TPM Reader ML on the fracas …
I think that the Clintons’ anti-Obama strategy is more subtle than commentators are realizing. It is in the nature of a “provokatsiia”, as the Russians say. Cuomo didn’t utter the phrase “shuck and jive”without forethought; nor did Clinton bring up LBJ and MLK on the spur of the moment. Both are experienced street-fighting politicians who don’t say that kind of thing to the press without thinking it through. Such comments are a provocation, waving a red cloak in front of the Obama people. When they respond angrily with charges of racism, suddenly they look like Jessie Jackson redux…just the kind of angry, militant black folks who scare white people (btw I think black anger and militancy are completely understandable…this is just a point about how much of the white public reads such charges of racism). Then the Clintons deny responsibility.
The whole point was to get the Obama people to respond angrily, which they did. Clintons win.
