I have a dream...we shouldn't be raising the false hopes of our country?

[ProSense]

Monday, January 07, 2008

Hillary's awful comments about MLK

by John Aravosis (DC) · 1/07/2008

I'm not even sure what to write here. Hillary made some odd comments this afternoon on FOX News about Obama and "false hope." In these comments, she sounds as though she's knocking Martin Luther King. I don't believe for a minute that that was her intent, but the comments just come off as awful:

Clinton was asked about Obama's rejoinder that there's something vaguely un-American about dismissing hopes as false, and that it doesn't jibe with the careers of figures like like John F. Kennedy and King.

"Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," Clinton said. "It took a president to get it done."

Clinton didn't explicitly compare herself to Johnson, or Obama to King. But it seems an odd example for the argument between rhetoric and action, as there's little doubt which figure's place in history and the American imagination is more secure.

"The power of that dream became real in people's lives because we had a president" capable of action, Clinton said.

<...>

First off, Obama in this parable is both King and Johnson - the dreamer who would be president - so Hillary's criticism doesn't really fly. The bigger problem for Team Clinton is that she really sounds like she's dissing MLK (did he have "false hope" too?). I'm convinced that wasn't her intent - she's not an idiot - but these quotes are just awful, and not what she needs right now.

more

[ProSense]

1. Kick! n/t

[ProSense]

2. "It's not as if Lyndon Johnson couldn't wait to sign the Civil Rights Act."

I don't like these internal fights. I detest them. I especially hate when someone I admire like Sen. Clinton says something as brazenly horrific as this in order to puff up her own political fortunes.

<...>

It's not as if Lyndon Johnson couldn't wait to sign the Civil Rights Act. He was right to do it and it changed the country. But there is no civil rights movement, there is no America as we know it today without the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. How could she say this? In my eyes, and the eyes of millions of people of all races and sexes, Rev. King is the greatest American who ever lived. He was not just a talker, which is what Sen. Clinton's message seems to be here. MLK was the ultimate "doer". The sterling example of what it means in America to stand up for what's right by putting your life on the line.

link

[ProSense]

3. Daily Kos diary

(UPDATEDX2) Desperate Clinton: LBJ, not Martin Luther King, is real civil rights hero

[eridani]

4. Obama's "hope" isn't false, it's just substance-free

Just like Clinton's "change." Change TO WHAT, and hope FOR WHAT? Inquiring minds want to know.

[earthlover]

5. Hillary might have told King to get a "reality check"

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

All this talk of dreams. Better not raise false hopes.

And as for Kennedy saying we need to go to the moon. Get a reality check, John!

[Leopolds Ghost]

9. How will spending billions on a moon landing help the US Economy? How will it benefit Employers

On whom the Party Establishment depends for campaign contributions
to do battle to defeat the evil forces of the Republicans? We need
to be retraining workers for the service economy, not (as the NYT
recently said in an editorial trashing Edwards) raising false hopes
that manufacturing jobs (including jobs manufacturing rockets)
will return to these shores.

[ProSense]

6. Kick! n/t

[K Gardner]

7. Something like this said today and people going NUTS because JE said a President

needed to be strong, but didn't want to comment on Hillary. Go figure.

[george_maniakes]

8. I know obama doesnt want to touch this ...

but that doesnt mean edwards will necessarily sit back and let this just fly by. If hillary wants to throw punches, a response to this this by edwards would be an effective uppercut.