by Frank James
The Washington Post political gossip blog, “The Sleuth” provides an interesting tidbit of information for anyone seeking more insight into why Sen. Edward Kennedy was so angry at the Clintons that he got off the fence and endorsed Sen. Barack Obama this week.
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Much of the reporting made it seem like Sen. Kennedy’s endorsement was all about President Bill Clinton, particularly his comments the day after the South Carolina primary in which he appeared to dismiss Obama’s big win there as a race thing and nothing more.
Yes, Kennedy was upset by that sin of commission by the former president. But he apparently was also upset by the sin of ommission by Sen. Hillary Clinton who evidently sat by at a New Hampshire event while the person who introduced her appeared to diminish President Kennedy’s civil rights role.
Reporter Mary Ann Akers has this on The Sleuth:
Sources say Kennedy was privately furious at Clinton for her praise of President Lyndon Baines Johnson for getting the 1964 Civil Rights Act accomplished. Jealously guarding the legacy of the Kennedy family dynasty, Senator Kennedy felt Clinton’s LBJ comments were an implicit slight of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, who first proposed the landmark civil rights initiative in a famous televised civil rights address in June 1963.
One anonymous source described Kennedy as having a “meltdown” in reaction to Clinton’s comments. Another source close to the Kennedy family says Senator Kennedy was upset about two instances that occurred on a single day of campaigning in New Hampshire on Jan. 7, a day before the state’s primary.
The first was at an event in Dover, N.H., at which Clinton supporter Francine Torge introduced the former first lady saying, “Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated. And Lyndon Baines Johnson was the one who actually” signed the civil rights bill into law.
The Kennedy insider says Senator Kennedy was deeply offended that Clinton remained silent and “sat passively by” rather than correcting the record on his slain brother’s civil rights record.
Kennedy was also apparently upset that Clinton said on the same day: “Dr. [Martin Luther] King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Ac. It took a president to get it done.”
Both comments that day, by Clinton and her supporter, were meant to make the point that Clinton would be better equipped to get things done as president than Obama, her chief Democratic rival. Sources say Clinton called Kennedy to apologize for the LBJ comments. But whatever she said clearly wasn’t enough to assuage Kennedy, who endorsed Obama earlier this week.
If this situation illustrates nothing else, it’s the nearly impossible demands that are on presidential candidates who reach the level of Sen. Clinton and their staffs.
In hindsight, one can see why Kennedy would be upset. First, the Kennedy people always had a problem with LBJ who was seen as a usurper to the dead president, the rightful occupant of the Oval Office.
Also, it is true that President Kennedy did tee up civil rights legislation with the speech he made before his death. In fact, there is some thinking that Kennedy’s assassination helped LBJ navigate the legislation to enactment since he would often invoke JFK’s name, telling lawmakers that the legislation was important to Kennedy.
True, Kennedy did not move as quickly as Dr. King would’ve liked when it came to civil rights. But the administration did take steps, especially when King prodded it, to support protestors in the south, actions Kennedy saw as risky to his planned 1964 re-election bid.
Indeed, even before he was elected, JFK famously made a empathetic phone call to Coretta Scott King during the 1960 campaign when Dr. King was in jail.
His brother Robert Kennedy was sure the phone call would cause JFK to lose support among southern Democrats and thus the election. But the phone call to Coretta was reported throughout black America at the time and attracted lots of black voters to Kennedy, which helped him win a very close election against Vice President Richard Nixon.
But in the days before the recent New Hampshire primary, with the Clinton campaign trying to figure out a way to overcome its shocking third place finish in the Iowa Caucuses just days earlier, it would be understandable if Clinton and her campaign were just too distracted to notice that a slight to the Kennedy legacy on civil rights had occurred.
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In any event, Clinton and her campaign never corrected the historical record enough for Sen. Kennedy. If they had realized how things would play out, does anyone doubt that they would have made such a correction? It was an important detail that was missed.
So, like the old saying goes, for want of a nail, the Camelot kingdom, or at least its endorsement, was lost.