Obama’s Better-Late-Than-Never Gestures of Goodwill Toward Clinton

Scanning the online news coverage this morning, it appeared the media had nearly spent its faux outrage at Clinton’s remarks on Friday about earlier Democratic campaigns that had lasted until June – the former first lady and New York senator was expressing understandable bewilderment at the repeated attempts by Obama supporters and his media allies to force her out of the race before the primaries were over.

According to Kate Seelye’s “retrospective” posted at the Caucus (NY Times), the flames were initially ignited by a Drudge Report link to an online New York Post item, which had already stamped Clinton’s comments with its own slanderous interpretation: “She is still in the presidential race, she said today, because historically, it makes no sense to quit, and added that, ‘Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June,’ making an odd comparison between the dead candidate and Barack Obama.”

Note the Post’s use of the phrase 'dead candidate' to deliberately exacerbate the situation. Never mind qualms about ethical journalism; our vigilant press was all over it.

The Obama camp was quick to add a gallon or two of gasoline to the flames:

“By then,” Seelye reports, “the Obama campaign had issued a statement, linking to the Post item and saying her comment ‘was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign.’ Privately, we were told, the Obama camp was livid.”

In the midst of the uproar, one online news source stood out from the pack of loudly bleating sheep: ABC’s Teddy Davis And Talal Al-Khatib with Eloise Harper challenged the Obama team’s over-reaction, suggesting that Obama was not living up to his commitment to show good faith to others that he describes in his book, The Audacity of Hope.

Obama was a couple of days late when he finally chose to do the right thing; he waited until Hillary Clinton had endured yet another prolonged onslaught of abuse from his supporters and media allies. As quoted in Political Intelligence (Boston Globe), the so-called presumptive nominee had stepped forward to say he would take Senator Clinton’s word that she did not intend any offense by her comment.

I seem to recall that Obama also waited until the damage had been done after his campaign had attempted to smear the Clintons as racists prior to his win in South Carolina. It was several weeks later that Obama hung his head during a televised debate to grudgingly admit: “The Clintons are not racists.”

The rest of the world had long been aware of that fact.