Hillary Clinton Campaign Pushed Donnie McClurkin/Obama Controversy
(h/t Donna)
As much as the Clintons try to pimp the black church for votes, fully aware of the homophobia therein, this just makes my blood boil.
The Washington Post reports:
The Clinton campaign, many journalists say, is the fastest and most aggressive at dealing with blogs. Last week, Clinton aides sent journalists a Huffington Post column criticizing her major Democratic rival, Barack Obama, for a planned appearance with a gospel singer who is hostile to gays. Time blogger Ana Marie Cox posted the item — but added that Clinton had been endorsed by a minister who preaches against homosexuality. The Clinton camp quickly obtained a correction saying that the minister had praised Clinton but not endorsed her.
October 26, 2007 at 7:40 pm
[...] (oh yeah HRC is no saint on this issue either) [...]
October 26, 2007 at 10:54 pm
It’s even more maddening than this. If you go to the Ana Marie Cox blog entry, she does make a “correction,” about whether the other anti-gay black minister, Mayberry, endorsed Hillary, but then she (Cox) adds that Hillary had posted on her website a statement from Mayberry praising Clinton effusively. Cox sarcastically said something like, “that’s awfully close to an endorsement.”
The Clintons really bully the media and plant divisive stories. I suppose it’s the job of her campaign team to try to shape media coverage, but why do the media go along? Are they trying to atone for some of the stuff they irresponsibly ran back in the 90’s? If so, that’s horribly unfair because now Hillary’s Dem opponents are the bigger victims of unfair coverage, not the Repubs
I know it was never confirmed, but I now for the first time ever am starting to give credence to the stories that the Hillary people were behind the effort to get Fox to air the whole phoney Obama/Madrassa story right after Obama first announced.
October 26, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Hi RaymondA,
I have been thinking the same thing about the madrassa story. This recent anti-gay smear and also the anti-semitism smear of a few weeks ago were both set alight and fanned by the Clinton camp — and they used proxies both times to do it. I wrote a comment this morning in response to sagereader’s post: “Obama Campaign Releases Letter From Religious Leaders on McClurkin Story” — if you want to take a look, I was speculating — and then saw my paranoid thoughts confirmed in the WaPo article.
The assumption has generally been that the madrassa story originated from a right wing email. There is an article in the November issue of THE NATION called: The New Right Wing Smear Machine by Christopher Hayes. Hayes doesn’t quite get to the bottom of it and he doesn’t speculate about the Clinton’s involvement. However, the events of the past week have all but proven to me that even if they didn’t start the madrassa smear — the Clintons are certainly ruthless and conniving enough to exploit it no matter who gets hurt.
October 27, 2007 at 12:55 am
I am not shocked or suprised that the Clinton campaign is behind this. Of course they are. That’s what they do, that’s what all that money buys you…attack dogs, proxies, soldiers of smear. I am fully behind Barack Obama. I am canvasing for him tomorrow morning here in L.A. I have to say one thing though. WTF is wrong in OUR campaign? There is no one answering this crap and exposing it in the MSM. I see pundit after pundit go on Television and spout the Clinton lines verbatum, yet the truth from our side never comes out.
Example, the whole Lieberman/Kyl thing. Obama should be DESTROYING the Clinton machine with that because it ties into so many other aspects of Clintonism. But it isn’t happening. Why?
Why isn’t someone on TV talking about Harry Reid’s ties to the Clinton campaign? Why isn’t anyone on TV talking about the set up that was perpetrated on Obama by Reid in order to give Clinton cover for her Kyl/Lieberman vote? I can’t tell you how many times I have heard in the last week, “It would have been better for Obama if he would have been actually THERE in the Senate to vote against this bill, but as it stands, because he was not there, but rather, in NH campaigning, he really can’t say too much about it.”
I mean, for chris’sakes, a smart communications director could attack her for all of these dirty tricks, and very EASILY stay within the message of “the Politics of Hope”. The Politics of hope means HONESTY and OPENNESS, not allowing yourself to be bullied by the clinton smear machine. The longer he doesn’t get real with the people by exposing these smears, and calling the media clinton proxies out into the light, the more the Clinton campaign is going to continue on this track. He has to put this stuff into full stop NOW, and show the Clintons that if they attack him with these sleazy disingenuous tactics, it will cost THEM not him.
