MAIL ONLINE: Bill Clinton was at the centre of a race storm last night after he was accused of denigrating Barack Obama.
The former president allegedly claimed during the hard-fought Democratic primary race: ‘A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.’
He is said to have made the racist remark in a phone call entreating Senator Teddy Kennedy, the party’s vastly influential elder statesman, to endorse his wife, Hillary, in the delicately balanced 2008 nomination battle.
But the call so offended Senator Kennedy that it backfired and helped make up the veteran Washington power broker’s mind to throw his complete support behind Mr Obama’s historic bid for the White House, according to a new book.
Mr Clinton was once lauded by African-American admirers as America’s ‘first black president'.
But the ‘coffee’ controversy has opened old wounds from the campaign trail when Mr Clinton was accused of being racially dismissive about the underdog who went on to derail his wife’s White House dreams.
At the time, Mr Clinton scorned Mr Obama’s primary election victory in South Carolina, noting that Jesse Jackson had also carried the state in his failed presidential bid two decades earlier.
The former two-term president angrily denounced critics who suggested the comments were racially motivated and still seethes about the rumpus it caused to this day.
Last night, he was unavailable for comment about the new claim, which is featured in a new book about the presidential election called ‘Game Change.’ >>> David Gardner | Sunday, January 10, 2010
BBC: Harry Reid apologises for 'light-skinned' Obama remarks: The US Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, has apologised for private comments he made about Barack Obama before the 2008 presidential election. >>> | Sunday, January 10, 2010
