WASHINGTON - A decade after the administration of Bill Clinton, president of the Initiative on Race, Judith Winston is a proud supporter of Senator Barack Obama - and disillusioned critic of the former president.
“His instinct for the production of its principles have to face, I think,” said Winston Clinton, which is in its national dialogue and the search for solutions to the race for his second term as President.
The former director of the initiative of the race, Winston error Bill Clinton in an attempt to stimulate the presidency of the candidacy of his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator, Obama’s races.
Winston is not alone. Since a dozen former executives of the Clinton initiative, interviewed in the middle of a race of the presidential campaign, where Democratic Front-runner is African-American, four are open support Obama - and seven violently criticized the campaign of Bill Clinton comment.
Three said they support Mrs. Clinton, and for interviewees expressed great admiration for them, as a general rule, it is sometimes praised Obama is much discussed speech on the “race” and its response to the rhetoric plagued by his minister The Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
But above all, many people who have tried to help Bill Clinton heal the countries of the former race hundreds of years wounds afraid of the decade, it was a correct salt on the wounds of this campaign.
“He was really trying to put an end to those who are ready to see how a theme of the race to press a button to make it,” said Angela Oh, an Obama Partisans and Los Angeles lawyer for the De l ‘initiative.
Criticism of Clinton, he made two comments in January.
In South Carolina, prior to the primary, Clinton had to say about the Clinton Obama of competition: “You are more and more voices, to be sure, because of their race or sex, and that is why the man say that Hillary Me not having a chance to win here. ”
And on the day of the primary, the former president, said: “Jesse Jackson won in South Carolina’84 und’88. Jackson had a good campaign. And Obama has a good campaign here.
Michael Wenger, as deputy director of the race of the Clinton initiative, found these statements astounding.
“I felt that I was losing a friend,” said Wenger. “I thought his comments in New Hampshire and South Carolina were spin. They were disappointing because they marginalize Obama clearly that the black candidate. ”
David Campt, an expert on diversity nickname “Doctor Race” and another initiative of former employees agree.
“The goal was not nature,” he said. “It is only because Clinton was president, it does not mean he is not involved in the race, prejudice, too.”
The Clinton ‘History
This criticism is inconsistent with Clinton’s “long history of racial sensitivity. Clinton appointed cabinet diverse and versatile of all employees of the White House.
Among supporters cite Mrs. Clinton’s lifelong work, the management of a legal aid clinic with a view to enhancing public education to combat Arkansas universal health care, as proof of his heart on the right place.
“Their record speaks for itself,” said Maria Echaveste, a former adviser to the White House worked on the initiative of the race and currently teaches law at the University of California at Berkeley.
Listening to race Obama speech, launched Echaveste her husband, Christopher Edley Jr., and said: “This initiative is the race and that’s exactly what Bill Clinton was talking about it.”
And the fact that Bill Clinton would be a national dialogue on Hot-Button question of race, which had its heyday in a 120-page report on policies with the president of revenue to overcome the divide of race, is proof that Comments on some cases during this campaign is not out of context.
“I know Bill Clinton. He is an old friend of me. I know where his heart is, and what his feelings are about this race, “said former Mississippi Gov. William F. Winter, served on the initiative of the Advisory Committee. “To say it was suggestive something about race, is untrue.”
Dr. Suzan D. Johnson Cook, the Minister Bronx, and winter, the wife of President Clinton, agrees.
“I look in the largest screen, and the image is larger, that the person in the right place,” she said.
John Hope Franklin, the historian from Duke University, as chairman of the race, the Initiative Advisory Panel, praised the initiative by Bill Clinton for the start and always ready to move along the ‘effort. Bearing all this in mind, Franklin’s Clinton record of controversial comments as a minor error.
“It is difficult for me to be insulted, even though I did not say those things,” said Franklin. “You could say, glib, and things that you excuse us for 15 minutes later. But it is not that there is no better sound. ”
Aid for Clinton did not respond to requests for comment on this story, but Bill Clinton last month, rejected the idea that it targeted Obama in a race. He blames the controversy on the media, said: “You have a history of the race,” and called it “a bizarre spin.”
But many of those at the initiative of the course, the fault to Bill Clinton.
Winston said she had always believed that the Clinton administration ardent defender of equal treatment of persons irrespective of race.
“But it important enough to him on the sidelines - I could not believe it,” she says.
Edley, who has contributed hand of Bill Clinton’s speech announced the initiative in the race, said he was shaken by the former President of the Commission.
“Bill Clinton probably knew more about the race and to better understand their effects, as anyone in the Clinton administration White House,” said Edley, dean of the Faculty of Law at Berkeley, and an adviser Obama. “It is difficult for me to believe that he does not understand what it looks like Barack is a race.”
Echaveste - Who is married with Edley, but the support of Bill Clinton - was also of crucial importance.
“I was very disappointed, and the chairman for the comments he made,” she said. “I know where they come: a feeling of frustration …. But it was not useful. “