. Elections are about voters, not journalists.

Snip

The disdain for Clinton has been openly broadcast by journalists. Appearing on CNN's Reliable Sources on December 30, The Washington Post's Milbank announced: "The press will savage no matter what."
And just hours before primary day, The New Republic's Jason Zengerle filed this dispatch from the campaign trail:
I was at a dinner tonight with various political reporters who are up here to cover the happenings, and it was pretty funny how giddy/relieved they were at the prospect of a McCain-Obama general election campaign, as opposed to, say, a Romney-Clinton one. Suddenly, the next 11 months of their lives look a whole lot more enjoyable.

Now we know why we haven’t heard about “The Race Memo.”

III. Is There Any Indirect Evidence That the “Race Memo” May Have Had An Effect on the Press?

No one in the press is going to say “Look, I got this oppo from the Karl Rove/Mark Penn/David Axlerod and I am basing today’s story on it.” It does not work that way. However, a lot of TV journalists are lazy. Even some pundits in the press let the campaigns do their legwork for them. Even some politicians get stories from candidates and do not investigate to see if they are true. When people start taking sides, they are especially easy to influence.

Here are some stories that bear an uncanny resemblance to the “Race Memo” in timing, bias and substance.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/11/politics/main...

“Racial Tensions Roil Democratic Race” Jan 11, 2008 CBS

A series of comments from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, her husband, and her supporters are spurring a racial backlash and adding a divisive edge to the presidential primary as the candidates head south to heavily African-American South Carolina.

The comments, which ranged from the New York senator appearing to diminish the role of Martin Luther King Jr. in the civil rights movement - an aide later said she misspoke - to Bill Clinton dismissing Sen. Barack Obama’s image in the media as a “fairy tale” - generated outrage on black radio, black blogs and cable television. And now they've drawn the attention of prominent African-American politicians.

“A cross-section of voters are alarmed at the tenor of some of these statements,” said Obama spokeswoman Candice Tolliver, who said that Clinton would have to decide whether she owed anyone an apology.

snip

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., through a spokesman, used even stronger language. "Following Barack Obama's victory in Iowa and historic voter turnout in New Hampshire, the cynics unfortunately have stepped up their efforts to decry his uplifting message of hope and fundamental change.

"Regrettably, they have resorted to distasteful and condescending language that appeals to our fears rather than our hopes. I sincerely hope that they'll turn away from such reactionary, disparaging rhetoric."

The article has the MLK Jr. misquote. It has the “fairy tale” misquote. It has Shaheen. It even has “shuck and jive”. That is 4 out of 6. And it appeared before the Huffington Post story on 1-12. Pretty strange coincidence, that.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/12/opinion/12herbert.htm...

“Of Hope and Politics” Bob Herbert Jan 12, 2008 NYT. This article came out the same day that the Huffington Post published “The Race Memo” so it was probably written no later than the day before.

So there was the former president chastising the press for the way it was covering the Obama campaign and saying of Mr. Obama’s effort: “The whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.”
And there was Mrs. Clinton telling the country we don’t need “false hopes,” and taking cheap shots at, of all people, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
We’d already seen Clinton surrogates trying to implant the false idea that Mr. Obama might be a Muslim, and perhaps a drug dealer to boot. It struck me that the prediction of so many commentators that Senator Obama was about to run away with the nomination, and bury the Clintons in the process, was the real fairy tale.

Again, remarkable similarities to the Race Memo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

“Will They Play The Race Card” Matjorie Valbrun Jan 13, 2008, Washington Post.

She uses the Billy Shaheen remarks and mirepresents Hillary Clinton’s remarks about Dr. King, both straight out of the “Race Memo.” Note the close timing of her article, Bob Herberts , the CBS story and the “Race Memo”.

Those were just a representative sample. I have many more below.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/us/politics/11clyburn...

