Kerry denounces 'lies' about Obama
The battle between the Clinton's and Obama is getting nastier and drawing in more people which ultimately can't do the Clinton's any favours.
Now John Kerry has stepped into the middle of it to condemn - without naming any names - the apparent "swiftboating" of Barack Obama.
"The fight is just heating up. We won't let them steal this election with lies and distortions," he said.These are incredibly strong words and an indication of just how much the tactics being employed by the Clinton camp are alienating other Democrats.His comments came amid signs of a backlash in the Democratic party, especially among African-Americans, at the way that Hillary and Bill Clinton have taken Obama apart during the past fortnight.
Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts, endorsed Obama last month, despite his long friendship with Bill Clinton. It was an important endorsement, giving heart to other members of Congress who had been dithering about supporting Obama for fear of antagonising the Clinton machine. But it is a big jump for Kerry to go from endorsement to criticism of the former president and his spouse, even if indirectly. He described as "disgusting lies" allegations on the internet about Obama's religion and record of public service.
"I support Barack Obama because he doesn't seek to perfect the politics of Swiftboating - he seeks to end it," he said. "This is personal for me, and for a whole lot of Americans who lived through the 2004 election."
Meanwhile, Bill Clinton has hit back at claims that he and Hillary have injected race into the Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina and has accused Obama of doing a "hit job" on him.
The Clinton camp are running an ad which highlights the very remarks which Obama says the Clinton's are distorting and taking deliberately out of context.Scolding a reporter, Mr. Clinton said the Obama campaign was “feeding” the news media to keep issues of race alive, obscuring positive coverage of the presidential campaign here of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
“They know this is what you want to cover,” Mr. Clinton told a CNN reporter in Charleston, in an apparent reference to the Obama campaign.
“Shame on you,” the former president added.
At about the same time, the Clinton campaign began running a radio commercial about Mr. Obama, which replayed Mr. Obama’s words from a recent interview with The Reno Gazette-Journal: “The Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years.”
“Really?” a voice-over in the Clinton commercial says. “Aren’t those the ideas that got us into the economic mess we’re in today?”
In his interview, Mr. Obama did not specify any particular idea and did not say he supported any of them, though Mrs. Clinton’s commercial strongly implies that he did.
The Obama campaign called Mrs. Clinton’s commercial “dishonest,” and Mr. Obama broadly implied at campaign appearances that the Clintons were misleading voters, though he did not mention the Clintons by name.
Mr. Obama further responded with his own radio advertisement, saying that it was Mrs. Clinton who had frequently sided with the Republicans on issues like the Iraq war and the North American Free Trade Agreement. “She’ll say anything, and change nothing,” the commercial said. “It’s time to turn the page.”
What puzzles me about the way this campaign has turned out is that it never needed to get quite as nasty as it's becoming. And it doesn't seem to me as if this will in any way help the Clintons. Obama is already in the highly unusual position of facing what amounts to two candidates, one of whom is a former President, and any perception that he is being bullied or unfairly misrepresented by the formidable Clinton political apparatus sets up Obama as the underdog facing seasoned ruthless political cynics.
In an election being fought on the issue of change, that kind of thing can only assist Obama.
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