WHY ARE THE CLINTONS PLAYING RACIAL POLITICS?

Bob Herbert writes about the strategy of the Clinton's in his op-ed piece in today's The New York Times. I can sum up his argument, "What the hell are the Clintons doing," and "Why are they out to destroy Barack Obama by playing racial politics?"

Writes Herbert:

"The Clintons have never understood how to exit the stage gracefully.

"Their repertoire has always been deficient in grace and class. So there was Hillary Clinton cold-bloodedly asserting to USA Today that she was the candidate favored by “hard-working Americans, white Americans,” and that her opponent, Barack Obama, the black candidate, just can’t cut it with that crowd."

As Herbert comments, this argument that Barack can't cut it with blue-collar white Americans and that he only appeals to African American voters is a slur on the black people that Hillary and Bill always claimed that they respected and represented.

Herbert comments:

"The Clintons have been trying to embed that gruesomely destructive message in the brains of white voters and superdelegates for the longest time. It’s a grotesque insult to African-Americans, who have given so much support to both Bill and Hillary over the years."

But it is also a put-down of those blue-collar white voters who Hillary says would never support a black man.

Writes Bob Herbert:

"But it’s an insult to white voters as well, including white working-class voters. It’s true that there are some whites who will not vote for a black candidate under any circumstance. But the United States is in a much better place now than it was when people like Richard Nixon, George Wallace and many others could make political hay by appealing to the very worst in people, using the kind of poisonous rhetoric that Senator Clinton is using now.

"I don’t know if Senator Obama can win the White House. No one knows. But to deliberately convey the idea that most white people — or most working-class white people — are unwilling to give an African-American candidate a fair hearing in a presidential election is a slur against whites."