Following NY Times, The Hill misquoted Clinton's civil rights comments
SUMMARY: The Hill misquoted Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's January 7 comments about civil rights by presenting two different parts of Clinton's statement as one continuous quote without indicating that words had been omitted.
A January 16 article in The Hill misquoted Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) January 7 comments about civil rights. According to The Hill, "The dispute began last week, when Hillary Clinton, making the case for her experience in government, said "Dr. [Martin Luther] King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done." In fact, Clinton said 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" [emphasis added]. The Hill omitted the wording in italics, without indicating through ellipses or otherwise that it had omitted words.
The Hill article followed a January 13 New York Times article by Adam Nagourney and Patrick Healy, which misquoted Clinton in the same manner. Nagourney and Healy wrote: "This was what Mrs. Clinton said on Monday: 'Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.' " Like the Hill article, Nagourney and Healy quoted two different parts of Clinton's statement as one continuous quote without ellipses to indicate that words had been omitted.
Clinton's remarks came during a January 7 interview, when Fox News political correspondent Major Garrett asked Clinton if she would react to a portion of a quote from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama: "False hopes? ... Dr. King standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial looking out over the magnificent crowd, the Reflecting Pool, the Washington Monument: 'Sorry, guys. False hope. The dream will die. It can't be done.' " Clinton said:
I would, and 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.
From the January 16 article in The Hill:
He [House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.)] said Bill Clinton sought to explain what he meant by his heavily scrutinized "fairy tale" comment, and Clyburn said he took the former president at his word. It is unclear who initiated the conversations, though Clyburn suggested that Bill Clinton reached out to him, saying he "heard" from the ex-president.
The dispute began last week, when Hillary Clinton, making the case for her experience in government, said "Dr. [Martin Luther] King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done."
Clinton quickly sought to clarify her remarks, but many black voters felt she was diminishing the revered civil rights leader.
Mr. Clyburn raised the stakes in the fight later in the week when he told The New York Times that Hillary Clinton's comments "bothered me a great deal."
"We have to be very, very careful about how we speak about that era in American politics. It is one thing to run a campaign and be respectful of everyone's motives and actions, and it is something else to denigrate those," Clyburn said.
He also said Bill Clinton's description of Obama's campaign narrative as a "fairy tale" seemed insulting.
Clyburn said it misses the point to argue whether Martin Luther King Jr. or President Lyndon Johnson was more important to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1964.
"I don't think you can go back and make value judgments about who was more important, the person who brings it to the table or the person who gets it passed," Clyburn said.
Hmm... I was thinking of another names for "The Hill" and it came out flat.
Mr.L's comment was pretty good. :-)
Oh sweet Jesus, is this never going to end??
Come on media get it right so we can all move on.
Of course we can't blame the media alone for keeping this story alive, only for misquoting, omitting, & interpreting it wrong. Maybe IF others would stop talking about it...
Now Martin Luther King III has weighed in :-/
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/01/16/kings_son_says_clinton_erred/
The media wants to inject race into it.
Sue,
The media did not inject race into this, it began when Donna Brazile interpreted Bill Clinton's remarks about "fairy-tale" incorrectly...then a whole lot of people began weighing in. Then feathers got ruffled about Hillary's remarks concerning MLK & LBJ.
The media doesn't get a pass here, they love controversy & certainly helped keep this race war alive.
But there's plenty of blame to go around here.
Jeter
I tend to agree with what you are saying, it saddens me that this happened though. Good statement though Sueeld, i am now waiting for the same idiots who always attack you for your Olbermann comments. They say you only talk about Olbermann, well I do not see any Olbermann comment in your well said and thoughful posts about race.
Chris,
Hillary is using the politics of victimization as her primary campaign tool. MMFA is the grand master of liberal victimization. Hillary's poll numbers rise when she responds "to attacks" or almost shedding a tear because she's a woman trying to make it in a man's world. When other candidates, both Republican and Democrat, call her on it, MMFA goes into overdrive (like you said,) to try and score political points by painting Hillary again as a victim and the media as a willing accomplice of those out to get Hillary.
Your conclusion is based on your own bias. I am an Edwards' supporter and don't like a lot of Hillary's positions and votes. But come on...her campaign is based upon vicimization??? I don't think so. That's just petty nonsense. That's your own filter by which you view what she says and does.
Mary,
I didn't say her campaign was based on victimization. I said it was her primary campaign tool.
I know Hillary has her policy positions and such, but it seems to me that she gets the biggest bump when she pulls out the gender card or invents vast right wing conspiracies, media conspiracies, and other candidate conspiracies to boost her numbers.
