What Bill Clinton Allegedly Told Ted Kennedy about Obama: ‘A Few years Ago He Would Have Been Getting Us Coffee’
Controversy: Senator Harry Reid (left) and former US President Bill Clinton have come under fire for comments they are said to have made about Barack Obama. Photographs: Mail Online
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

Race Shame Outrage as Oxford Student Tories Clap and Cheer at N-word Jokes During Meeting
Nick Gallagher: Made a racist joke at election hustings for the student body. Photo courtesy of MailOnline
MAIL Online: Two Tories have been suspended from the party over racist jokes made at Oxford University's Conservative Association.

During a drunken hustings for the next president for the association - supposed to be a breeding ground for future Tory high-fliers - student candidates made a string of racist remarks.

They were asked to repeat ‘the most inappropriate joke you have ever told’.

Nick Gallagher, the publications officer, said: ‘What do you say if you see a TV moving across your living room? “Drop it, n*****.” ’

At the meeting, another student reportedly made a gag about a family of three black people being lynched.

Both candidates have now been suspended from the national party, according to Oxford's student newspaper Cherwell.

A high-level Tory source said: ‘People who behave in this disgusting and reprehensible way have no place in the Conservative Party.’

Both jokes were clapped and cheered on by members of the association, which counts Margaret Thatcher as its patron and Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague as its honorary president.

Carol Thatcher, who was forced to apologise after likening a black tennis player to a golliwog, was also mocked.
A member of the association's committee has resigned over the row.

The timing of the comments will be acutely embarrassing to David Cameron in the wake of the local and European elections, which left many ashamed at the gains made by the racist BNP.

The Tory leader has consistently tried to shed his party’s ‘nasty’ image by focusing on issues of social justice and equality, instead of tough talk on immigration which repeatedly led his party to electoral disaster. >>> By Daniel Bates | Thursday, June 11, 2009