BET Founder Robert Johnson Goes After Obama

Bob Johnson, the founder of BET and apparently a Clinton supporter, lit into Obama at a campaign stop for Hillary Clinton.

And to me, as an African-American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood –­ and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in the book –­ when they have been involved.

What is the Clinton campaign thinking? Hillary Clinton was on “Meet the Press” (video here) trying to distance herself or clarify her statements about MLK (which, for the record, I think were blown out of proportion. It sounded to me like really clumsy wording. It made little sense and still doesn’t, even after her ‘clarifications’). And then she dispatches a very polarizing figure among black folk to stump on her behalf — was O.J. not available? —- to say the same things that Bill Shaheen said and had to resign over?

The Obama campaign has generally been pretty silent on this whole MLK thing, and hasn’t corrected the popular perception that in the last days in New Hampshire Bill Clinton called a black man’s presidential candidacy “the biggest fairy tale [he’d] ever seen,” when Bill Clinton didn’t say anything of the sort.

It should be noted Obama’s campaign previously sensed a danger in making overtly racial appeals to black folk when their candidate is supposedly ‘postracial’; they’ve actively avoided references to him being the first black president, which is obviously a lot of his appeal to black voters.

Could the outrage by black supporters over these comments ‘racialize’ Obama and sink his necessary support among white voters? Is that what the Clintons are up to? Or are they just making really stupid mistakes?

Intentional or not, they need to find a way to change the subject — and fast.

Update: Bob Johnson backs away from his statements yesterday:

“My comments today were referring to Barack Obama’s time spent as a community organizer, and nothing else. Any other suggestion is simply irresponsible and incorrect.

“When Hillary Clinton was in her twenties she worked to provide protections for abused and battered children and helped ensure that children with disabilities could attend public school.

That results oriented leadership — even as a young person — is the reason I am supporting Hillary Clinton.”