[Black Star Editorial]
The Clinton campaign’s recent low-blows against Obama should come back to haunt the New York senator.
Senator Clinton is within her rights to assert that she has more “experience” than Obama—even though the claim is disputable. She can claim that Obama is too young and has yet to peak; that this is her moment.
She can claim that she has had a head start in working on her healthcare proposals, and other plans that will benefit most Americans; that she is simply the better candidate.
She cannot allow her campaign, or her supporters, to sink to ugly race pandering; unless she's behind it. Those are acts of desperation, come from a certain feeling of entitlement –why is this upstart, a Black person to boot, trying to derail my inevitable coronation?
Such folly will destroy her relations with Black voters, especially when the malicious attacks strike a chord with a broad segment of the Black populace.
Intelligent voters have a right to question whether Senator Clinton did not actually approve the under-the belt Obama attacks.
As the whole country knows, a senior Clinton aide, Billy Shaheen, who was then the co-chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in New Hampshire, warned that Obama was unelectable given the fact that he’d admitted to drug use in his youth. After all, Shaheen warned, those nasty Republicans Obama would face in a general election would definitely also wonder if Obama had also been a drug dealer.
As we pointed in a previous editorial, this sucker punch was directed towards white people –Republicans and Democrats— that buy into the stereotype that deep down, Black people, no matter how well educated and cultured, are inherently criminals. As Malcolm X used to famously say, “What’s a nigger with a PhD”? Answer?: “A nigger.”
The Clinton campaign’s deliberate bigotry was not sufficient.
Soon after, former Senator Bob Kerrrey, while announcing his endorsement of Clinton, pointed out that Obama also had a given name of Hussein and that his grandmother is a Kenyan Muslim. Obama, therefore, Kerrey while pretending to be praising Obama, noted, would be very suitable in helping the US reach out to Muslims around the world.
Kerrey is no fool, even when he pretends he is one. He was portraying Obama as the Manchurian candidate. He is aware of the widespread prejudices towards Muslims at this point in US history, following the 9/11 attacks, and the fact that American soldiers are currently dying in the Bush Administration’s misguided Iraq war.
We also find it hard to believe that Senator Clinton would not have wanted to hear in advance what Kerrey planned to say before he publicly endorsed her. Unless Clinton publicly states that she had no advance knowledge, she must be held responsible by voters.
Kerrey ended his comments on a “generous” note.
Obama, while not fit to be president of the US, was quite useful, Kerrey concluded. He could help in reaching out to Black youth. This was actually Kerrey’s, and presumably the Clinton team’s, way of raising the whole “competence” thing. A Black man cannot be relied upon to guide the national ship of state. But he can certainly provide counseling to wayward Black youth. And, boy, aren’t there enough of them; Obama himself was one.
Kerrey proved one thing for sure–that he is completely unfit to be president of a major university like The New School, which he now runs. Students should call for his resignation.
Voters might also question Candidate Clinton's fitness for the presidency of the US, following these episodes.
Heading into Iowa next week, to his credit Obama, like a seasoned fighter, did not respond to any of the low blows. He prefers to let referees, in the form of voters, handle the matter.
Points must be deducted.
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