(Photo: Patrick W. Gavin)
Karl Rove
is a whipping boy for the Left and former New York Times editor Howell Raines has recently become a whipping boy for the Right.
So when the two of them go head to head, you can expect some fireworks.
Such was the case Tuesday night at a panel discussion sponsored by The Week magazine.
“The Clinton campaign has run a very negative campaign,” said Raines. “They have constantly — but in a very subtle way — had people remind the public that [Sen. Barack Obama] is black.” Howell later said that the “best thing [Sen. Hillary Clinton] has going for her” is the fact that Obama is consistently stigmatized by the fact that “if you’re a black candidate, you have to apologize for every stupid thing ever said by any black person.”
No small accusation by Raines, and even Rove had to agree that Sen. Clinton has run a poor campaign.
“She has run a horrific campaign,” said Rove. “It has been astonishingly bad. … [Obama] has strategically always run a better campaign than she has tactically.”
Well, at least they could agree on that. But the synergy ended there. Rove called Obama’s recent Philadelphia speech on race “a very cynical maneuver” and accused Obama of “throwing [his grandmother] under the bus.” (In that speech, Obama said his grandmother “confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.”)
Rove said that Obama equivocated so much in that speech that he essentially declared each American “morally equivalent to a guy who says ‘Goddamn America.” (Rove was referring to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the a former pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ.) Still, Rove called the speech “brilliantly executed” and said “a lot of people slobbered all over it.” In Rove’s opinion, Obama should have come out and said that Rev. Wright “was close to me, he helped bringme closer to Christ but this was reprehensible.”
Raines disagreed, obviously. “What you’ve just heard is the Republican campaign in the Nitroglycerin.”
Raines’ criticism wasn’t limited to Rove or Hillary, however. Husband Bill Clinton came into play, too, and Raines called him — and “Clinton fatigue” generally — Hillary’s “biggest liability.”
“Her husband has cost her votes,” said Raines.
Yeas & Nays later asked Rove: If you were a member of the Democratic Party, would you encourage Sen. Clinton to pull out of the race?
“Hey, it’s a free country,” Rove told us. “Besides,” he added, with a bit of enthusiasm, “I’m not a member of the Democratic Party.”
When we asked Raines how he assessed his performance against Rove, he said: “He’s a pro and I’m a bit rusty, but I think I did okay.”