“Civil Rights Tone Prompts Talk of an Endorsement” Carl Hulse Jan 11, 2008

Did the Obama camp circulate the “Race Memo” to Rep. James Clyburn? Check out this interview he gave to the NYT before the South Carolina primary just one day before the Huffington Post printed the “Race Memo” story in which he said that he was rethinking his neutral status, because of Hillary’s remarks about MLK Jr and because Bill Clinton called Barack Obama’s campaign a “fairy tale”.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/opinion/09wed1.html?e...

January 9, the NYT has an editorial devoted to chastising Hillary Clinton for words she did not say about MLK Jr---and for which Media Matters had repeatedly called out the NYT, every single time they got the quote wrong. It is one thing for a newspaper to print a quote wrong. It is another for it to base an editorial on a misquote. Were they basing their editorial on oppo from the Obama camp because they were so eager to interject race into the race?

Here is Media Matters:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801120003

Summary: A January 11 New York Times article marked at least the third time that a Times article, editorial, or blog post truncated Hillary Rodham Clinton's January 7 comments about civil rights. Each of the articles quoted Clinton's statement that "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964" and that "it took a president to get it done" but omitted Clinton's reference to former President John F. Kennedy. Clinton had also said that passing a civil rights bill was "something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried."

http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2008/01/another-isol...

“Jack and Jill Politics” Jan 10, 2008 This site has it all. Shuck and Jive. Penn. Shaheen. MLK. Fairy Tale. And more. It claims to be devoted to African-American bloggers but one poster used the give away term “Clintonista” indicating that the RNC has infiltrated the site. That means that Karl Rove may be playing CREEP styles dirty tricks here. Oh fun.



http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/bill-clin... /

Also NYT, January 11, 2008 By Carl Hulse and Patrick Healy 752 pm

Wow, look who knows the real words that Hillary spoke about LBJ. Someone at the NYTs. Too bad the authors of this piece could not have told their colleagues.
And look, the article addresses what Bill really said about “fairy tale” , too.
So why did Bob Herbert write his piece with the distorted versions for the 1-12-2008 issue of the NYT?

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Bill_on_the...

No, don’t read the Politico article, scroll down to the post that sounds just like someone familiar with the “Race Memo” posted it on Jan 11, 2008

Here is what is wrong with Clinton's statement (and why reasserting it is a major blunder): first, he claims that Obama didn't take a stand against the war in 2004, when the video and the transcript of that interview clearly show that Obama has been unwavering--so Clinton is either a liar or he doesn't know how to read. Second, he is basically calling the campaign a fairy tale all over again. Add it up: Shaheen + Penn + Hillary (MLK) + Cuomo + Andrew Young. It is a systematic attempt to bait Obama and to garner the Dixiecrat vote. They suck, they really and truly suck.

No name, so we don’t know who did it, but they included Penn (one that almost no one uses because it is so esoteric and such an obvious lie, if you google Penn and Shaheen you get Media Matters within the first four hits).

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801130003

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/011728.php

Jan. 13, 2008 Tim Russert interviewing Hillary Clinton on Meet The Press is caught in the act by Media Matters and the Left Coaster playing truncated video of Bill Clinton and reading a truncated quote by Hillary Clinton to make the points that the Obama camp was trying to make in its “Race Memo”. Note that Russert also points out that a newspaper in South Carolina has also run the Obama camp story the day before. Be sure the watch the video. Clyburn and Brazile are used as “not supporters of Obama” to demonstrate that there is a consensus of African-Americans who are offended by Clinton.

Note that MSNBC, owned by GE, which makes billions off nuclear energy, which Obama believes is “Green energy” and which he has supported through legislation like the Cheney Energy Bill, has been one of his staunchest allies this primary.

