It's nice to see that cooler heads are prevailing. This website has been littered with absolutely preposterous diaries the last several days, wherein so-called Obama "supporters" have posted inflammatory diaries and unnecessarily injected race into the Democratic primary.
Cooler heads are prevailing. Today, Barack Obama issued the following statement:
You have seen a tone on the Democrat[ic] side of the campaign that has been unfortunate. I want to stipulate a couple of things. I may disagree with Senator Clinton and Senator Edwards on how to get there, but we share the same goals. We all believe in civil rights. We all believe in equal rights. They are good people. They are patriots....
I don't want the campaign at this stage to degenerate to so much tit-for-tat, back-and-forth, that we lose sight of why we are doing this.
Obama said he wants to send "a strong signal to my own supporters that let’s try to focus on the work that needs to get done. If I hear my own supporters engaging in talk that I think is ungenerous or misleading or unfair, I will speak out forcefully against it....
Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have historically been on the right side of civil rights issues. They care about the African American community.... That is something I am convinced of. I want Americans to know that is my assessment.
[emphasis added]
Friday evening, Bill Clinton expressed similar sentiments, in explaining the misunderstanding about his "fairy tale" comment last week at Dartmouth:
NEW YORK — Former President Bill Clinton says his comment about Barack Obama telling a "fairy tale" about opposing the war in Iraq has been misconstrued as a criticism of the senator's run for the Democratic nomination. "There's nothing 'fairy tale' about his campaign. It's real, it's strong, and he might win," Clinton said in a phone interview for the Rev. Al Sharpton's Radio One network talk show.
Clinton said his "fairy tale" remark on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, won by his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, was only intended to describe Obama's claim to have exercised better judgment about the war, not as a sign of "personal disrespect."
The former president, speaking Monday at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., had accused Obama of misrepresenting himself on the Iraq war. Clinton suggested that while Obama had spoken out against the war in 2002 while he was an Illinois state senator, Obama had moderated his anti-war stance during his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign. Clinton complained that journalists beguiled by Obama's charisma had failed to question his claim to have been the only Democratic presidential candidate consistently opposed to the war.
"It is wrong that Senator Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war," Clinton said during the rally. "There's no difference in your voting record, and Hillary's, ever since," Clinton said. "Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."
Clinton said black voters had a hard choice between the rival senators. "If you decide to vote for Senator Obama, I respect you, because it is a source of enormous pride in the African-American community, and it should be. He is an impressive man," Clinton said.
However, Clinton said black voters should support his wife because of her policies and record in the Senate. "I would argue that she is better for your life and your future, and right now, we have to pick the person who is most ready to be president," he said.
[emphasis added]
Let's keep it civil and focus on the real issues that matter to Democrats.
SOURCES:
http://www.politico.com/...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...