Does Barack Have the Courage to Apologize?
By Larry Johnson on June 25, 2008 at 8:55 PM in Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Current Affairs, Hillary Clinton, New Yorker, Race Card
To whom? To Bill Clinton of course. So, do I think Barack has the backbone to apologize to President Clinton and seek his help? No. Barack’s immaturity and arrogance remain major obstacles to him taking the steps he needs to build a bridge to Bill Clinton. But if he wants to be President he will have to take that step soon. Because Barack Obama needs Bill Clinton to win in the fall.
For starters, he needs Bill Clinton to raise money. He also needs Bill Clinton to help calm the anger and resentment that Hillary supporters still harbor towards Barack.
But the apology road is rocky and painful. At a minimum Barack needs to walk backwards on the following charges.
He stood by silently while his backers accused the President of racism.
The Obama campaign’s “fairy tale” gambit was particularly transparent. Commenting on Obama’s explanation of why he is more against the war in Iraq than Hillary Clinton, and disturbed by the news media’s failure to report Obama’s actual voting record on Iraq in the Senate, the former president referred to what had become the conventional wisdom as a “fairy tale” concocted by Obama and his supporters. Time to play the race-baiter card! One of Obama’s most prominent backers, the mayor of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin, stretched Clinton’s remarks and implied that he had called Obama’s entire candidacy a fairy tale. (The mayor later coyly told a reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she had not intended to criticize Clinton: “Surely you don’t mean he’s the only one who can use the phrase ‘fairy tale,’” Franklin said, in a tone that the reporter described as “mock indignation.”) Appearing on CNN, one of its pundits, Donna Brazile, hurled the wild charge that Clinton had likened Obama to a child. “And I will tell you,” she concluded, “as an African American I find his words and his tone to be very depressing.” With those kinds of remarks–”as an African American”–the race card and the race-baiter card both came back into play. Although Brazile is formally not part of Obama’s campaign, her comments made their way to the South Carolina memo, offered as evidence that Clinton’s comment was racially insensitive.
And Barack trashed Bill Clinton’s legacy. Ryan Lizza, writing in The New Yorker, noted:
That is what offended Bill Clinton. “Hillary’s opponent, in his entire campaign, every two or three weeks has said for months and months and months, beginning in Nevada, that really there wasn’t much difference in how America did when I was President and how America’s done under President Bush,” he said in Lock Haven. “Now, if you believe that, you should probably vote for him, but you get a very bad grade in history.” In the closing days of the campaign, Obama gave at least three speeches criticizing the former President, who, ever vigilant of his legacy, defended himself at every stop. Few paid attention; Barack and Bill were like two boxers trying to have a fight but both getting pelted by a mysterious third force—the saturation gaffe coverage.
Well, guess what Barack? Bill Clinton has been elected twice as President. You are still a wannabee. And your boy, Jimmy Carter, could only win one term and hung the albatross of defeat on Democrats for the next 12 years. And whose ass are you kissing? Carter’s. Word to Barack–pucker up baby and get some chap stick. You have got some major Clinton ass to kiss. You should start by praising his legacy. Next you need to make it clear to your idiot followers, who persist in sullying the names of both Bill and Hillary with charges of racism, that both Clintons have been the best friends of the African Americans.
But despite the news reports that you are reaching out to Bill Clinton, you and I both know that is a crock. Your words are empty rhetoric. You remain a petulant, arrogant punk. You need to find the grace and humility to apologize for helping trash the legacy of Bill Clinton. You need to pick up the phone and do some groveling. I doubt you have it in you. But I am ready for you to prove me wrong. If you can repair the damage you did to Bill Clinton, you might have a chance to demonstrate you can do a better job of governing. But I don’t think you have what it takes. We will see.
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