The exaggerated dispute between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama over allocating credit for the civil rights gains of the 1960s brings to mind the confession of folksy political philosopher Will Rogers: “I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.”
In a year in which the Democratic contenders for their party?s presidential nomination are uncommonly unified on the major issues of the day, and in their determination to regain the White House, the clash has injected an unwanted and unworthy dissonance.
No informed Democrat could dispute that both Martin Luther King Jr. and President Lyndon B. Johnson played hugely constructive roles in achieving the liberating Civil Rights Act that broke the back of racial segregation in the South.
Yet Clinton?s observation ? that while King?s activist leadership alerted the nation to the imperative for change, it was LBJ?s signing of the bill that actually achieved it ? ignited a potentially divisive political bonfire within the party.
The comment, clearly implying that presidential leadership was just as important as King?s inspirational words, was seized by Obama strategists as demeaning King and, by implication, Obama?s own reliance on soaring rhetoric to win political support.
The matter became a metaphor for the Clinton-Obama debate over the relative values of rhetoric and tangible accomplishment, with Clinton denying any such intent. Before long, the waters were further muddied by others with comments that served only to heighten the argument.
Bill Clinton?s reference to Obama?s claim of being against the war of Iraq from the start as a “fairy tale,” in which he noted Obama later voted to continue its support, was seized upon by Obama strategists as a slur on their man?s inspirational biography.
Then, Clinton backer Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, threw more fuel on the fire by making, and then denying, a transparent allusion to Obama?s admitted youth experimentation with drugs. Suddenly, the heretofore largely unmentioned issue of race was on the front burner of the Democratic contest.
Fortunately, both Clinton andObama recognized the dangerously destructive turn the campaign was taking. Each of them offered conciliatory remarks about King?s role and about each other, with Obama pointedly acknowledging the long record of civil rights activism by both Clintons.
Yet the whole episode generated concern among many Democrats that the basic prospect of Obama as the first African-American president ? or for that matter, of Clinton as the first female president ? could turn out to be a roadblock to what otherwise appeared to be a clear field for the party to the presidency in November.
President Bush?s botching of the war in Iraq and foreign policy generally, his colossal failure in coping with Hurricane Katrina and its devastation of New Orleans, and now the looming peril of recession all seemed to foretell election of a Democratic president.
The same impression was fostered by the markedly weak field of Republican presidential candidates and the uncertainty of the outcome of their competition. But yet untested is how any of them would match up in the fall against a black or female Democratic nominee.
The Democrats are quick to warn of a repetition of the Republican smear tactics against their 2004 nominee, Sen. John Kerry, that questioned his decorated combat service in Vietnam, shorthanded to “swift-boating” after the ads on that service that helped sink his candidacy. This time around, they fear, race or gender will be the vehicles employed to bring down the Democratic nominee.
Perhaps it?s fortunate for the Democratic campaign that the detour into the tit for tat over responsibility for civil rights progress happened now. It alerted both the Clinton and Obama campaigns to the political peril and foolhardiness of drifting into that quicksand en route to the party?s conventions next summer.
If Will Rogers were still with us, he might be rendered tongue-tied by the unity of purpose and agenda that his party has achieved, driven by its internal abomination of Bush and general agreement on a new direction for the country. The Democrats can?t afford to damage that unity in any squabble giving the Republicans a flicker of hope in their own dismal election outlook.
Jules Witcover, a Baltimore Examiner columnist, is syndicated by Tribune Media Services. He has covered national affairs from Washington for more than 50 years. His latest book, on the Nixon-Agnew relationship, “Very Strange Bedfellows,” has just been published by Public Affairs Press.
