Poor Bill.

He’s stuck in no man’s land — no longer able to stand before adoring crowds of African-Americans, who welcomed him as the “nation’s first black president” with thunderous applause — and he clearly is having issues dealing with the new world order.

Almost two months after Sen. Barack Obama captured the Democratic presidential nomination, the former president still is brooding about his wife’s loss. And his chief source of anguish? That supporters of Obama accused him of injecting race into the campaign.

Never mind that the Obama camp — loaded with white male advisers — was so afraid to bring up race that it wasn’t funny.

When Bill Clinton compared Obama’s win in South Carolina to the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 wins there, it was seen by African-Americans as an attempt to marginalize Obama. That always has been a fear of African-Americans who achieve mainstream success, and it left even close friends of the Clintons aghast.

That was the tipping point, along with other perceived slights, and we know a person’s perception is his reality.

What Bill doesn’t understand is that the masses of black people know what it feels like to be marginalized, and many saw that in those comments.

In an interview with ABC’s Kate Snow, Clinton, when asked about regrets in the campaign, immediately threw out, “I am not a racist.”

He kept insisting that he isn’t angry, but we all have seen that stare, that change in body language, and the parsing of words. Even when Snow asked whether Obama is ready to be president, Clinton answered in the third person, never actually saying he’s ready or not.

Bill, we get it. You still are peeved. At Obama. At Rep. James Clyburn. At the media. At anyone who you determined was against you and Hillary.

Many have said Clinton wants his legacy intact, and a lot of that has to do with the reality that no group gave him more comfort than the black community.

When he was facing the end of his presidency, he called on black folks like no others, using the affection to get him through the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He relied on black support to keep his poll numbers high. And we all know it.

But what Bill knows — and we know — is that you don’t have to be a racist to use race as a tool in a political campaign. An inference here, a comparison there, and you can send the right signal at the right time to the right people. He says he did nothing wrong. Yet perception is very powerful, and denying it doesn’t make it go away.

Bill and the legions of Clinton supporters are quick to act as if the comments made by African-Americans — the regular folk — simply didn’t exist. That was his bread-and-butter group, and its members were none too happy.

But what the Clinton folks also fail to grasp is that they did offend older African-Americans, such as Clyburn, Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole and others who were always in the corner of the Clintons but could remain silent no longer.

It’s clear that Bill can’t deal with the fact that his black supporters didn’t stay quiet. Many of them recoiled at what they heard.

As for what’s next, some Hillary Clinton fundraisers have said Obama should help restore Bill’s reputation and show respect for both Clintons, according to the Huffington Post. But the truth is that there is nothing that Obama can do to salvage the reputation of Bill Clinton before most African-Americans.

Bill lost that on his own, and he’s going to have to get it on his own.

The Clintons need to stop living in la-la land, listening to the same folks soothe Bill’s bruised ego. They thought they would win the nomination and that blacks would fall in line. Harold Ickes said as much.

But in this new world order, he needs to recognize that a lot has changed.

Bill, you clearly have issues with what took place, and sure, you can be angry. But denying you’re angry doesn’t help.

Roland S. Martin is a nationally award-winning and multifaceted journalist, a CNN contributor and a talk show host for WVON/AM in Chicago.

Mr. Martin is also a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate (www.creators.com) and the author of Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith ($11.95) and “Speak, Brother! A Black Man’s View of America” ($10), he also serves as executive editor of the Chicago Defender, the nation’s largest black daily newspaper.

Mr. Martin is a commentator for TV One Cable Network and host of “The Roland S. Martin Show” on WVON-AM/1690 in Chicago. He can be heard daily from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.

A provocative and insightful analyst, Mr. Martin has appeared numerous times on CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, Court TV, BET Nightly News, BBC News, National Public Radio, The Word Network and America’s Black Forum. Mr. Martin provides news reports for American Urban Radio Networks…..[more]

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By: Jonah Goldberg

True or not, the Clinton campaign has been accused of playing the race card. The irony here, of course, is that Bill and Hillary only have themselves to blame for employing the kinds of political tactics now being used against them.

As the Barack and Hillary Show extended its tour to such off-off-off Broadway primary states as Indiana and North Carolina (coming soon to Puerto Rico!), it was inevitable that both sides would dust off the "playing the race card" script.

