Clinton Campaign Denies Bill Clinton Will Do Mea Culpa At Black Churches On Playing Race Card

Earlier today we ran THIS POST about a Washington Post report that said former President Bill Clinton was going to apologize to black churches for playing the race card in his campaign against Senator Barack Obama, Senator Hillary Clinton’s chief rival for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination. The Post has a new story now saying the Clinton campaign heatedly denies an apology is in the offing.

Or IS that the case?

It looks like former president Bill Clinton will not have to make an apology to the congregations of black churches in South Central Los Angeles after all. At least not in writing.

Because if you read on, the door is still ajar….

Our posting on Bill Clinton’s “mea culpa” tour (as we worded it) to African Americans in L.A. this weekend (ahead of Tuesday’s hotly contested California primary) apparently caused much consternation inside the Clinton campaign. Campaign officials scrambled Saturday to dispel the notion that the former president will be making any form of an apology.

Is what follows parsing of words or a total denial?

The Clinton camp asked Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) to clarify remarks she made in an interview with The Sleuth on Friday evening in which she said Clinton needed to “renew his relationship with the South Central community” after turning off voters in her district with his racially tinged comments during the South Carolina primary campaign.

To achieve that, Watson said she had asked the former president to write a letter “explaining his commitment to civil rights and equal rights.”

“He knows what needs to be in it: He needs to renew his relationship with the South Central community,” Watson said Friday evening.

But on Saturday, things changed after the Clinton campaign called Watson who then told The Sleuth there will be no letter after all. She had mistakenly thought, she said, that Clinton would not be able to speak inside the churches on Sunday and, therefore, had asked him to put his thoughts in writing.

“I just learned he will be able to speak,” Watson said. “So there will be no need for any kind of letter.”

So is that it — does this mean Bill Clinton tomorrow will not get media blitz coverage and say something nearly on the eve of Super Tuesday that sucks up all the media air and makes the final news cycle be dominated by yet another spate of stories about Bill Clinton’s role in his wife’s campaign?

But what about mending fences with voters who felt Clinton had unfairly injected race into the campaign? “He can do that now in person in true Bill Clinton fashion — personally and verbally,” Watson said.

In other words — they deny it.

But reporters might want to have their pencils and video cameras ready for a dramatic story that will dominate the Sunday and Monday cycles. Because it could still happen..if you read the wording of these denials.

Luis Vizcaino, a spokesman for Clinton’s California campaign, objected to The Sleuth’s use of the phrase “mea culpa” to describe what Clinton planned to say on Sunday. (Clinton campaign aides especially objected to our original headline. “Bill Clinton Prepares Mea Culpa,” which we have changed.) Vizcaino said there’s no need for an apology because he “has tremendous support here in the state” and is “the most popular Democrat in the country.”

Is that saying, because he is Bill Clinton, black voters should look the other way and pretend nothing happened? Or does he have to live by the rule that anyone who works with kids or has kids instills in kids: when you do something there are consequences.

What if there is a spontaneous (or well-placed) question that raises the issue and he has to respond to it? You better BELIEVE there will be huge media coverage of it tomorrow and Monday.

Bill Clinton’s spokesman, Matt McKenna, said, “The president is there [in South Central Los Angeles] because Congresswoman Watson invited him to join her at church and he’s looking forward to going.”

Fair enough.

So tomorrow if Bill Clinton he goes to the churches and there’s nothing that qualifies as a mea culpa, then the Post made an error in the way they interpreted what was going to happen.

If he goes to the churches and there are news stories about an apology worded in a way so that it isn’t a formal apology but it really is an apology and that even a box of matzoth at DZ Akins’ Restaurant Deli in La Mesa, California knows is an apology, and it gets a lot of news coverage, then the Post was correct.

Here’s our earlier post (we stand by all of the points in it about Bill Clinton and the impact on his wife’s campaign since this denial doesn’t change any of them):

Posted earlier on TMV. Clinton campaign denies it is doing an apology.

Once again, former President Bill Clinton seems poised to be pitchforked into the headlines right on the eve of a crucial primary vote amid a report that he’s going to “repent” by going to some black churches. Almost on the EVE of the Super Tuesday primaries, Clinton will garner attention that could be focused on his wife Hillary Clinton:

Once again, Bill Clinton is ready to repent.

On Sunday the former president is scheduled to visit black churches in South Central Los Angeles, where he’s expected to offer a mea culpa to those who “dearly loved him” when he was their president, Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) says.

This will get LOTS of media attention tomorrow. And it will be in the news cycle Monday.

