Not anymore.
On March 21, Patrick Healy of the New York Times reported that Team Clinton had told allies not to “talk openly” about Wright’s incendiary remarks–even though they could potentially boost the New York senator’s bid. The reason? Fear that “it could create a voter backlash and alienate black Democrats.” Besides, Healy added, paraphrasing the Clintonites, “cable television is keeping the issue alive.”
But now that the foam has fallen from Bill O’Reilly’s mouth–at least in part–it seems that Clinton herself is all too eager to break the self-imposed silence. In an interview today with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the former First Lady told reporters and editors that she–unlike someone we know–would have stampeded from the pews had her pastor made remarks as wrongheaded as Wright’s. “He would not have been my pastor,” she said. “You don’t choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend.” She then went on to characterize Wright’s statements as “hate speech”:
“You know, I spoke out against Don Imus, saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that. 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.”
That, in a nutshell, is Clinton’s closing argument. Not so much the stuff about how she wouldn’t have “chosen” Obama’s church, which is reasonable enough. Wright’s remarks were, you know, offensive; I wouldn’t have stayed either. But Clinton’s real goal here isn’t to distance herself from a hypothetically offensive minister–it’s to control the MSM’s coverage of the campaign. Notice the convenient timing: just when the press was fixating on her Bosnia fib. Clinton knows that the moment she mentions Wright–especially to say that Obama was wrong to remain in his flock–hacks like me (and, more importantly, Chris Matthews) will slobber all over it. The result is endless hours of CNN, MSNBC and FOX News replaying the all-too-familiar clips of the good Reverend raising the roof and railing against white America, with Clinton’s anti-Wright quote flashing on screen every six seconds or so. Which means that the working-class whites of Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and North Carolina are reminded, yet again, of Obama’s “hate”-fulblack minister–and Clinton gets to show that she’s on their side of the culture war.
It didn’t have to be this way. When asked about Wright, Mike Huckabee took the high ground; Clinton, who essentially accused Obama of condoning anti-white hate speech, did not. The reason: Huckabee isn’t running against Obama. Clinton’s only remaining case for the nomination is, of course, electability. It’s no secret that her staff sees the Wright flap as a key part of that rationale. Last week, for example, the Times reported that “Mrs. Clinton’s advisers said they had spent recent days making the case to wavering superdelegates that Mr. Obama’s association with Mr. Wright would doom their party in the general election.” But as Jonathan Chait of the New Republic has written, there’s a difference between arguing that Obama is unelectable and actively trying to render him unelectable. The former is hypothetical; the latter, actual. The best way to prove that your opponent can’t be elected? Ensure that he isn’t elected. That’s why Clinton is suddenly broadcasting Obama’s association with Wright–and her opposition to it–directly to the citizens of the upcoming primary states (via the obliging media). By actively stoking the racial resentments that Wright aroused and legitimizing the Republican argument against Obama (even after Obama addressed both), Clinton is hoping that she can convince the remaining voters to reject her rival–and thereby prove to the superdelegates, once and for all, that he is, in fact, unelectable.
The thing is, politics may be politics, but it’s hard to see how re-demonizing Wright helps Clinton in the end. Sure, she’ll sway a few more working-class whites. But at what cost? Alienating black voters, who currently support Obama nine to one, and perhaps losing their presumed general-election support? Angering the half of the party that’s already pissed at her for regurgitating Republican attacks on Obama? Encouraging reporters to reexamine the people she’s “chosen” to associate with? A week ago, Clinton aides told Healy that they wouldn’t mention Wright publicly because “a race-based argument against Mr. Obama’s electability was unappealing and divisive and cut against the image of the Democratic Party and its principles.” That much hasn’t changed. But apparently Clinton’s appetite for destruction has.
UPDATE, 4:50 p.m.: Also, does Clinton really want to compare Wright to Don Imus? At a press conference this afternoon in Pittsburgh, she repeated her remarks on Wright and reminded listeners that she “gave a speech at Rutgers last year saying enough was enough, it’s time to stop the culture of degradation… It is not a license to discriminate or to embarrass. It’s not a license or excuse to demean or humiliate our fellow citizens.” This seems a little off to me. Wright is a beloved preacher who made offensive comments while expressing his earnest outrage–outrage that many blacks share–with institutional inequality in America. Imus is a wealthy white shock jock who called the black women basketball players of Rutgers “nappy-headed hos” because he thought it was funny. Right-wingers love to cry reverse racism when an African-American says something derogatory about white people, but I think it’s pretty clear that 200 years of oppression means that blacks and whites are not on the same playing field here. And I’m not sure Clinton wants to suggest otherwise.
