The Clinton campaign on Obama's drug use: The politics of implausible denials

A new week in the Democratic presidential race dawns with another high-profile Hillary Clinton supporter dredging up Barack Obama's past indiscretions. Did anyone think this campaign was going to become more civil after New Hampshire?

Robert L. Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, is one of Clinton's most prominent African-American supporters. Here's what he had to say at a weekend rally with the New York senator in South Carolina, ahead of that state's Democratic primary on Jan. 26:

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

Hmmm, what could Obama have been doing "in the neighbourhood" that Johnson dare not speak of?

When pressed later to clarify what seemed some like a veiled reference to the senator's admissions he tried marijuana and cocaine as a youth, which Obama wrote about in Dreams from My Father, Johnson said he was actually talking about the Illinios senator's work as a labour organizer in Chicago.

Of course that's what he meant. Because we all know that community organizing is a deed so dastardly that it must be whispered about and alluded to in conspiratorial tones, right? It's a bit much.

This comes a couple of months after Clinton's New Hampshire campaign chair publicly speculated about how Obama would never survive a general election because of the attacks he would face over his past with drugs.

Sharlene Wilson, according to investigative reporter Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, flies cocaine from to a pickup point in Texas. Other drugs, she and others say, are stuffed into chickens for shipping around the country. Wilson also serves as “the lady with the snow” at “toga parties” attended, she reports, by Bill Clinton.

According to Wilson,”I lived in Little Rock, Arkansas, O.K.? And I worked at a club called Le Bistro’s, and I met Roger Clinton there, Governor Bill Clinton, a couple of his state troopers that went with him wherever he went. Roger Clinton had come up to me and he had asked me could I give him some coke, you know, and asked for my one-hitter, which a one-hitter is a very small silver device,O.K., that you stick up into your nose and you just squeeze it and a snort of cocaine will go up in there.And I watched Roger hand what I had given him to Governor Clinton, and he just kind of turned around and walked off.”

Investor’s Business Daily would later write, “Sally Perdue, a former Miss Arkansas and Little Rock talk show host who said she had an affair with then-Gov. Clinton in 1983, told the London Sunday Telegraph that he once came over to her house with a bag full of cocaine. ‘’He had all the equipment laid out, like a real pro.’’ In the 1990s, Genifer Flowers tells Sean Hannity’s WABC talk radio show: “He smoked marijuana in my presence and and offered me the opportunity to snort cocaine if I wanted to. I wasn’t into that. Bill clearly let me know that he did cocaine. And I know people that knew he did cocaine. He did tell me that when he would use a substantial amount of cocaine that his head would itch so badly that he would become self conscious at parties where he was doing this. Because all he wanted to do while people were talking to him is stand around and scratch his head. ....”

Two Arkansas state troopers will swear under oath that they have seen Clinton ‘’under the influence’’ of drugs when he was governor. Sharlene Wilson is a bartender who ended up serving time on drug crimes and cooperating with drug investigators. She told a federal grand jury she saw Clinton and his younger brother ‘’snort’’ cocaine together in 1979. Jack McCoy, a Democratic state representative and Clinton supporter, told the Sunday Telegraph that he could ‘’remember going into the governor’s conference room once and it reeked of marijuana.’’ Historian Roger Morris, in his book ‘’Partners in Power,’’ quotes several law enforcement officials who say they had seen and knew of Clinton’s drug use. One-time apartment manager Jane Parks claims that in 1984 she could listen through the wall as Bill and Roger Clinton, in a room adjoining hers, discussed the quality of the drugs they were taking.

Others have noted it already, but it just amazes me the way the Clinton’s can damn others for something they did not just as children or youth, but as Governor of the State of Arkansas.

Bill Clinton was using cocaine while governor of that state.

Now his wife’s team dumps on Obama for youthful indiscressions.

Don’t get me wrong, Obama’s youthful indiscressions are quite troubling, but the Clinton’s acting as school-yard monitor? What a punk ass witch Hillary has turned out to to be, again.

Hillary is the proverbial wicked witch of the children’s books come to life. She is as evil a person as there is. This woman will do anything whatsoever to obtain the highest office in the land. And if she’s this willing to attain that position, one has to ask themselves what she will do when faced with having to leave it? What is she willing to do to keep that position.

If she is elected, it won’t be more than a few weeks until we’ll find out. This witch will stop at nothing...

President Clinton Does More Damage Control on Black Radio - Latest Politics Blog

http://www.latestpolitics.com/blog/2008/01/president-clinton-does-more-damage.html

“A series of callers to Mr. Martin’s program following Mr. Clinton’s call were deeply skeptical of his explanation and harshly critical of Mr. Johnson. One even doubted the former president’s statement that he hadn’t heard Mr. Johnson’s comments, since the words were read to him on another program earlier in the day. Mr. Martin said Mr. Clinton seemed to be saying he had not previously heard the tape of the comments. It took more than an hour to hear a caller defend Mr. Clinton, even tangentially.”

Back in November, Robert Novak reported that the Clinton campaign had "scandalous" info on Obama, but had decided not to disclose it. Obama then issues a preemptive statement of his own, and says he won't be "swift-boated" by the intimidating techniques of the Clinton campaign. Of course, Clinton's lap dog, Howard Wolfson tried to blame the whole thing on the GOP.

Now we have a black man attacking another black man in Hillary's defense, with guess what? the precise "scandalous" info the Clintons said they wouldn't use.

I hope Mr. Johnson realizes he was used. What better way to redeem your Martin Luther King missteps, than by having a black man go after your opponent on the issue of race. And, it doesn't hurt to have that same black man bring up the other black guy's previous drug use. Hillary couldn't make the comments herself without causing an even bigger rift between herself and the black community, so they trot out Robert Johnson to do it for them. Lower than low.

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