I'm not even sure what to write here. Hillary made some odd comments yesterday afternoon on FOX News about Obama and "false hope." In these comments, she sounds as though she's knocking Martin Luther King. I don't believe for a minute that that was her intent, but the comments just come off as awful:

 Quote:
Clinton was asked about Obama's rejoinder that there's something vaguely un-American about dismissing hopes as false, and that it doesn't jibe with the careers of figures like like John F. Kennedy and King.

"Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," Clinton said. "It took a president to get it done."

Clinton didn't explicitly compare herself to Johnson, or Obama to King. But it seems an odd example for the argument between rhetoric and action, as there's little doubt which figure's place in history and the American imagination is more secure.

"The power of that dream became real in people's lives because we had a president" capable of action, Clinton said.




First off, Obama in this parable is both King and Johnson - the dreamer who would be president - so Hillary's criticism doesn't really fly. The bigger problem for Team Clinton is that she really sounds like she's dissing MLK (did he have "false hope" too?). I'm convinced that wasn't her intent - she's not an idiot - but these quotes are just awful, and not what she needs right now.

I just took a look at the video myself, over at FOX's blog, and the full quotes are a bit better in that she praises King. But still, when asked about "false hope" the first person who comes to mind is MLK? And then you start talking about how MLK would have been nothing without President Johnson? (And, anyway, it was John F. Kennedy's assassination that got the civil rights bill passed.) Ugh. Watch it for yourself.

[img][/img]