Recently, Bill Clinton was asked whether he had played the race card when he compared Barack Obama’s South Carolina victory to Jesse Jackson’s in 1984 and 1988. "No," he said in one of his typical outbursts of enraged self-pity. "I think that they played the race card on me, and we now know … that they planned to do it all along." Then Clinton added to an aide — without realizing he was being recorded — "I don’t think I should take any s—- from anybody on that, do you?"Oh, the ironies. First, Clinton’s initial comments were entirely valid. Obama boasts enormous black support, more than 90%, and that’s what put him (and Jackson)over the top in South Carolina. Second, while it’s arguable that the Clinton campaign has, at the margins, played the race card against Obama, it’s hardly been with much gusto, effectiveness or racism.

Where’s the racism?

Indeed, Obama’s spinners must be yoga masters considering how far they have to stretch to make their case. Betsy Reed, of the left-wing magazine The Nation, cites the Clinton campaign’s reference to Obama’s past drug use (raised most prominently by black Clinton surrogate Bob Johnson) and Bill’s belittling of Obama’s claims of anti-war purity as a "fairy tale" as examples of invidious racial politics.

Huh? Bill Clinton’s marijuana use was an issue in 1992 and, in 2000, the press went bonkers over allegations that George W. Bush had used drugs long ago. So why should it be racist to mention Obama’s even more significant drug use? Likewise, the use of the phrase "fairy tale" wasn’t racial. Even Hillary’s entirely valid, but now-infamous, observation that it was Lyndon Johnson, not Martin Luther King Jr., who secured passage of the Civil Rights Act can be described as racist only if the standard for racism is reduced to anything that hurts Obama. Dubbing inconvenient truths as "racist" is poisonous to U.S. politics. Which is why I have so little sympathy for the Clintons because it was the Clintons themselves who mainstreamed crying racism (or sexism or, in the case of Chinese fundraising scandals, anti-Chinese sentiment) in response to criticism.

Throughout his tenure as both "the first feminist" and "first black" president, Clinton Inc. routinely ascribed political opposition to bigotry. At a conference on race in 1997, Bill Clinton famously wheeled on Harvard scholar Abigail Thernstrom
— a high-minded critic of racial quotas — and bullied her with the question: "Do you favor the United States Army abolishing the affirmative action program that produced Colin Powell? Yes or no?" The tactic was no less brilliant for its cynical dishonesty. (Among the problems with Clinton’s ambush: Powell didn’t benefit from any affirmative action programs, which weren’t in place when he joined the Army nor even when he became a general.)

In 1999, when the Senate rejected his nominee for a Missouri judgeship, Clinton exclaimed that "the Republican-controlled Senate is adding credence to the perceptions that they treat women and minority judicial nominees unfairly." The Clintonites reflexively lamented how "angry white men" were standing in the way of progress, and even resorting to violence. After the Oklahoma City bombing, Clinton fingered the real culprit: Rush Limbaugh.

Then, of course, there was Bill Clinton’s double-dealing of the race card during his impeachment struggle. As my National Review colleague Jay Nordlinger noted at the time, "Whenever Clinton gets into trouble, he reaches for black people, as if for a shield."

Impeachment defense

The first weekend of the Lewinsky scandal, Clinton suddenly invited his old nemesis Jackson to become the family’s spiritual adviser. He summoned black pastors, radio personalities and a battalion of black lawyers. Slowly — but oh so deliberately — the message went forth: Impeaching the first black president was racist. Rep. Charlie Rangel compared him to Martin Luther King. In response to the Starr report, Rep. Maxine Waters said that she was "here in the name of my slave ancestors" to thwart the racist assault on this honorary black man. When asked on BET whether Republicans wanted him impeached because of his affinity for blacks, Clinton responded, "It may be," wink wink, "that that’s a source of anger and animosity toward me."

Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift, the Clinton’s reliable water-carrier, got the memo, saying of the all-white Republican impeachment handlers, "I mean frankly, all they were missing was white sheets. They’re like night riders going over. This is bigger than Bill Clinton."

Hillary Clinton played similar games, of course, insinuating sexism when convenient. But even if she didn’t, it’s worth remembering that she wants credit for being something akin to a co-president in the ’90s. Fine, it’s her record, too.

It’s no wonder the Clintons don’t like it when Obama and his supporters cynically complain that attacks on him are racially motivated; they’re dealing his own race card back at him. This surely stings as Bill no doubt sees this as ingratitude from a constituency he has long taken for granted. And we’d all be better off if this card were tossed from the deck. But make no mistake: Nobody should shed any tears for the Clintons.

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