SOMEONE in his campaign must expose them. Loudly and voiciferously.
Which brings me to my main point. I am not very happy with this past week. I don’t feel that the campaign is moving forward enough in the MSM. I know that it is widely thought that the MSM wants HRC to be the nominee, that very well might be true. BUT. What the MSM wants even more is to have a good fight. It is what they live for. The second Obama states clearly and honestly what the differences are between himself and Hillary, in the sense of exactly these dishonest, and calculated attacks with the help of the worst majority leader in the senate that I can remember, that is the second that people will start to take notice of Barack in the MSM. I think that it is folly for us on Obama’s side to poo-poo the national polls because of the effect they have on the public. Whether they are representative of the truth (the polls) at this moment in time is not important. What IS important is that I guarantee you, as false as these polls might be NOW, the MSM will clobber people with them until they ARE true later. We would be fools not to recognize this. Look what they did to Gore in 2000. I can’t tell you how many times I saw today, Elvis Costello singing “Happy Birthday, Mrs. Presidennnnnnt” on TV. You can’t tell me that doesn’t have an affect on the low information, “undecideds”.
Bottom line, I want to start seeing stuff that is POSITIVE on Barack every freaking day in the media. I want to see some representation from his campaign EVERYDAY in the media. I want to see him open the doors to the campaign bus to all of the reporters and give them access, afterall, that is what they want anyway, access. If he falls much further in the national polls, he will have to do it anyway, so he needs to counter the clinton machine closed door policy with an OPEN door policy. Then we will start seeing stories about how this campaign really is thoughtful, caring, and DIFFERENT! That is what all of this money we have raised for him should be resulting in. At this point, it hasn’t yet.
I am not pleased that our campaign has been leaving itself open to this stuff.
October 27, 2007 at 6:06 pm
The Obama campaign has be what it claims to be, a campaign to win the presidency for Barack Obama. The opposition HRC, is not a stealth candidate nor are any of this campaign’s supporters. The Obama campaign(ers) know who they’re dealing with and, if they fail to act on that knowledge, which has been widely known over an extended period of time, shame on them and shame on America for refusing to see and act on the truth. If the best man doesn’t win, it will simply be a repeat of previous elections. Do we really want to go there…again?
October 27, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Keep on pointing this stuff out. It’s important to get the word out there.
October 29, 2007 at 9:45 pm
[...] The Washington Post says the Hillary Clinton campaign pushed this Obama-McClurkin story to the media outlets. This time [...]
October 30, 2007 at 4:54 pm
[...] They skipped over that “naive” and “frankly irresponsible” bit didn’t they? How about all that stuff about Obama not being able to hit the ground running from Day 1? How about sending out their attack dog proxies to smear Obama in the Jewish community and most recently in the LGBT/black communities? [...]
November 28, 2007 at 1:23 am
[...] Used the serious problem of homophobia in black churches as a political wedge issue although she and her husband capitalize from black religious people holding these views. In fact, I’m sure some of these ministers hold those same views, but I doubt we’ll hear anything from Aravosis and the Human Rights Campaign about it. [...]
February 13, 2008 at 6:47 am
[...] Hillary Clinton Slams Obama on Donnie McClurkin Again Take 2 [...]
March 15, 2008 at 3:27 am
The voters must remember that Hilary has been the victim of male chauvinism, but she has never been and will unlikely to be unfaithful to her husband. She is a decent woman who separates her husband’s sexual misconduct from his political progressiveness. Unlike many other women, she also knows what it means to her daughter to see two parents stay together. Thus she knows how to put others before herself. She has been working for the poor and the disadvantaged although she comes from the middle class. She is someone with a proven track record.
After repeated scandals by men in top positions, it is essential that a woman leads US and the world.
March 15, 2008 at 7:32 am
Barack obama hasn’t been unfaithful to his wife. He’s been a victim of racism. He knows what it means to work your way up from being raised without a father. He’s worked with the poor on the streets of Chicago. He has better judgment than Hillary, so your argument identity-based argument is moot. I’m looking at their record and position on the issues.
April 23, 2008 at 5:58 am
well Barack should win, ALL of us in Africa are behind him, his principles are excellent and just haering what his campaign is all about gives us the audacity to have hope for AFRICA1!