Wash. Post truncated Clinton's civil rights comments

In a January 14 Washington Post article, staff writers Anne E. Kornblut and Perry Bacon Jr. joined other media -- including journalist Marjorie Valbrun in a January 13 Post op-ed -- in truncating a comment by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) on the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s, omitting a portion of her remarks in which she referred to President John F. Kennedy. The Post wrote: " 'Dr. [Martin Luther] King's dream began to be realized when President [Lyndon] Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act,' [Clinton] said, adding that 'it took a president to get it done.' Critics read that as playing down King's importance in the civil rights movement." But as Media Matters for America has documented, Clinton's full quote was:

CLINTON: I would point to the fact that Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality. The power of that dream became real in people's lives because we had a president who said, "We are going to do it," and actually got it accomplished. [emphasis added]

Kornblut and Bacon excluded Clinton's reference to Kennedy despite reporting later in the article that "Clinton defended her remark about King" -- during a January 13 appearance on NBC's Meet the Press -- where "[s]he said she was responding to a speech [Sen. Barack] Obama [D-IL] made comparing himself to both John F. Kennedy and to King":

Clinton defended her remark about King, made the day before the New Hampshire primary, in a sometimes contentious appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday morning. She said she was responding to a speech Obama made comparing himself to both John F. Kennedy and to King, and she elaborated on her view of King's role as a change agent.

"Dr. King had been on the front lines. He had been leading a movement," Clinton said. "But Dr. King understood, which is why he made it very clear, that there has to be a coming to terms of our country politically in order to make the changes that would last for generations beyond the iconic, extraordinary speeches that he gave. That's why he campaigned for Lyndon Johnson in 1964. That's why he was there when those great pieces of legislation were passed. Does he deserve the lion's share of the credit for moving our country and moving our political process? Yes, he does. But he also had partners who were in the political system."

—J.H.