Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Senator Clinton Tries to Reignite Wright Controversy

Wow, just when I thought a new era of politics was being ushered in, up pops the same old same old. Evidently we have not left the old political ways that you say or do whatever you have to say to get elected. Well I am speaking only on the Democratic side only; I know the Republicans are digging in the trash can looking for dirt. But, what are voters supposed to believe about Senator Hillary Clinton’s back-handed criticism of Senator Barack Obama’s decision not to disown the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr., his former longtime pastor?

After two weeks of acting as if the cat had her tongue, Clinton coyly told reporters on Tuesday that "he [Pastor Wright] would not have been my pastor. You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend," she said. Nicely said for a person without loyalty to anyone but themselves. Senator Clinton is the type of person that would not only throw her friends under the bus, but would back up and run over them again. When she said that she was happy to have the discussion about race, it seemed as she would be taking the high road. Now as soon as Senator Clinton is caught in a lie, she tries to turn the attention to non-issue. Instead of following Senator Obama's lead and using this incident to seek racial reconciliation, Senator Clinton is further fanning the flames by attempting to paint herself as the more racially sensitive candidate. "You know, I spoke out against Don Imus, saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that," Clinton said. "I just think you have to speak out against that." Since Senator Obama has already spoken out against Wright's remarks, Senator Clinton is simply trying to milk the controversy for political advantage.

Indeed, the fact that Senator Clinton found her voice on this issue on the same day she was outed as having “misstated” her Bosnia experience is merely a coincidence. Isn’t it funny how the conversation came up at the same time some of the media were grilling her about her blown up account of her 1996 Bosnia trip? Her explanation that she “misspoke” and that she was “sleep-deprived” when she retold the bogus incident (more than once) about having to run for cover from sniper fire after landing in Bosnia is noting but a flat out LIE!! After video footage show she and Chelsea leisurely walking and talking to reporters her memory suddenly come back. Anyone who has ever had to dodge gunfire as Senator Clinton claimed to have done would certainly remember it very well.

I find it insulting that some politicians think the American people are idiots; in fact they depend on us being idiots. That is how the get elected. But what I find depressing is that some Black folks still refer to former President Bill Clinton as the first Black president. Just like her husband, who became unglued in South Carolina and began exploiting our racial divisions, Hillary Clinton is playing the same game. The Clintons are no strangers to the Black church when they are campaigning. They have heard some of these same sermons. Now Senator Clinton says that Pastor Wright wouldn't be her pastor but why then was he, along with other Black pastors, invited to the White House when President Clinton had his personal problems. She knows that Senator Barack Obama went as far as he could go in addressing this issue, and that he has left it up to the voters to decide. The Clinton strike Tuesday was a shameful attempt to manipulate those voters. Given that Senator Clinton is embracing the support of the Pennsylvania governor who has publicly declared that White men in Pennsylvania won't vote for a Black man, she isn't the one to talk. I guess the saying that Pennsylvania is made up of Philadelphia and Pittsburg and everything between them is 1960’s Alabama. Hillary Clinton is from Scranton, Pennsylvania.

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