Bill Clinton has had more black women than Barack Obama…so what?!

This is how former UN ambassador and Atlanta mayor Andrew Young responded at a recent black Newsmakers forum when he was asked to comment on Barack Obama’s candidacy. But after hootin’ and hollerin’ at what he claims was “just a joke”, I admonish you to consider the following:

There is nothing funny about black leaders like Young, Rev Jesse Jackson and others trying to convince impressionable black people that Obama is not black enough to be president of the United States. And nothing betrays their utter lack of political integrity quite like their craven suggestion that the white woman they support, Hillary Clinton, actually is. (As for being “president alone”, I won’t even dignify Young’s insinuation that Michelle cannot support Barack every bit as effectively as Hillary supported Bill when he was president.)

But let me hasten to disabuse you of any impression that Hillary would pursue policies that are more favorable to blacks than Obama would. In fact, I defy Young, or anyone else who suggests this, to cite a single policy that supports this political canard.

After all, if Hillary’s appeal is based on her continuing the policies Bill implemented during his presidency, then I submit that blacks have far more to fear from a President Hillary Clinton than from a President Barack Obama. Because it was Bill who cut welfare benefits for black single mothers in order to curry favor with the white barons of his Democratic Leadership Council. And it was Bill who did so little to combat the pandemic of HIV/AIDS, which affects blacks so disproportionately, that an outraged Richard Gere stunned Hollywood A-listers when he stood up at an AIDS benefit in 2003 – at which Hillary was guest of honor – and said:

Senator Clinton, I’m sorry, but your husband did nothing for AIDS for eight years.

Never mind the fact that, even though Clinton paid a lot of lip service to hiring blacks in his administration, President George W. Bush actually hired many more and placed them in much higher positions.

Now consider that much of the talk about Hillary’s experience is just that. And nothing demonstrates the uselessness of what little experience she has more than the fact that it was Obama, not Hillary, who spoke out with such clarity and conviction in opposition to this war in Iraq – when it was still unpopular to do so. (And, when it was still unpopular to do so – as Oprah reminded folks on Saturday.)

At any rate, Obama is even more experienced than JFK was when he was elected president. And Hillary knows better than anyone that, if Washington experience were really all that important, Bill Clinton would never have been elected. After all, he ran against a sitting president in 1992 who had more experience than any other candidate in US history, namely, Papa George H. W. Bush.

Therefore, if there’s no basis in fact to support Hillary over Obama, nor any reason to suspect that her experience would make her a better president, then what’s behind this open conspiracy to commit racial fratricide against Obama?

Alas, I can only surmise that old-fashioned black leaders are staying on the Hillary bandwagon simply because she and Bill not only enable their race-baiting politics, but have also promised to continue doing for them what Bill did during his presidency: namely, to give them the political cover to shakedown corporate America in exchange for their political support.

Not to mention that I have it on reliable authority that Obama’s integrity compelled him to rebuff their overtures to arrange a similar quid-pro-quo deal, and that this is what is fueling their intra-racial vendetta.

Ironically, given these facts, it’s a perverse form of Uncle Tomism for Young and other blacks to suggest that Bill and Hillary are blacker than Barack; or even worse, that he should wait his turn, like a good boy, until the Clintons fulfill their 2-for-1 presidential ambition.

Because it’s one thing to say in jest that Bill was the first black president of the United States (as Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison did). But it only insults our intelligence, and smacks of insidious self-loathing to suggest that because he uses black women for late-night booty calls that blacks should vote for his wife instead of Obama to be the next president of the United States.

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