And, another GE associated publication, Newsweek which is partnered with MSNBC and which regularly sends its journalists on that network and which writes articles promoting GE business interests also promoted the “Race Memo” at the same time.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/91795/output/print

“Letting Hillary Be Hillary” by John Meacham Newsweek Jan 12, 2008

In New Hampshire, Bill Clinton appeared to dismiss Obama's campaign as "the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen," a remark that infuriated many African-Americans. "When has 'black' and 'fairy tale' ever been mentioned in the same sentence?" asked Todd Boyd, professor of African-American and Critical Studies at the University of Southern California. "That was just insulting, and he needs to be very careful." Clinton called Al Sharpton's radio show to clarify, arguing that the "fairy tale" remark was limited to Obama's claim that he would have opposed the Iraq War if he had been in the Senate in 2002–03 despite expressing some doubts to The New York Times in 2004: "What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made." And when Hillary Clinton noted that while Martin Luther King Jr. marched, it "took a president"—Lyndon Johnson—to get civil-rights legislation passed and signed, the comment prompted some Obama supporters to say that Clinton was minimizing King. By late last week, South Carolina Rep. James E. Clyburn felt compelled to issue a statement calling for a ceasefire: "I encourage the candidates to be sensitive about the words they use. This is an historic race for America to have such strong, diverse candidates vying for the Democratic nomination." John Lewis, the Georgia congressman, civil-rights veteran and perennial optimist, said, "I hope we will put these issues of gender and race to rest and return to the marketplace of politics."

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/13/57417...

On Jan 13 Sen. Obama told a fib. He told it to his biggest media backer, MSNBC/GE which is counting on building lots of nuclear reactors once the country gets over its fear of Chernobyl and Three Mile Island under a “nukes are green” administration that it can trust.

“Obama: Clinton’s MLK Comment’s ‘Ludicrous’” Sunday Jan 13

Obama called the "notion" that his campaign is responsible for the backlash Hillary Clinton has faced about her comments on Martin Luther King Jr.'s role in the in the civil rights movement "ludicrous" in a conference call today to announce the endorsement of Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill.

"Well this is fascinating to me," Obama began of Clinton's remarks on Meet the Press, in which she accused the Obama campaign of stirring the pot among African-American leaders about her remarks that it "took a president" to pass civil rights legislation.

Obama characterized Clinton's remarks as "tired Washington politicians and the games they play."

"She made an unfortunate remark about Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson,” he said. “I haven't remarked on it. And she offended some folks who thought she diminished the role about King and the civil rights movement. The notion that this is our doing is ludicrous.”

Note that just the day before the Huffington Post had published the “Race Memo”. On the day that Obama made these remarks, Bob Herbert would publish a NYT op-ed that would echo three of the main charges in the “Race Memo”. Someone convinced Donna Brazile and Rep. Clyburn of distortions of the truth. Who gave these people the wrong facts? The same people who wrote the lies in the “Race Memo”?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/20...

On Jan. 14. Barack Obama again entered the fray publicly.

“Clinton’s King Comment Ill Advised Obama Says” By Anne E. Kornblut and Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, January 14, 2008

COLUMBIA, S.C., Jan. 13 -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton defended her recent remarks on civil rights Sunday, as Sen. Barack Obama weighed in on the controversy for the first time, describing Clinton's earlier comments about the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. as "unfortunate" and "ill-advised."
Obama had previously tried to sidestep direct engagement in the debate over race. But the recent controversy has touched a nerve with many African Americans, including some sympathetic to the Clintons, and Obama chose to address it Sunday.
The primary source of the debate is a comment Monday from the New York Democrat: "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," she said, adding that "it took a president to get it done." Critics read that as playing down King's importance in the civil rights movement. Clinton said Sunday that the Obama campaign was "deliberately distorting this."
Asked whether he had taken offense to Clinton's remarks, the Illinois Democrat said he had not been the one to raise the subject.

Um… but the Huffington Post had published the “Race Memo” in which his camp most certainly did attempt to raise the issue just two days before. And as I have shown, a whole bunch of journalists, as one, suddenly began writing about the stuff contained in that memo as if they had heard the arguments and were using them even before the memo was published.

