As Spencer Ackerman rightly notes, isn’t this the kind of shit that Rick Bragg got fired for doing?

At any rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the Hillary votes are from people sick to death of Tweety, Moron, and other media misogynists.

The only thing is that if Hillary wins the nomination, I hope – HOPE – that it doesn’t turn too many people over to the Repigs. I believe most people are sick to death of Bush and his merry minions of Satan by now and don’t want another Rethugministration.

…there were tears that melted the Granite State. And those are tears that Mrs. Clinton cried on that day, clearly moved voters. She somehow connected with those voters.

But those tears also have to be analyzed. They have to be looked at very, very carefully in light of Katrina, in light of other things that Mrs. Clinton did not cry for, particularly as we head to South Carolina where 45% of African-Americans who participate in the Democratic contest, and they see real hope in Barack Obama.

I’m sorry, this is racist pandering on an astonishing level. For shame.

Hilary suggesting that MLK’s talk meant nothing until LBJ saved the day

Here’s the full quote, with the Obama statement she was responding to and some commentary from Josh Marshall (from TPM):

Here’s the Obama quote he reads …

“False Hopes. Dr King standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial looking out over the magnificent crowd, the reflecting pool, the Washington Monument, sorry guys, false hopes, the dream will die, it can’t be done, false hope, we don’t need leaders who tell us what we can’t do, we need leaders to tell us what we can do and inspire us.”

He then asks if she would respond and she says …

“I would, and I would point to the fact that that Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the President before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became a real in peoples lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it, and actually got it accomplished.”

It’s an ambiguous statement. But her reference is to different presidents — Jack Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, one of whom inspired but did relatively little legislatively and Johnson who did a lot legislatively, though he was rather less than inspiring. Quite apart from the merits of Obama and Clinton, it’s not a bad point about Kennedy and LBJ.

Now I know in writing this I’m going to get tons of emails saying I’m defending an indefensible statement, making excuses for her, etc. I’m not. It’s poorly worded, and easy to misunderstand. And it will be misunderstood. Her ‘false hopes’ line from the debate was one of the worst of the campaign. And you can read her realization of the dream point as putting a lot of focus on legislation and sort of discounting activism. But when I look at the actual words in this statement it just doesn’t match up with the line that’s circulating — that she was saying Obama’s King and she’s LBJ.

I think he’s got a point there, when the full exchange is considered. King and the Civil Rights Movement pushed and pushed, but ultimately needed to get Congress to pass the legislation. Kennedy talked big, but didn’t even try to get civil rights legislation passed. LBJ was the one who did the arm-twisting and got the votes together. Neither JFK nor LBJ would likely have done anything without King’s pushing, but LBJ was the one who went beyond talk and got it done.

It’s a damn bad quote, though. I see that she’s trying to say that Obama may be inspiring as an orator, but she’s the one who gets things done, but her message is muddled and it comes across (particularly in the truncated quote that was going around, and that was posted on the Politico) as if she’s denigrating King’s work and elevating LBJ’s.