Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has worked diligently for much of the criticism that has come her way over the years, and she richly, deeply, lastingly deserves it, but not this time. Not for her remark about President Lyndon Baines Johnson being a crucial figure in securing the extraordinary civil rights victories of the 1960s.
She made the observation by way of criticizing her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in this year’s quest for the Democratic nomination for president. She thinks her experience counts for something, that it’s more important, finally, than Obama’s rhetorical skills. She emphasized the point in a TV interview by saying that Martin Luther King’s “dream began to be realized when … Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.”
Unless you suppose saying something positive about one person must necessarily imply something negative about another, the remark is no denigration of King and about a million miles from being racially insensitive, as some have charged.
Clinton, as best I can tell, has never in her life undervalued King’s achievement. She has in fact repeatedly gone out of her way to underline what a magnificent leader he was, not just in his eloquence, but in his courage, determination, organizing ability and more. I myself regard him as one of the great Americans of the 20th century, and I suspect she does, too; without him, we would be a lesser land than we are. After all, this Christian minister helped awaken huge numbers of those who had been somnolently at peace with the gross injustice being done to blacks. Through his inspired perseverance, and despite threats and retaliatory violence, he — more than any other single person — brought the issue to the forefront of our national life.
But it did not automatically follow that the needed political action would be taken. The resistance in Congress, especially among powerful Southern Democrats, was no small thing, and it might not have budged for a long, long time except for one of the most accomplished, savvy and forceful political negotiators of his era,President Johnson.
For different reasons, neither liberals nor conservatives have made LBJ one of their heroes, but in this instance, he was precisely that, someone who combined his own sensitivities about the treatment of Black America with know-how gained while serving in the House and Senate, especially his years as Senate majority leader. It is far from certain that his predecessor in the Oval Office, John F. Kennedy, could have done what he did, or that any other Washington personality could have effected the enactment of civil rights bills in those years. The need was for someone who intimately knew all the other actors on both sides of the aisle, and who knew what buttons to push to get needed responses.
Having said all of that, I don’t for a second think Hillary Clinton has experience anywhere near the level of Johnson, even if it is significant strides ahead of the experience of Obama. I do think hers was a point well worth making at a time when so many candidates are arguing that only outsiders have a prayer of getting anything done in D.C., which is a bit like saying only someone who has never played tennis can hope to play tennis well.
Obama himself has been rather reserved in his reaction to Clinton, but not former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who took umbrage at the suggestion that “real change” couldcome through — gasp! — “a Washington politician.”
Fine, John. Then quit trying to be one.
Examiner Columnist Jay Ambrose is a former Washington opinion writer and editor of two dailies. He may be reached at [email protected]