However you are entitled to your opinion even if you do like Edwards. :-)
"Primary campaign tool" is bogus too. I've listened to her speeches and answers and don't think your criticism is valid. the press brings it up mostly.
I think that is your bias, so you find evidence and ignore her wonky speeches about policy, which are numerous.
AA
I do not see her as being a "victim", i think at times she comes across as too tough and cold but not a "victim".
Sue,
I don't see her as a victim. Perpetrator is more like it. :-)
ACHRISPAGE helpfully tells us what we can expect from the Rightwing, NO MATTER WHO THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE, NOMINEE, or PRESIDENT might be.
Edwards, Obama, or Hillary ... or any OTHER Democrats ... can look forward to "non stop partisan battles, inuendo, accusations from across the aisle, conspiracy theories from the far right, and on and on."
So, considering this will be true of the Rightwing no matter WHAT, we can go about picking our nominee based on IMPORTANT and RELEVANT factors.
At least the Rightwing Media, to include the New York Times and 'the Hill', REALIZES that it must distort, lie, take out of context, and pervert the words of Democrats in order to manufacture conflict. The rightwing is running scared en masse, and have abandoned any pretense at professionalism.
Their dishonesty and deceptiveness can no longer pass unnoticed, and people ARE noticing.
Clearly, the "press" has abrogated its duty and responsibility to accurate reporting and objective observation ... they have become blatantly partisan distributors of pure propaganda. There is not even a cursory attempt at ethics or honesty. Anywhere you look in Media, from newspapers to TV to radio, the control by forces invested in Republicans retaining power can be seen shamelessly trying to FOOL the American People.
For this reason, people are turning more and more to sites like MMFA to find out the TRUTH. And that's OK.
FOX math?
Maybe The Hill applied some of FOX NEWS' fuzzy math to balance their article - they added two words [Martin Luther] and subtracted twenty-three words.
At FOX NEWS, that's called "Fair and Balanced."
One thing has been bugging me about the way MMFA has covered this misquoting business so I will see if it's just me or if other people have noticed it too.
MMFA has posted several threads saying that Hillary was misquoted which is true.
Let's turn the tables and say that a Republican had made these remarks. Wouldn't MMFA go after the CONTENT of the statement itself?
In my view, Hillary was clearly trying to take Obama down a notch by taking MLK down a notch. I can't see any other reason for her making the comments she made other than pure political strategy.
Have we heard anything about this from the Democrats for the past 40 years, that it was really a collection of players that got the Civil Rights Act passed and Johnson and Kennedy are really key figures in all of this? I don't recall there being a Lyndon Johnson Day or even JFK Day. Martin Luther King Day, yes, that one I know is coming up next Monday.
I don't recall hearing about this from anyone else except a woman who happens to be running for President of the United States against a very formidable candidate who happens to be African American.
That's quite a coincidence that this would be brought up at this particular time by this particular person who is running against that particular person with the same color skin as Martin Luther King Jr.
But I'm sure it's nothing...
In my view, Hillary was clearly trying to take Obama down a notch by taking MLK down a notch.
Hilary was clearly trying to take Obama down a notch. That's it. If you read into her statement anything about MLK himself, you've gone too far.
Btw, MMFA is unabashedly anti-conservative misinformation. They're not claiming to be fair and balanced. :-)
In my view, Hillary was clearly trying to take Obama down a notch by taking MLK down a notch. I can't see any other reason for her making the comments she made other than pure political strategy.
Bruce but I don‘t believe that she was trying to take MLK down at all. Hillary is no racist but she plays hardball politics and she will run you over if you get in her way. Take Obama down, yes, Dr. King, no. But unfortunately for Hillary she put her foot in her mouth while doing it. Hillary was trying to take Obama down by saying that he may make eloquent speeches like MLK and Kennedy but he does not have the experience, knowledge nor has he paid enough dues to compared to MLK or Kennedy. He wasn’t beaten nor jailed like King. She did forget that without Dr. King being beaten and jailed Obama would never be running in the first place. Oh and she has not been beaten or jailed either. She said he was not a war hero like Jack Kennedy, but she forgot that neither is she. He did not serve in the senate for 14 years like Jack Kennedy but then neither has she.
It's not the King statement, she misspoke and I accept that. It's a pattern from her and her campaign that has emerged since Iowa that leaves a sour taste in my mouth. When the news was that she was the "inevitable" Democratic nominee she was OK but after her loss in Iowa she decided to play hardball. It just may turn out to bite her in the butt.
Oh and Republicans have been trying for years to claim that the line in Dr. King 'I Have a Dream' speech is proof that Dr. King was against Affirmative Action (judge people by the content of their character not the color of their skin). They usually bring him up when they want to make their case against Affirmative Action not racial and at election time. So it seems......