January 28, 2008

Old Wine, New Bottle

Bill Clinton's dismissal of Barack Obama's victory in South Carolina with a pointed reference to Jesse Jackson's wins there in the 80's has the Clinton campaign under fire from liberals and conservatives alike. I've assembled a sampling of center-right commentary from the last couple of days, and there seem to be a few recurring themes. To a man, the commentators quoted below acknowledge that the admirable tone of Obama's campaign has been the polar opposite of Jackson's tired race-baiting, and that Obama's electoral accomplishments already dwarf those of the Reverend.

And behind a sort of barely-concealed glee at seeing leftists hoist by their own identity-politics petard, is another kind of satisfaction, from watching decent liberals come to be disgusted by what they see in what has always been Clintonism. Starting with the Wall Street Journal op-ed...

The Clinton Race Gambit - WSJ.com

Asked by a reporter why it took "two" Clintons to beat Mr. Obama, Mr. Clinton replied that "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina" in 1984 and 1988. And he added that both Rev. Jackson and Mr. Obama had run "a good campaign here." Hmmm. The reporter hadn't mentioned Jesse Jackson, but Mr. Clinton somehow felt it apposite to refer to him anyway. He thus associated Mr. Obama's landslide victory with that of a black candidate who never did win the Democratic nomination, much less the Presidency, and who had run overtly as an African-American candidate in contrast to Mr. Obama's explicit campaign theme of transcending race. [Barack Obama]

Anyone who thinks this was accidental has spent too much time with Sid Blumenthal.

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It's going to be fascinating to see if Democrats and the press let the Clintons get away with this. Imagine if Mitt Romney had made the Jesse Jackson comparison. Democrats would have immediately denounced the remarks as "racist," or as a part of some Republican "Southern strategy."

James Taranto, reacting to Jesse Jackson's quote that he didn't "read anything negative into Clinton's observation"...

In Mr. Clinton's defense, it may be said that Obama has some things in common with Jackson as a presidential candidate. Like Jackson (at least in South Carolina), he won an overwhelming number of black votes--78%, according to CNN exit polls--presumably in part because of ethnic pride. As for the white vote, one can argue that Obama's glass is half empty (less than 1 in 4 whites went for him) or half full (Obama's 24% was much better than the estimated 5% to 10% Jackson got in the 1988 caucuses, according to the New York Times). Also, in this columnist's opinion, Obama, like Jackson, is too liberal and too inexperienced to make an ideal president.

Given all this, and given that Jackson himself is taking the high road, shouldn't we refrain from making a big deal of Mr. Clinton's remark?

Absolutely not. Jackson is impossibly compromised in this matter, because at the root of Mr. Clinton's comment is the recognition that Jackson stands for something loathsome--something that Obama has repudiated.

Jesse Jackson is not a racial healer but an ambulance chaser. He has made his career exploiting black insecurity and white guilt, seizing on racial disputes and misunderstandings to profit financially and enhance his own status. If racial disharmony disappeared tomorrow, Jackson would be out of a job.

In this sense--the sense that is most important to Jackson's political identity--Obama is Jackson's opposite. He has emerged as a national political figure, and a plausible prospective president, by calling for unity, not by seeking to take advantage of division.

When Mr. Clinton likens Obama to Jackson, the clear message to white voters is that a black candidate cannot be better than Jackson, cannot be relied upon to put the interests of the country above those of his race or himself. This is a truly bigoted notion--and it is one that Jackson cannot protest, for to protest it would be to acknowledge the truth about himself.

Bill Kristol in the New York Times: (I just like the way that sounds)

What do Jesse Jackson’s victories two decades ago have to do with this year’s Obama-Clinton race? The Obama campaign is nothing like Jackson’s. Obama isn’t running on Jackson-like themes. Obama rarely refers to Jackson.

Clinton’s comment alludes to one thing, and to one thing only: Jackson and Obama are both black candidates. The silent premise of Clinton’s comment is that Obama’s victory in South Carolina doesn’t really count. Or, at least, Clinton is suggesting, it doesn’t mean any more than Jackson’s did.

But of course — as Clinton knows very well — Jesse Jackson didn’t win (almost all-white) Iowa. He didn’t come within a couple of points of prevailing in (almost all-white) New Hampshire. Nor did he, as Obama did, carry white voters in rural Nevada. And Saturday, in South Carolina, even after Bill Clinton tried to turn Obama into Jackson, Hillary defeated Obama by just three to two among white voters

So Bill Clinton has been playing the race card, and doing so clumsily. But why is he playing any cards? He wasn’t supposed to be in the game. But just as Hillary was supposed to be finding her own voice, Bill decided to barge in, and to do so with a vengeance. This has been no favor to Hillary.

Christopher Hitchens:

How can one equal Bill Clinton for thuggery and opportunism when it comes to the so-called "race card"? And where does one even start with the breathtaking nastiness of his own conduct, and that of his supporters, in the last week? Barack Obama carries South Carolina having made no sectarian appeal to any specific kind of voter, and the best Clinton can say is that this is no better than Jesse Jackson managed to do. Really? Did Jackson come south having already got himself elected the senator from Illinois? And, come to think of it, was Jackson so much to be despised and sneered at when he was needed as Clinton's "confessor," along with Billy Graham, during the squalor of impeachment?

Hitchens recalls a couple prominent examples of Clinton's history of exploiting racial division, including the execution of the severely mentally impaired Ricky Ray Rector, and notes that...

...all this was forgiven by credulous liberals who were sure that they had discovered a New Democrat who was a Southerner to boot.

Many of these same people do not like it now that they see similar two-faced tactics being employed against "one of their own." Well, tough. And many of the most prominent and eloquent black columnists—Bob Herbert, Colbert King, Eugene Robinson—are also acting shocked. It's a bit late. I have to say that Bob Herbert shocked even me by quoting Andrew Young, who said that his pal Clinton was "every bit as black as Barack" because he'd screwed more black chicks. How is Hillary Clinton, or Chelsea Clinton, supposed to feel on hearing that little endorsement? One gets the impression, though, at least from the wife, that anything is OK as long as it works, or even has a chance of working.

Indeed, many on the Left, including former Clinton supporters and apologists are expressing revulsion and surprise at this latest Clintonian smear. The WSJ editorial linked above finishes like this:

This primary contest has been a rolling revelation for many Democrats and the media, as they've been shocked to see the Clinton brand of divisive politics played against one of their own. Liberal columnists who long idolized the Clintons are even writing more-in-sorrow-than-anger pieces asking how Bill and Hillary could descend to such deceptive tactics. Allow us to answer that lament this way: Our readers aren't surprised.

UPDATE 1/28: A bit off topic, but regarding the endorsement of Obama by Ted Kennedy today, I thought Peter Wehner eloquently noted the irony dripping from Teddy's bemoaning of the "politics of personal destruction."

UPDATE 1/20: Daily Observer has a sample of the criticism of Clinton from the left.

Posted by dan at January 28, 2008 9:16 PM