Former Virginia governor Doug Wilder is playing the race card by twisting the words of former President Bill Clinton completely out of context. He insists on pretending that when Bill Clinton said Obama's record on the Iraq War was a fairytale that what he was really talking about was Obama's candidacy itself and not his record on the Iraq War. (link)
"Barack Obama is not a fairy tale. He is real," former Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder told reporters at a Democratic fundraiser as the former president spent the day campaigning for Hillary Rodham Clinton in Richmond and three other Virginia cities.
Donna Brazile (and yes I know she is publicly "uncommitted" but she is smart enough to know that is not what Bill Clinton meant, so don't even pretend with me she didn't say that to help Obama) and Michelle Obama (also more than smart enough to know that is not what Bill Clinton meant since she graduated from Harvard Law School) made this same specific false charge about the use of the word "fairytale" before the South Carolina primary. (link)
It is also important to note that Senator Obama's campaign has pushed this same false charge before. Here is documentation of a memo from a previous primary (link):
Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign has prepared a detailed memo listing various instances in which it perceived Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign to have deliberately played the race card in the Democratic primary.
The document provides an indication that, in private, the Obama campaign is seeking to capitalize on the view - and push the narrative - that the Clintons are using race-related issues for political leverage. In public, the Obama campaign has denied that they are trying to propagate such a perception, noting that the document never was sent to the press.
In the memo, the Obama campaign highlights these "fairy tale" remarks and notes that Donna Brazile, Al Gore's 2000 campaign manager, "lashed into Bill Clinton" for them. The Clinton campaignhas said that the former president was referring to Obama's position on the Iraq. And indeed, Clinton made his remarks in the context of discussing criticism of the war.
Before the South Carolina debate Senator Obama publicly denied that his campaign was pushing the narrative that the Clintons were using race-related issues for political leverage. But during the debate Tim Russert cornered him with a copy of the abovementioned memo and he was forced to admit that his team actually had been pushing that narrative. Video of that exchange between Obama and Russert can be seen here.
What makes me angriest about this is that for someone like Senator Obama, who does truly have the capability to transcend race, it is selling him short to deceive people, through playing the race card, into voting for him merely because he is black. This dishonest playing of the race card does nothing to promote Barack Obama's strongest points and in the end it is a disservice both to Senator Obama and to former President Bill Clinton.
Yesterday I addressed similar BS from Obama supporter Frank Rich who even went as far as to claim that Senator Clinton's Town Hall on Hallmark was racist. (link) Today I call upon Obama supporters everywhere to reject these false charges of racism that will taint the likely Obama victories in Virginia and DC and Maryland on Tuesday.
There are definitely other actions by supporters of Senator Clinton that could more legitimately be taken as demeaning and possibly racist, particularly the cocaine comment by Mark Penn. And many would say the mention of Jesse Jackson by former President Clinton was race-baiting, though I would disagree with that particular comment being racist. (See comments here) Jesse Jackson himself said he did not find it offensive.
But instead of the instances that might legitimately be taken as racist, it is this particular comment that Governor Wilder is latching onto in the quote given above that has repeatedly been used as an example of race-baiting by various supporters of Senator Obama. This is because it sounds worse than any of the other comments when taken out of context. Taken in context, it was not racist at all. And to make charges of racism based on that particular comment is dishonest and inflammatory. And it seems clear that Senator Obama's supporters are trying to intentionally inflame African Americans to get them to vote for Senator Obama.