Clinton Apologizes to Black Voters for Racial Comments
WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton did something Wednesday night that she almost never does. She apologized. And once she started, she didn’t seem able to stop.
The New York senator, who is in a tight race with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, struck several sorry notes at an evening forum sponsored by the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a group of more than 200 black community newspapers across the country.
Her biggest apology came in response to a question about comments by her husband, Bill Clinton, after the South Carolina primary, which Obama won handily. Bill Clinton said Jesse Jackson also won South Carolina when he ran for president in 1984 and 1988, a comment many viewed as belittling Obama’s success.
“I want to put that in context. You know I am sorry if anyone was offended. It was certainly not meant in any way to be offensive,” Hillary Clinton said. “We can be proud of both Jesse Jackson and Senator Obama.”
“Anyone who has followed my husband’s public life or my public life know very well where we have stood and what we have stood for and who we have stood with,” she said, acknowledging that whoever wins the nomination will have to heal the wounds of a bruising, historic contest.
“Once one of us has the nomination there will be a great effort to unify the Democratic party and we will do so, because, remember I have a lot of supporters who have voted for me in very large numbers and I would expect them to support Senator Obama if he were the nominee,” she said.
The Clintons long have enjoyed overwhelming support from black voters, but that has been eclipsed during the primaries and caucuses by enthusiasm and support for Obama, who has pulled huge margins among black voters. Arguments over the role of race and gender have flared up repeatedly throughout the contest between Obama, who would be the nation’s first black president, and Clinton, who would be its first female one.
Earlier in the day, Hillary Clinton supporter and fundraiser Geraldine Ferraro gave up her honorary position with Clinton’s campaign after she said in an interview last week that Obama would not have made it this far if he were white. Obama said Ferraro’s remarks were “ridiculous” and “wrong-headed.”
Of Ferraro’s comment, Hillary Clinton told her audience: “I certainly do repudiate it and I regret deeply that it was said. Obviously she doesn’t speak for the campaign, she doesn’t speak for any of my positions, and she has resigned from being a member of my very large finance committee.”
As first lady and senator, Clinton rarely cedes an inch to her critics. On the issue of her vote to authorize the Iraq war, for instance, she steadfastly has refused to apologize, coming close by saying she regrets it, despite calls from many anti-war voters in the party to make a more explicit mea culpa.
Her third conciliatory statement of the evening was more in keeping with that fighting stance.
Asked about the government’s efforts in the Gulf States after Hurricane Katrina, Hillary Clinton turned an apology into a criticism of President Bush, who happened to be speaking at a Republican event in another room at the same hotel.
“I’ve said it publicly, and I say it privately: I apologize, and I am embarrassed that our government so mistreated our fellow citizens … It was a national disgrace,” she said.
For me the more deafning insult was that she said Obama was lucky.
Ferraro chose the word lucky when words like intelligent, good judgement, good character were available. And then to deny she did anything wrong. Let me say this (bringing up all you’ve done for years for poor black people don’t fly with me). As proven many times people can fake it for years and on top of that they have their own agenda for the “so called good” they do.
As for Hillary its true she will stop at nothing to get back in the white house making it available for Bill to tarnish again. I do not believe she is sincere because she chose to say if I offended anyone. This is not an apology. And why is she shabbly apologizing for what Bill said?
Has anyone ever check out all the people that came up dead surrounding the Clinton for years? It’s all on the web.
After listening to Hillary last night saying her “victory speech”, I still have nausea. If she wants to play dirty and handle the truth carelessly about Barack, perhaps it is time she gets a little reminder. She will continue this negative campaign to win and we must all fight back in any way we can with the real truth about her. Let’s also see those White House documents that she and Bill keep hiding and her tax returns she is so hesitant to come clean about. Sometimes you just have to fight fire with fire and unlike Barack who they are trying to destroy with distortions, the Clintons can be brought down with the truth.
We cannot afford to lose the best candidate for president because of smear campaigns from a power hungry woman who wants the prestige of being the first woman to be president.
Hopes You Have Forgotten
Hillary hopes you have forgotten. Have you????
Hillary Clinton has been telling America that she is the most qualified candidate for president based on her “record,” which she says includes
her eight years in the White House as First Lady - or “co-president” - and her seven years in the Senate. Here is a reminder of what that record includes:
- As First Lady, Hillary assumed authority over Health Care Reform, a process that cost the taxpayers over $13 million. She told both Bill
Bradley and Pat Moynahan, key votes needed to pass her legislation, that she would “demonize “anyone who opposed it. But it was opposed; she couldn’t even get it to a vote in a Congress controlled by her own party. (And in the next election, her party lost control of both the House and Senate.)
