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Hillary stokes the fire over Rev. Wright

James Forsyth

Tuesday, 25th March 2008

Today, for the first time, Hillary Clinton tried to make political capital out of ‘Patstorgate’, telling the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

"He [Jeremiah Wright] would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."
…
"You know, I spoke out against Don Imus (who was fired from his radio and television shows after making racially insensitive remarks), saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that," Clinton said. "I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving."

Clinton’s intervention guarantees that the Wright story won’t die down, as Obama desperately wants it to. Her remarks also hit Obama where he is most vulnerable, on the simple question of why he stayed friends with a man and went to his church when he made such hateful statements. (Obama’s answer to this question, which involves the complexity of African-American identity and his relationship to it, remains unsatisfactory to the downscale white voters that Obama still needs to win over).

Hillary, though, has taken a definite risk with this statement. The race is now on to find out if she or Bill has ever sat in a church where offensive comments were made. If either of them has, expect the press to make hay.

One other particularly noteworthy quote from the interview is her defence of pork: "I am proud of my earmarks," she said sarcastically. "Part of the reason that I won New York by 67 percent are my earmarks." What, in a moment of candour, Hillary is admitting is that she uses taxpayers’ money to boost her popularity in New York state and thus her vote.

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TGF UKIP

March 25th, 2008 8:39pm

James,with regard to your last para, I smell a Clinton ploy. I doubt that a highly disciplined pro like Hillary makes a throwaway remark on such a subject "in a moment of candour." Rather it will have been designed to set a hare running. McCain's been in the Senate a lot longer than Hillary - what do his earmarks amount to? Republican indignation, or its absence, in response to Hillary's remark will probably give us an indication - they had better tread carefully!

James Forsyth

March 26th, 2008 12:23am

TGF, McCain says he has never requested one and even his fiercest critcs can only find two none of which could be considered in any way controversial--one's military, the other's educational. Best, James

Ganpat Ram

March 26th, 2008 12:54pm

Hillary is a tenacious but woefully inept campaigner.

She is very slow on the draw, and fires in the wrong direction.

She has lost her last opportunity to unhorse Obama, by first delaying a sharp response to the Wright scandal and then making too petty a thing of it.

The real burning charge she could have made is that Obama's close relatuionship with such an incendiary racial demagogue for nearly two decades totally undermines the claims to judgement and leadership on which Obama has based his campaign.
She could simply have asked: If Obama can't stand up against racial incitement in his own church for twenty years and even makes the inciter his spiritual adviser and the pastor of his CHILDREN, how is he fitted to lead the nation?