If You Are Going to Smear Somebody, At Least Get Your Facts Straight

Robert L. Johnson is the billionaire founder of Black Entertainment Television and a Hillary Clinton supporter. At a Jan. 13 rally in South Carolina, he made reference to the days when Barack Obama was "doing something in the neighborhood." Johnson declined to elaborate but added pointedly that Obama "said it in his book. Johnson's remarks were criticized for reviving the issue of Obama's admitted drug use, and the Clinton campaign quickly issued a statement that Johnson had merely been speaking about Obama's days as a "community organizer."

There are two points I wish to make that show Johnson's remarks to be a smear, and a clumsy one at that. The first point has not been emphasized enough, and the second point has not been made at all, as far as I can tell, and is my primary reason for writing this article.

First of all, by invoking "the neighborhood" Johnson was obviously referring to "The Hood" and the days after Obama moved to the south side of Chicago. But by then, Obama had graduated from Harvard Law School and was working as a community organizer. If Johnson was referring to those activities, why didn't he just say so? There is nothing negative or nefarious about them. So obviously he was not referring to Obama's days as a community organizer, which makes the Clinton campaign's explanation laughable, and more seriously, incredible.

And here comes the second and more important point. Johnson was obviously referring to Obama's admitted drug use while in high school, but the problem with this is that Obama attended high school while living inHawaii. There certainly wasn't any" neighborhood" there for young African-Americans. There may have been one for native Hawaiians or Samoans, but for sure Obama's high school milieu was diverse and multicultural.

I find it amazing the lengths that Hillary and Bill will go, especially Bill, plus their surrogates, such as Johnson and Andrew Young, to trash Obama. Not to mention the canard that he has no experience, when in fact he was a community organizer, professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and a state senator before being elected to the U.S. Senate. As for his lack of specifics, his website belies that. The one thing that concerns me is that he talks of bipartisanship, yet his record in the U.S. Senate shows no evidence of this. I guess we will just have to wait and see.