Keith Olbermann : "Senator, you are now campaigning, as if Barack Obama were the Democrat, and you… were the Republican"

[ Excerpt from, Special Comment : Wednesday 12 March 2008 ]

[ ... ] Senator Clinton:

This is not a campaign strategy.

This is a suicide pact.

This week alone, your so-called strategists have declared that Senator Obama has not yet crossed the "commander-in-chief threshold"…

But -- he might be your choice to be Vice President, even though a quarter of the previous sixteen Vice Presidents have become commander-in-chief during the greatest kind of crisis this nation can face: a mid-term succession.

But you'd only pick him if he crosses that threshold by the time of the convention.

But if he does cross that threshold by the time of the convention, he will only have done so sufficiently enough to become Vice President, not President.

Senator, if the serpentine logic of your so-called advisors were not bad enough...

Now, thanks to Geraldine Ferraro, and your campaign's initial refusal to break with her, and your new relationship with her -- now more disturbing still with her claim that she can now "speak for herself" about her vision of Senator Obama as some kind of embodiment of a quota...

If you were to seek Obama as a Vice President, it would be, to Ms. Ferraro, some kind of social engineering gesture, some kind of racial make-good.

Do you not see, Senator?

To Senator Clinton's supporters, to her admirers, to her friends for whom she is first choice, and her friends for whom she is second choice, she is still letting herself be perceived as standing next to, and standing by, racial divisiveness and blindness…

And worst yet, after what President Clinton said during the South Carolina primary, comparing the Obama and Jesse Jackson campaigns -- a disturbing, but only borderline remark...

After what some in the black community have perceived as a racial undertone to the "3 A-M" ad... a disturbing -- but only borderline interpretation...

And after that moment's hesitation in her own answer on 60 Minutes about Obama's religion -- a disturbing, but only borderline vagueness...

After those precedents, there are those who see a pattern... false, or true.

After those precedents, there are those who see an intent... false, or true.

After those precedents, there are those who see the Clinton campaign's anything-but-benign neglect of this Ferraro catastrophe -- falsely or truly -- as a desire to hear the kind of casual prejudice which still haunts this society voiced... and to not distance the campaign from it.

To not distance you from it, Senator!

To not distance you... from that which you as a woman, and Senator Obama as an African-American, should both know and feel with the deepest of personal pain!

Which you should both fight with all you have!

Which you should both insure, has no place in this contest!

This, Senator Clinton, is your campaign, and it is your name.

Grab the reins back from whoever has led you to this precipice, before it is too late.

Voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth.

Your only reaction has been to disagree, reject, and to call it regrettable.

Her only reaction has been to brand herself as the victim, resign from your committee, and insist she will continue to speak.

Unless you say something definitive, Senator, the former Congresswoman is speaking with your approval.

You must remedy this.

And you must... reject... and denounce... Geraldine Ferraro.

[ Excerpt from, Special Comment : Wednesday 12 March 2008 ]

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