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Billionaire BET founder Bob Johnson recently spoke out against Democratic candidate hopeful Barack Obama.
According to The Associated Press, the outspoken Hillary Clinton supporter said he was insulted by the way Barack's campaign twisted Clinton's words concerning the Civil Rights movement.
Clinton was quoted as saying Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of racial equality was realized only when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Some black leaders have taken this remark to mean that Johnson deserved more credit than the slain civil rights leader for the passing and enacting of paramount civil rights legislation.
Bob Johnson, noted as the world's first African-American billionaire and former owner of the Black Entertainment Network (BET), took the opportunity to set the record straight, while introducing Clinton at Columbia College on Sunday (January 13).
"That kind of campaign behavior would not be reasonable with me for a guy who says 'I want to be a reasonable, likable, Sidney Poitier,'" said Johnson.
Johnson also seemed to make a sideways reference to the Democratic hopeful's days as a youth who experimented with drugs, which Obama wrote about in his memoirs Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.
"To me, as an African-American, I am frankly insulted the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues - when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood; I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book - when they have been involved," Johnson said.
After his speech, Johnson has defended himself saying that his comments were not about Obama's drug use, but his work as a community organizer in Chicago.
"Any other suggestion is simply irresponsible and incorrect," he said in a statement released by Clinton's campaign.
Obama declined to comment, saying only, "I'm not going to spend all my time running down the other candidates, which seems to be what Senator Clinton has been obsessed with for the last month."
His strategist David Axelrod did have some words about the situation.
"I don't see why this is so much different from what Billy Shaheen did in New Hampshire," Axelrod said. "Senator Clinton apologized for that. It's bewildering why, since she was standing there, she had nothing to say about this."
Just last month, top Hillary Clinton adviser Shaheen resigned from the campaign after suggesting Obama's prior drug use could be a deterrent to the Dems taking the White House and possibly used against Obama in his campaign.
Another Obama supporter, "I.S." Leevy Johnson, a former South Carolina state legislator, also said Clinton should have apologized for Bob Johnson's statements. He called it "offensive" that she stood by during Johnson's "personal, divisive attack on Barack Obama."
Clinton was not yet on stage when Bob Johnson made the personal comments, but didn't address them once she did take the podium. "For someone who decries the politics of personal destruction, she should've immediately denounced these attacks on the spot," Johnson said in a statement issued by Obama's campaign.
Source: sohh.com
According to The Associated Press, the outspoken Hillary Clinton supporter said he was insulted by the way Barack's campaign twisted Clinton's words concerning the Civil Rights movement.
Clinton was quoted as saying Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of racial equality was realized only when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Some black leaders have taken this remark to mean that Johnson deserved more credit than the slain civil rights leader for the passing and enacting of paramount civil rights legislation.
Bob Johnson, noted as the world's first African-American billionaire and former owner of the Black Entertainment Network (BET), took the opportunity to set the record straight, while introducing Clinton at Columbia College on Sunday (January 13).
"That kind of campaign behavior would not be reasonable with me for a guy who says 'I want to be a reasonable, likable, Sidney Poitier,'" said Johnson.
Johnson also seemed to make a sideways reference to the Democratic hopeful's days as a youth who experimented with drugs, which Obama wrote about in his memoirs Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.
"To me, as an African-American, I am frankly insulted the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues - when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood; I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book - when they have been involved," Johnson said.
After his speech, Johnson has defended himself saying that his comments were not about Obama's drug use, but his work as a community organizer in Chicago.
"Any other suggestion is simply irresponsible and incorrect," he said in a statement released by Clinton's campaign.
Obama declined to comment, saying only, "I'm not going to spend all my time running down the other candidates, which seems to be what Senator Clinton has been obsessed with for the last month."
His strategist David Axelrod did have some words about the situation.
"I don't see why this is so much different from what Billy Shaheen did in New Hampshire," Axelrod said. "Senator Clinton apologized for that. It's bewildering why, since she was standing there, she had nothing to say about this."
Just last month, top Hillary Clinton adviser Shaheen resigned from the campaign after suggesting Obama's prior drug use could be a deterrent to the Dems taking the White House and possibly used against Obama in his campaign.
Another Obama supporter, "I.S." Leevy Johnson, a former South Carolina state legislator, also said Clinton should have apologized for Bob Johnson's statements. He called it "offensive" that she stood by during Johnson's "personal, divisive attack on Barack Obama."
Clinton was not yet on stage when Bob Johnson made the personal comments, but didn't address them once she did take the podium. "For someone who decries the politics of personal destruction, she should've immediately denounced these attacks on the spot," Johnson said in a statement issued by Obama's campaign.
Source: sohh.com
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