Note that the Washington Post does not mention the “Race Memo” nor does it give the facts about the Clintons’ remarks. The opening paragraphs give the impression that the distorted views are correct and the corrections are presented through the mouths of the Clintons, making them suspect.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801150010

Monday, Jan 14, 2008, Fox, which has the original footage, misquotes Hillary Clinton about the MLK Jr story when they report on Obama’s criticism of her.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/14/michelle-obama...

Jan 14 Michelle Obama mischaracterizes Bill Clinton’s “fairy tale” remarks.


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june08/race...

Also on Jan 14. PBS provides a forum to disseminate the stories about “fairy tale” , MLK Jr and Shaheen again. Note that every time Clinton supporter tries to do this

REP. JOHN LEWIS: Well, I think it did come out of the language that Mr. Obama is using, but the Obama camp is also doing something else. They're sending out memos to members of the media, trying to suggest that the Clintons are playing the race card.

The Obama supporter Rev. Joseph Lowery changes the subject or says in effect “don’t go there.” Why not? The Obama camp went there. The press is going there.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0801/14/sitroom....

CNN provides minimal coverage: Jan 14 The Situation Room

MARTIN: You know what; it's one of those things where you say who through the first punch? And so always it's the person who gets the second punch in the NFL when they throw the flag. It really did start in terms of these sort of little jabs with the Shaheen comment, Bill Shaheen when he referenced that republicans are going to say was Senator Barack Obama, a drug dealer. A lot of African-Americans were offended by that comment because here was a candidate who was being very open about it. You had the back and forth. Then you had a comment from New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo when he talked about this whole shuck and jive. So then, of course, followed by the fairy tale and the MLK deal. So the Clinton people are saying look, the Obama camp, they are pushing this. They're sending memos out with these various talking points. The Obama campaign is saying look, we don't even want to touch race. It is a very fine line, Wolf, as Carol outlined that Obama is trying to walk. I call it the dance, the dance that an African-American has to do running in the mainstream sort of situation. You don't want to be overtly racial. You also have to recognize that African-Americans want you to appeal to them as well in order to get those votes. There's a very delicate balance there.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jan/14/obama-glove... /

Jan 14. Law Vegas Sun, a Nevada Paper does the Shaheen story, MLK and “shuck and jive”.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-race15jan15,...

Tuesday Jan 15, LA Times “Race Enters the Race” Richard Fausset and Janet Hook

Once again Hillary Clinton’s remarks about LBJ are misquoted.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801150015

Also on January 15, Newsweek, already on notice from Media Matters, repeats the lie about Bill Clinton calling Barack Obama’s campaign a “fairy tale”.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801150016

Tuesday Jan 15 was a really bad news day for Clinton. AP repeated the lie about LBJ in papers everywhere (though they have removed the article now, but Media Matters writes about it still) in reporting on Rep.Clyburn’s criticism of the altered comments.

So now, people all across the country know that Clinton has been called out for disrespecting Dr. King. With his birthday coming up January 21. Coincidence?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200801150018

Tuesday Jan 15 and more from the GE empire. Tweety telling more Tweety lies. Note that drug use is not even racially charged, so I am not sure why we are talking about it…. Oh, yes. That is right. It is on the Race Memo. Why did all those people get the idea that drug use was racially charged at the same time?

http://thehill.com/index2.php?option=com_content&task=v...

“Clyburn mulls mission to end racial clash?” Mike Soraghan Jan 16, 2008

The top African-American member in Congress’s leadership is considering flying home early to South Carolina this week on a mission to cool a raging racial debate that has engulfed the Democratic presidential contest.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said he may leave Washington before the end of the week to try to soothe tensions that have broken out just a week before his state’s crucial Democratic primary. The tensions mounted after controversial comments on race and the civil rights movement by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and former President Bill Clinton were seized upon by supporters of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

The author of the article then does something totally irresponsible. He goes back in time a week to before Clyburn spoke to the Clintons and lifts Clyburn’s words from the original NYT’s article to make it appear that he still believes the corporate media/ “Race Memo” lies. (even after having the record corrected by the Clintons).

