NEW YORK — Democrat Hil lary Rodham Clinton suggested Sunday that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign had injected racial tension into the presidential contest, saying he had distorted for political gain her comments about Martin Luther King Jr.’s role in the civil-rights movement.
“This is an unfortunate story line the Obama campaign has pushed very successfully,” the former first lady said in a spirited appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I don’t think this campaign is about gender, and I sure hope it’s not about race.”
Clinton was quoted as saying King’s dream of racial equality was realized only when President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and her husband, former President Clinton, said Obama was telling a “fairy tale” about his opposition to the Iraq war.
Bill Clinton later appeared on black radio programs to say he was referring to Obama’s record on the Iraq war, not on his effort to become the nation’s first black president.
At an awards dinner Sunday in Atlanta celebrating black achievement, Michelle Obama said her husband is the person America needs in the White House right now and was critical of anyone who would “dismiss this moment as an illusion, a fairy tale.”
He is the right candidate “not because of the color of his skin but because of the quality and consistency of his character,” she said.
As evidence the Obama campaign had pushed the story, Clinton advisers pointed to a memo written by an Obama staffer compiling examples of comments by Hillary Clinton and her surrogates that could be construed as racially insensitive. The memo surfaced on political websites.
Barack Obama called Clinton’s accusations “ludicrous.”
