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“Hard-Working . . . White Americans”

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Mainstream Media Downplay Hillary Clinton Comment

A day after many observers declared it nearly impossible for Sen. Hillary Clinton to overtake Sen. Barack Obama to win the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton told USA Today, “I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on.” As evidence, the story said, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” Clinton said.

To many, it was a shocking statement — equating “hard-working Americans” with “white Americans” and a naked attempt to cast herself as “the white candidate” in the race.

But while bloggers, some columnists and editorial writers and some readers jumped on the comments, stories in the mainstream media downplayed them.

Even USA Today, to whom Clinton uttered the comment as a response to a general question about her campaign, broke the story under a bland Web site headline, “Clinton makes case for wide appeal.”

An Associated Press story by Beth Fouhy seemingly attempted to validate Clinton’s comments and to marginalize those who found them offensive.

 

“Obama’s campaign did not respond to the comments, which generated buzz in the liberal blogosphere,” it said.

“Working-class whites overwhelmingly favor Clinton over Obama, and their view of the Illinois senator has grown increasingly negative since late last year, according to Associated Press-Yahoo News polling. In an AP-Yahoo survey a month ago, more than half or 53 percent of whites who have not finished college had negative impressions of Obama, up a 12 points since November.”

By contrast, on NBC’s “First Read” blog, Clinton’s statement was immediately portrayed as a liability among superdelegates, who at this point will decide the nomination.

“It’s comments like that one that might drive more supers toward Obama pretty quickly. Why? Because they know the math, but they don’t want her to spend three weeks making a case that Obama can’t win. It will only weaken him. Here’s what Obama backer Chris Dodd said yesterday, per NBC’s Ken Strickland. ‘You’re going to be asking a bunch of people [in West Virginia] to vote against somebody who’s likely to be your nominee a few weeks later? And turn around and ask the very same people a few weeks later to reverse themselves and now vote for [Obama] on election day?’

CNN’s “Situation Room” and the “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” both interviewed Obama but did not ask him about Clinton’s “white Americans” comment. If it made the network evening news shows, it was reported routinely.

That was not the case elsewhere.

In the Wall Street Journal on Friday, Peggy Noonan, a former Reagan speechwriter and decidedly not a member of the liberal blogosphere, wrote, “To play the race card as Mrs. Clinton has, to highlight and encourage a sense that we are crudely divided as a nation, to make your argument a brute and cynical ‘the black guy can’t win but the white girl can’ is — well, so vulgar, so cynical, so cold, that once again a Clinton is making us turn off the television in case the children walk by.”

The financial newspaper Investor’s Business Daily asked editorially on Friday, “Is this a last-ditch act of desperation? Or could it be a calculated attempt to get an explosion of free media as the Clintons’ campaign funds dwindle? . . . Could this be Hillary’s version of ‘doing a Willie Horton’?

“We endorsed Mrs. Clinton, and we know that she has a major contribution to make,” the New York Times said in an editorial. “Yes, there is a pattern — a familiar and unpleasant one. It is up to Mrs. Clinton to change it if she hopes to have any shot at winning the nomination or preserving her integrity and her influence if she loses.”

Others were stronger.

“Racists should decide the Democratic nomination,” Issac J. Bailey wrote Friday in the Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Sun News. “Sen. Hillary Clinton didn’t use those words in an interview with USA Today, but she came close.”

The Windsor Star in Windsor, Ontario, headlined its story, “Obama nears finish line; Desperate Clinton plays race card.”

“She Said What?” was the headline over Michael Weiss’ piece on slate.com.

On Salon.com, Joe Conason asked “Was Hillary channeling George Wallace? Hillary’s reckless exploitation of racial division could split the Democratic Party over race — a tragic legacy for the Clintons.”

As Clinton made her comment, Jim Morrill and Ted Mellnik wrote in the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer that, “In sweeping to his surprisingly easy 14-point win in North Carolina, Obama won 68 percent of the vote in five urban counties, such as Mecklenburg and Wake, according to an Observer analysis of election returns.

“And that wasn’t just with heavy black support. In Mecklenburg, for example, he won 54 percent of the vote in 86 predominantly white precincts.

In the USA Today story, Kathy Kiely and Jill Lawrence wrote, “Obama spokesman Bill Burton said that in Indiana, Obama split working-class voters with Clinton and won a higher percentage of white voters than in Ohio in March. He said Obama will be the strongest nominee because he appeals ‘to Americans from every background and all walks of life. These statements from Sen. Clinton are not true and frankly disappointing.’