- Hillary assumed authority over selecting a female Attorney General. Her first two recommendations (Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood) were forced to withdraw their names from consideration, and then she chose Janet Reno. Janet Reno has since been described by Bill himself as “my worst
mistake.”
- Hillary recommended Lani Guanier for head of the Civil Rights Commission. When Guanier’s radical views became known, her name had to
be withdrawn.
- Hillary recommended her former law partners, Web Hubbell, Vince Foster, and William Kennedy for positions in the Justice Department, White House staff, and the Treasury, respectively. Hubbell was later imprisoned, Foster committed suicide, and Kennedy was forced to resign.
- Hillary also recommended a close friend of the Clintons, Craig Livingstone, for the position of director of White House security. When
Livingstone was investigated for the improper access of up to 900 FBI files of Clinton enemies (Filegate) and the widespread use of drugs by
White House staff, both Hillary and her husband denied knowing him. (FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene Confirmed in a Senate Judiciary Committee in 1996 both the drug use and Hillary’s involvement in hiring Livingstone. After that, the FBI closed its White House Liaison Office,
after serving seven presidents for over thirty years.)
- In order to open “slots” in the White House for her friends the Harry Thomasons (to whom millions of dollars in travel contracts could be
awarded), Hillary had the entire staff of the White House Travel Office fired; they were reported to the FBI for “gross mismanagement” and their
reputations ruined. After a thirty-month investigation, only one, Billy Dale, was charged with a crime - mixing personal money with White House
funds when he cashed checks. The jury acquitted him in less than two hours.
- Another of Hillary’s assumed duties was directing the “bimbo eruption squad” and scandal defense:
—- She urged her husband not to settle the Paula Jones lawsuit.
—- She refused to release the Whitewater documents, which led to the appointment of Ken Starr as Special Prosecutor. After $80 million
dollars of taxpayer money was spent, Starr’s investigation led to Monica Lewinsky, which led to Bill lying about and later admitting his affairs.
—- Then they had to settle with Paula Jones after all.
—- And Bill lost his law license for lying to the grand jury.
—- And Bill was impeached by the House.
—- And Hillary almost got herself indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice (she avoided it mostly because she repeated, “I do not recall,” “I have no recollection,” and “I don’t know” 56 times under oath).
- Hillary accepted the traditional First Lady’s role of decorator of the White House at Christmas, but in a unique Hillary way. In 1994, for
example, The First Lady’s Tree in the Blue Room (the focal point each year) was Decorated with drug paraphernalia, sex toys, and pornographic ornaments, all personally approved by Hillary as the invited artists’ depictions of the theme, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
- Hillary wrote “It Takes a Village,” demonstrating her Socialist viewpoint.
- Hillary decided to seek election to the Senate in a state she had never lived in. Her husband pardoned FALN terrorists in order to get Latino support and the New Square Hassidim to get Jewish support. Hillary also had Bill pardon her brother’s clients, for a small fee, to get financial support.
- Then Hillary left the White House, but later had to return $200,000 in White House furniture, china, and artwork she had stolen.
- In the campaign for the Senate, Hillary played the “woman card” by portraying her opponent (Lazio) as a bully picking on her.
- Hillary’s husband further protected her by asking the National Archives to withhold from the public until 2012 many records of their time in the White House, including much of Hillary’s correspondence and her calendars. (There are ongoing lawsuits to force the release of those records.)
- As the junior Senator from New York, Hillary has passed no major legislation. She has deferred to the senior Senator (Schumer) to tend to the needs of New Yorkers, even on the hot issue of medical problems of workers involved in the cleanup of Ground Zero after 9/11.
- Hillary’s one notable vote, supporting the plan to invade Iraq, she has since disavowed.
Quite a resume, isn’t it? Sounds more like an organized crime family…
Make sure America remembers. Pass this on.”
Mail
I must say, it seems like Senator Clinton is “spinning” blame towards the
Bush Administration for the woes of her campaign. It seems Senator Clinton climbed on the “band wagon” of critiquers of the current administration.
Many Americans forget that since the Bush Administration acted immediately after September 11, 2001, we haven’t had any terrorist plots coming to fruition to attack the United States. This administration has has brought terrorist threats to the limelight.