He also said Bill Clinton’s description of Obama’s campaign narrative as a “fairy tale” seemed insulting.
Clyburn said it misses the point to argue whether Martin Luther King Jr. or President Lyndon Johnson was more important to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1964.


This dirty trick by the author makes Clyburn look like a dirty trickster or a fool. It is the most shameless kind of media duplicity. Someone scanning the article would not understand where those words came from at all. One would suppose that the author did not want Clyburn to end the feud, stabbing him in the back like that.


IV. Why Does It Matter? Can’t We Just Discard Hillary Clinton as “Tainted Goods” and Keep the One “Fresh” Candidate We Have

From the Left Coaster link above

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/011728.php

This is the latest episode in a series of false insinuations from the Obama campaign that the Clintons are racist. This is the kind of campaign that will lose Sen. Obama the general election if he becomes the nominee because there are a lot of Americans who are not in the least bit racist who will start believing that Sen. Obama is a divisive figure, a person who will repeatedly and falsely paint opponents or critics as being racists in order to win the election.

This is not the Republican Primary in which George W. Bush gets patted on the back for calling John McCain an enemy collaborator and the father of an illegitimate mixed race child in order to win a nomination. This is the Democratic primary. The last time we let the Republicans define our nominee, straight talking war hero George McGovern as a dirty trickster, back stabber, just another politician who would do anything to get elected and who would not come through for anyone in a pinch, guess what happened? He lost by a landslide. Voters---especially those in need--are not going to trust candidates who engage in this kind of politics. That is why the RNC has been planting Freeper moles on the internet and stirring up trouble.


Now, as we move towards North Carolina, I see signs that the exact same players are about to repeat the exact same mistakes. Oh, I am sure that this time no one in the Obama camp will hand any memos to anyone. But the RNC can always get someone on tape, saying the wrong thing. They own the news media. For all we know Karl Rove instructed members of the press to step up the playing of the race card bs last January because the "Race Memo" was outed, and he knew it would make a great story for McCain to use in September or October. If someone in the Obama camp says the wrong thing again, the press will initiate another race war---and it will be Obama's fault a second time. All the reporters will be waiting for some sound bite they can edit to change the meaning. We can not stop them from doing it, but we can refuse to rise to the bait. And when the RNC moles planted among us rise to the bait, we can refuse to follow their lead.

Rush is not going to get his riots in Denver. Not if we have an open dialog about what happened in January, including the miscommunication and the role that the news media played, so that we can learn from our mistakes and keep it from happening again. I know for a fact that some people (I even know which ones) are going to say that no Democrat should ever criticize another Democrat by posting anything like this---even though everything I have written I collected with Google in about 12 hours, meaning that the folks at RNC oppo already have and do not need me to do their research. It is time to stop pretending that what we know happened in January did not happen. Race was introduced to hurt Hillary Clinton and to help Barack Obama (in the very short run) and---more than likely---to hurt the Democratic Party's chances in the fall election. If we heal the party now, then the Republicans have not won.

Obama says he wants no distractions.

Hillary Clinton has apologized for Bill Clinton's "Jesse Jackson" comment and has repudiated Geraldine Ferraro's remarks.

But to hear the press talk, they are just salivating at the thought of Race Wars Round II.

And now it looks like some want to start Race Wars Round III. Not cool. Not smart. And not very Democratic. Divide and Conquer is the GOP's favorite dirty trick.

Oh, and will the real author of the race memo please stand up? Back in 2008, I thought it might be Rove. Since then, I have changed my mind. I don't think Rove was smart enough to pull that stunt. I suspect Pat Buchanan was the real author. Buchanan was pretty slick, once upon a time.

[DURHAM D]

1. To answer your opening question - Rahm Emanuel nt

[NCTraveler]

2. Guy is about the lowest of the low.

He should run every democratic Presidential campaign. lol.