“Clinton rejected any idea that her emphasis on white voters could be interpreted as racially divisive. ‘These are the people you have to win if you’re a Democrat in sufficient numbers to actually win the election. Everybody knows that.'”

In the closest Obama response to the issue in the interview with NBC’s Williams, the Illinois senator said, “If I can say to people, ‘Look, I might not have been your first choice, but here’s how I’m going to allow you to send your kids to college, here’s how I’m going to protect your pension, here’s how I’m going to expand healthcare so you don’t have to lose sleep at night trying to figure out whether or not you can afford to get sick,’ then I think people will respond.”

On Slate.com on Monday, Thomas F. Schaller wrote a piece that flipped the script, examining why Clinton hadn’t done better among black voters, the Democrats’ most loyal constituency.

“Clinton failed to stand for African-American Democrats when the chance presented itself late last fall and into early January, even if doing so meant firing key staffers or dressing down her own husband. Doing that might have denied Barack Obama the near-universal claim to their support he now enjoys, and the black-white coalition he built from it. For Hillary Clinton, the price of that failure may turn out to be nothing less than the nomination itself,” Schaller wrote.

National Journal’s Linda Douglass asked House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., his thoughts on Clinton’s comments.

“Well, I don’t think that carries any more weight than anyone who will argue that the fact that she only got 8 percent of the African-American vote in North Carolina indicates that she cannot get African-American votes in the general election,” he said. “It’s one thing for us to measure these two Democratic candidates against each other. It is totally something else again for us to measure a Democratic candidate against a Republican candidate. Those are two different things — apples and oranges — and I do believe it is a stretch for us to consider otherwise.”

In the Washington Post on Friday, Eugene Robinson contended, “Clinton’s sin isn’t racism, it’s arrogance. From the beginning, the Clinton campaign has refused to consider the possibility that Obama’s success was more than a fad.”

And on the “Diane Rehm Show” on National Public Radio on Friday, panelists Roger Simon of the Politico and Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times noted that Democratic presidential candidates had not won the majority of white votes in recent general elections in any case, that it was multiracial coalitions that had put the winners over the top.

Clinton might have thought better of her comment about white voters.

“In Charleston, W.Va., yesterday, Clinton argued that the coalition of voters backing her would make her more viable than Obama against McCain, Shailagh Murray and Perry Bacon Jr. wrote Friday in the Washington Post, referring to the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain R-Ariz.

“Yesterday, she repeatedly referred to her appeal among ‘hardworking Americans,’ including ‘Catholic voters, Hispanic voters, blue-collar voters and seniors — the kind of people who Senator McCain will be fighting for in the general election.’ She did not repeat the term ‘white voters.'”

Wright Said to Back Action Against Fox Sponsors

 

The last time Syracuse University professor Boyce Watkins appeared in this column, he was knocking Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly for marveling, “I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. It was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks [and has a] primarily black patronship. There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, “M-Fer, I want more iced tea!”‘

O’Reilly said his comments were taken out of context.

Eight months and a presidential primary campaign later, Watkins, an author and blogger as well as an assistant professor of finance, has launched a campaign to target companies that advertise on Fox News — and he says he has the support of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, author of sermons of which sound bites were shown to damaging effect on Fox News and elsewhere. Wright has been publicly silent since the furor caused by his April 28 National Press Club speech defending those sermons.

Time magazine’s James Poniewozik wrote in April of Fox and Wright, “Fox turned him into a dashiki-clad screen saver.” In an unusual rebuke, “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace, appearing March 21 on the morning “Fox & Friends” show, told the hosts its “two hours of Obama bashing” was excessive and distorted what Obama was saying.

Watkins says on his Web site, “A few days ago, we began talk of holding Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity accountable for their racialized smearing of Senator Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright. This event was only the latest in non-stop racial attacks by those in the ‘Axis of Ignorance,’ engaging in consistent social terrorism of people of color. Many of us sat angry and hurt as we felt defenseless to counter the lies being told on airwaves and media channels that distort elections and mute black voices across America.