Why, during the 2004 Presidential campaign would Senator Kerry campaign as a “war-monger” against terrorists if what the current administration was, and is doing, so wrong !!!!
Again, Democrats are good debaters, NOT leaders in my opinion!!
Give me a break. And all the other people of this great nation. We are not stupid, you know. Hillary and Billy may think so but the truth is; Hillary’s apology to the blacks was simply “Self Serving”. In fact everything the Clinton clan says is self serving. They could care less about you and me. Well, I guess they do care about the rich folks who contribute millions for all their “Self Serving” needs.
Ron in Texas
I think it’s only fair that Obama apologise for aligning himself with a racist Pastor (for 20 years) and for his wife’s divisive, vitriolic and inflamatory comments on patriotism and racial/social dynamics in America….. We’re still waiting Barack H (mute as usual).
I appreciate Senator Clinton being able to apologize, but it has been just one race-tainted comment, after another, and after another, throughout her campaign. Husband President Clinton, campaign staff, aides, and campaign ” honoraries ” such as Geraldine Ferraro; All who should know better.
All the good work the Clinton Administration has done for minorities, has gone down the drain and into the Bayou. The lasting effect that our Democratic Party will have to live with is that Senator Clinton is damaging the party as a whole, for everyone, to serve her own personal ambitions and aspirations.
In other words Vote for us ( Hillary ), ” we ” know better than you do, and you are wanted as long as you stay in your place.
WOW! Sounds like a very BITTER African-British racist to me.
Why is she apologizing to Obama? HE’S NOT REALLY AFRICAN AMERICAN!!!!!! His father was from Kenya, his mother was white. And he grew up in Indonesia. His wife is black - but that’s about as far as his experience goes in understanding the black community. It’s not like he grew up in the inner city and pulled himself out of poverty. He doesn’t have a clue what it means to be impoverished. I think the black community should be offended that this IMPOSTER is using them. Why do people keep forgetting that????
HILLARY WOULDN’T EVEN BE IN THE RUNNING IF IT WEREN’T FOR BILL BEING A PRESIDENT. ALL THAT SHE HAS GOING FOR HER ARE ALL OF THE WASHINGTON/NEW YORK FRIENDS OF HERS AND BILLYS, AND WOMEN. IF IT WEREN’T FOR BILL, THE BULK OF HER VOTES WOULD BE FROM WOMEN WHO ONLY WANT HER BECAUSE SHE IS A WOMAN…..REAL GOOD REASON TO VOTE FOR HER..*DUH!!!!!
I BLAME A LOT OF THE PROBLEMS IN THIS CAMPAIGN ALSO ON THE MEDIAS TAKE ON EVERY LITTLE WORD THAT IS SAID, AND ALSO SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. THEY AREN’T JUST NEWS REPORTERS ANYMORE, BUT PSYCHO “ANAL’…YSTS. THE CAMPAIGNS TRY TO SQUASH REMARKS SAID TO EACH OTHER, BUT THE MEDIA DOESN’T LET PEOPLE OR THE CANDIDATES FORGET IT. THEY LIKE TO KEEP THE POT STIRRED UP JUST SO THEY WILL HAVE A STORY. SNL DOES SKITS ABOUT HILLARY AND OBAMA, OR HAS THE CANDIDATES ON THEIR SHOW, AND SUDDENLY HILLARY IS COMPLAINING THAT OBAMA IS GETTING MORE ATTENTION. OBAMA NEVER COMPLAINED ABOUT ANYTHING THAT HILLARY SAID ON THERE, SO WHO’S THE WHINER? HILLARY IS JUST TO “ICY” TO BE PRESIDENT.
VOTING FOR A PRESIDENT IS A VERY SERIOUS THING…OR USED TO BE ANYWAY. NOW IT IS NOTHING BUT A MEDIA CIRCUS THAT THEY KEEP RUNNNG INTO THE GROUND WITH THE SAME OLD CHIT THAT PEOPLE GET TIRED OF HEARING. LET’S GET BACK TO THE BASICS OF NEWS REPORTING…AND JUST REPORT THE NEWS AND NOT BE REPETITIVE!!!!
Hillary Clinton said. “We can be proud of both Jesse Jackson and Senator Obama.”
This sentence sounds OK on the surface but is back-handed and disparaging to more people in more ways than can be counted. How can she deliver such poison?