So the stage is being set to give Bill Clinton a pass, because he is Bill Clinton. But lest we re-write recent history, Mr. Clinton had been accused of raising the race issue SEVERAL times, including blatantly right after Senator Barack Obama won South Carolina.

Because he is Bill Clinton (who just coincidentally will make the apology right before Super Tuesday) is he allowed to just apologize and pretend it never happened or that it some how just came out of his mouth like the aftermath of food poisoning? More from the Washington Post:

Watson, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who has endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), tells us she’ll usher the former president to more than half a dozen churches in her district where she says he needs to “renew his relationship” with congregants who were turned off by his racially tinged comments in the days leading up to and following the South Carolina primary. (Such as when Clinton compared Sen. Barack Obama’s landslide victory to Jesse Jackson’s wins in 1984 and 1988.)

The four-term congresswoman said she asked Clinton to write a letter to each congregation they’ll visit on Sunday “explaining his commitment to civil rights and equal rights.” She says the letter “is in development” but that “he knows what needs to be in it: He needs to renew his relationship with the South Central community.”

Watson is among the half of the divided black caucus supporting Hillary Clinton instead of Obama for president. She remains loyal to the Clintons, she says, despite her own uneasy feelings over Bill injecting race into the primary campaign.

Some thoughts:

(1) Yes Bill Clinton has had an excellent record. But that legacy was soiled by the glimpse into his soul that many voters saw — one that indicated that political expediency trumped what he had long proclaimed were his ideals when it came to doing whatever he had to do to help his wife win. So the stage was set to raise the race issue. If the ideals were as strong as iron, even a fleeting idea of raising the race issue would not have come up.

(2) News reports of his repentance may help him in California but Bill Clinton is now becoming the equivalent of a nasty allergy. He simply will NOT go away.

You can easily see The Bill Clinton issue rallying the GOP if Hillary Clinton gets the nomination — and you can see how some independent voters and even Democrats who might otherwise favor Mrs. Clinton could vote against her in the primaries or general election to make sure that the allergy does go away.

It was notable during the recent Clinton-Obama debate that Bill Clinton was missing in action. News reports indicate his recent campaign appearances have been relatively pro-forma and sedate and that he has deep-sixed the increasingly pointed attacks on Obama.

However, Mr. Clinton decided to swipe at Senator Teddy Kennedy who endorsed Obama. If Kennedy had endorsed his wife you would probably would have not seen a story like this:

Former President Clinton said that if his wife is elected president she would radically change the “No Child Left Behind Act,” which he described as an education disaster initially supported not only by President Bush, but liberal icon Ted Kennedy.

Clinton’s association of Kennedy with the No Child Left Behind Act _ a federal education law unpopular with public school teachers, a key Democratic party constituency _ came just days after the Massachusetts senator passed over Hillary Rodham Clinton to endorse her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama.

“I want you to think about this, and I have to say, this was a train wreck that was not intended. No Child Left Behind was supported by George Bush and Senator Ted Kennedy and everybody in between. Why? Because they didn’t talk to enough teachers before they did that,” Clinton told more than 2,400 people in a speech Thursday night at Arizona State University.

The reaction of THIS independent voter?

–Hillary Clinton is more impressive each time she is on TV. She is the ONLY candidate in this race of either party who has truly grown as a campaigner both in stylistic terms and in terms of content. She could win over voters — if she is LEFT ALONE.

–She won New Hampshire not because of her husband but because she has shown enormous growth and depth as a candidate.

–He is ruining the focus on her and her own, genuine qualities as a politician and as a do-er. She doesn’t need her big, strong, red-faced tart-tongued husband running around the country fighting her battles for her and blasting his wife’s strongest competitor. The U.S. is in the Fred Flintstone age when it comes to women in high office. India’s Indira Gandhi and Great Britain’s Margaret Thatcher didn’t have their hubbies going after their opponents and trying to pit one part of the Indian and British electorates off against the other. They won on THEIR OWN qualities of ideas, competence, toughness, and shrewdness.

–Based on the way he has behaved in the campaign, if he had been an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and not her husband, yours truly would argue that he should be kept away from her administration and out of the White House if she wins. One gut-fighting Karl Rove in 10 years has been more than enough.

–Once the race card has been taken out you CANNOT pretend it never came out and shove it back into the deck. And those who excuse and enable it therefore shouldn’t complain if Republicans do it, if they are not taking a zero tolerance stance now.

Or, if GOPers raise it, then they should accept any apologies the GOPers make later (after the card has been taken out of the deck and been displayed for all to see) to black churches.

If it’s “two or the price of one,” then when it comes to giving someone a pass on playing the race card, it should be “one size fits all.”