“Hundreds of you emailed us back with great ideas, including Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who reminded us of the importance of engaging in action and not feeling that we are powerless to respond. We also heard from individuals affiliated with the Obama campaign, who reminded us to keep believing in our power to overcome. In my mind, the issue is not whether Pastor Wright was right to speak, or if Senator Obama was right to denounce him. The issue was that two powerful, intelligent black men were being forced to end their 20 year relationship because racist individuals decided to paint an educated ex-Marine with a critical mind as an unpatriotic lunatic. I have dealt with O’Reilly and Hannity up close on MANY occasions, and I can assure you that they DO NOT have the interests of black people at heart.

“While O’Reilly, Limbaugh and Hannity have a right to speak freely, I am sure many of you agree that they should not be allowed to attack your leaders using your money. So, to help the cause, we’ve gathered a list of corporate sponsors for Fox News.”

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Morrison Explains “First Black President” Line

 

 

“It’s a statement that has been quoted, misquoted and misunderstood for a decade. Toni Morrison allegedly called Bill Clinton the ‘first black president.’ But the context behind Morrison’s famous remark has not been explained as often as the quote has been mentioned,” thedailyvoice.com observed this week.

“Until now. In a new interview with TIME magazine, Morrison explained what she meant by that quote. ‘People misunderstood that phrase,’ she said. ‘I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him.’

“Morrison has been challenged by critics for using the phrase to describe Bill Clinton, and some recent observers have pointed to Clinton’s behavior in the 2008 South Carolina primary to discredit Clinton’s theoretical black heritage. But Morrison said she never meant to describe Clinton’s heart as much as his experience. ‘I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race,’ she told TIME.”

Morrison said she considered supporting Hillary Clinton for president, but settled on Barack Obama after he sought her endorsement and she concluded she admired his wisdom. “I don’t care that she is a woman. I need more than that. Some of the worst rulers in the world have been women,” she said. “Neither his race, his gender, her race or her gender was enough. I needed something else, and the something else was his wisdom.”

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In Burma, Reporters “Hide from the Government”

“Myanmar’s junta — under fire for failing cyclone survivors after seizing shipments of international food aid — agreed Friday to let a US cargo plane bring in supplies. American relief workers, however, were still being barred entry,” the Associated Press reported. Meanwhile at least two broadcast journalists told viewers how difficult it is to report from the battered country, also known as Burma.

“It’s been very, very difficult to get into this river Delta,” CNN correspondent Dan Rivers reported on Friday. “The roads are not possible for us. So now, this is the only way we can progress any further by boat, and the river that we’re traveling on is incredibly swollen. You can see all the trees along the side here are completely submerged by river water. Normally, this would all be on dry land.”

The “Myanmar government has refused to let any international press into this area officially, but we’ve managed to get through numerous checkpoints to see for ourselves how bad things are.

“It feels as if this government is trying to stop the world from seeing what’s happening here. Perhaps [that’s] why . . . photos like these are the sorts of images they want to suppress,” he said, “the macabre-contorted bodies that littered this landscape.

“We also managed to take some disturbing images of our own in a local hospital. Conditions are appalling, injuries horrendous. Many have suffered lacerations to the back as they clung to palm trees and are pummeled by the debris-laden storm surge. They are only the most basic facilities and again, no evidence of any aid.”

A BBC reporter, Paul Danahar, echoed those sentiments in a report for his network Thursday night:

“What is bizarre in this circumstance is that normally you are welcomed as a journalist by the government that is trying to cope with a disaster. They want the world to know, because they want the world to give help,” Danahar said.

“Yet we are having to hide from the government here. We are having to send our material out while hiding in paddy fields. It’s an absurd situation. So we go into a village but we can’t stay long, because if the army does come round the corner we may be arrested and we may be sent out.

“We have to leave this area before we’re arrested. The people we say goodbye to are without help, have little food and our profoundly traumatized, stranded in the Irrawaddy Delta, leaving in fear of this military regime that seems determined to hush up the scale of this tragedy.”

The AP reported, “Diplomats and aid groups warned the number of dead could eventually exceed 100,000 because of illnesses and said thousands of children may have been orphaned.’

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Photographer Accused of Warning Nightclub of Bust

Washington, N.C., station “WCTI-TV has suspended a news photographer after his arrest Thursday,” the Eastern North Carolina outlet reported.

 

“Eugene Shelton is accused of tipping off people at a nightclub that was about to be raided by sheriff deputies.

“The Onslow County Sheriff’s Office says Shelton was at a briefing May 3rd just before deputies raided Club Mickey’s. Members of the media, including WITN News, were brought into the law enforcement briefing prior to the raid.

