Two faces of Bill: Clinton rejects, plays 'race card'

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Thursday January 24, 2008 · 12:33 PM PST

2008/01/24 · 12:33

(Forgive the use of a rightwing term, but what Bill is doing here is using rightwing framing)

Just when you thought Bill Clinton had jumped over his last shark, he pulls a rare-combo--accusing someone else of a sleazy practice, and then engaging in it himself.

The subject, of course, is race in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.

Bill vs. Bill, below the fold.

Yesterday, Dr. JekyllBill righteously and indignantly wagged his finger at the media over what he alleged to be their efforts to inject race into the primary contest:

"And the final thing I would like to say is, you're asking me about this, and you sat through this whole meeting. Not one single, solitary soul asked about any of this. And they never do. They are feeding you this because they know this is what you want to cover. This is what you live for. But this hurts the people of South Carolina, because the people of South Carolina are coming to these meetings and asking questions about what they care about. And what they care about is not going to be in the news coverage tonight because you don't care about it. What you care about is this. And the Obama people know that. So they just spin you up on this and you happily go along."

To be clear: he is condemning making this contest about race, saying to do so hurts the people of South Carolina, and blames the media and Obama campaign for it.

However, on that very same day Mr. Hyde Bill goes out and does exactly what he accused the press and Obama campaign of doing!

Voting for president along racial and gender lines "is understandable, because people are proud when someone who they identify with emerges for the first time," Bill Clinton told a Charleston audience Wednesday while campaigning for his wife, a role he has played all week.

"As far as I can tell, neither Senator Obama nor Hillary have lost votes because of their race or gender. They are getting votes, to be sure, because of their race or gender — that's why people tell me Hillary doesn't have a chance of winning here," Clinton said.

He's essentially saying that his wife will lose South Carolina because of race-based voting by black people.

I suppose he would wag his finger at the press folks who reported his remarks verbatim.

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