Re: Barack 2008!
It
seems the media want Obama, by their tactics.
I feel sad for Bill as they try to villainize him... promoting the twisting and colouring of his words. I believe Bill's 'fairy tale' comment in South Carolina was also blatantly misinterpreted. But the mud sticks...
DID Bill infer Obama was unpatriotic? Were Bill's comments a reference to Obama's complicity with Wright's rantings... or simply his attempt to focus on a concept of objective unity and not divisiveness for the country, as he promoted his wife's candidacy?
Is McPeak an opportunistic perpetrator of Chinese whispering?
Did Bill Clinton Call Obama Unpatriotic?
A new controversy flared up in the Democratic presidential race Saturday over remarks by former President Bill Clinton whom Barack Obama's campaign accused of using divisive tactics and unfairly trying to question the Illinois senator's patriotism.
Retired Gen. Merrill "Tony" McPeak, a co-chair of Obama's campaign, said he was astonished and disappointed by recent comments the former president made while speculating about a general election between Obama's Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Republican John McCain.
Standing next to Obama on stage at a campaign rally in southern Oregon, the retired Air Force chief of staff repeated Bill Clinton's comments aloud to a silent audience.
The former president told a group of veterans Friday in Charlotte, North Carolina: "I think
it would be a great thing if we had an election year where
you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country. And people could actually ask themselves
who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics."
McPeak then said... "As one who for 37 years proudly wore the uniform of our country, I'm saddened to see a president employ these tactics. He of all people
should know better because he was the target of exactly the same kind of tactics."
That apparently was a reference to Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign,
when he was accused of dodging the Vietnam War draft.
Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for Hillary Clinton's campaign, said Saturday that McPeak's comments were a "deliberately pathetic misreading of what the president said." Wolfson said
the remarks had nothing to do with Obama and were merely
meant to underscore the need to keep the presidential race focused on issues.
It was not the first time Bill Clinton has been criticized for comments while campaigning on his wife's behalf. Before and after South Carolina's primary in January, the former president was accused of fanning racial tensions for appearing to cast Obama as little more than a black candidate popular in a state with a heavily black electorate.
McPeak also had made off-the-cuff remarks to reporters Friday in comparing the former president's comments with the actions of Joseph McCarthy,
the 1950s communist-hunting senator.
"I was going to college when Joe McCarthy was accusing good Americans of being traitors, so I've had enough of it," McPeak said.
Wolfson called that comparison
outrageous and
called for a retraction.
"I think most Democrats were shocked to learn that a two-term Democratic president was compared to Joseph McCarthy," he said.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/22/politics/main3960032.shtml