“Shelton was overheard telling a co-worker ‘I can’t go, I can’t go.’ A few minutes later Shelton was seen texting on his cell phone.

“Also the documents say that some of that evidence that was known to be in the club and was being sought during the raid, was not at the club and had been moved shortly before the deputies’ arrival.

“A sheriff’s department spokesman says today’s arrest came after they obtained search warrants for Shelton’s cell phone records.

“The news photographer was released on a $1,000 unsecured bond.”

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Columnist Hits Management, Salaries at Radio One

“There is no pleasure in chronicling the decline of any local company, let alone one that had come to symbolize the entrepreneurial aspirations of Washington’s African American community,” business columnist Steven Pearlstein, winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for commentary, wrote Friday in the Washington Post. “And surely a big part of the story has been the dramatic changes in technology that have hit hard at all media companies, including my own.”

His subject was Radio One, which says it is the nation’s seventh largest radio broadcasting company and the largest radio broadcasting company that primarily targets African American and urban listeners.

“But this is also the story of a management team and a tightknit board of directors who have overreached in their strategy, underperformed in executing it and sometimes put their own interests ahead of those of their public shareholders,” Pearlstein continued.

“The most egregious example is the new compensation packages recently awarded by the board to Hughes and her son, Alfred C. Liggins III, the chief executive. Under the agreements, Hughes, as chairman of the board with no clearly defined executive responsibilities, will receive an annual base salary of $750,000, along with a potential bonus of $250,000. That compares with a 2007 salary and bonus of $560,000.

“Liggins, who in addition to his base salary of $575,370, last year earned a bonus of $468,720 for turning in the worst financial performance in company history. Going forward, the board has determined that Liggins is apparently so valuable and essential that his base salary has to be increased to $980,000, with a potential bonus of another $980,000.

“There’s more. . . . “

Pearlstein concluded, “Rather than stringing along shareholders with promises of stock buybacks and Internet riches while milking them dry with extravagant compensation packages, Hughes and Liggins ought to find a lender or private-equity firm, pay shareholders a small premium and buy the company back.”

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Ifill: Churchgoers Didn’t Want to Be Called Monolith

Gwen Ifill of PBS is the daughter of the late Rev. O. Urcille Ifill Sr., who, as pastor of A.M.E. Union Church in the 1980s, was one of Philadelphia’s leading African American ministers.

Ifill’s church background came up when she was interviewed by Michael D. Schaffer of the Philadelphia Inquirer as she prepared to return to Philadelphia to receive a Lifelong Learning Award from public broadcasting’s WHYY at a $600-a-plate fund-raiser.

Schaffer asked the longtime journalist, “What do you make of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. [Barack Obama’s former pastor, who has made controversial statements about race, religion and 9/11 attacks]?”

“I have to say that my stature as a preacher’s kid has never come in handier than in the last several weeks,” Ifill replied. “When this whole thing started, I think I can say I was one of the few reporters who had ever heard of Rev. Wright, who had ever heard him speak or had ever been to his church. Many black churches are activist pulpits, where speaking truth to power is part of what you did. My father, once upon a time back in the day, wore dashikis in the pulpit. I remember that very clearly.

“But I also know that all black churches aren’t like that, and where [Wright] began to lose people I know, churchgoers, is that he began to speak in a monolithic way about black people. Monolith is what we all strive not to describe any single community as. Everybody doesn’t think, feel, worship the same way. And that’s where he started to run into some trouble, societally as well as politically. Politically, it seemed that by the time Barack Obama did what he did a couple of days ago [distancing himself from Wright], he had little choice left to him.”

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Short Takes

 

 

 

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Feedback: It Helps to Recognize Our Racism

I remember when Hillary Rodham Clinton was at the Black Caucus in Texas and bragged about how she and Bill helped the black folk. This was right after Dick Gregory made the obvious point that African Americans are tired of hearing that every individual achievement is thanks to a handout.

All of us white people have to live with our racism. It does help to recognize it, though. As a white person (66-year-old male pediatrician), it’s not for me to judge how a black person feels when I speak with him/her, but rather for the party I’m speaking to to make that determination.

By the way, how are people to vote if, let’s say, they have a black father and a white mother? Does one child vote for HRC and the other for Barack? If one of the parents is half black and half white, do they need to have four children? How do you vote if dad is half black and one-fourth Hispanic? Are you allowed to think and pick the candidate you feel is best?

Steve Shlafer
Mill Creek, Wash.
May 9, 2008

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