The Clintons & Race

Evan Gahr writes for Human Events:

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch likes to call himself “a liberal with sanity.”

Koch tends to casually blurt out entirely logical opinions which invariably offend what should be any liberal’s core constituencies. 

Blacks. Now, Koch has once again proved himself a skunk at the liberal garden party. In an interview with this reporter,  Koch, who remains committed to Hillary Clinton for president, disputed the conventional wisdom among liberals, journalists and black leaders that the Clinton presidential campaign has repeatedly played the race card against Barack Obama.  For proof, Clinton paraphrased an AP story that, she said, “found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans is weakening again, and how whites in both states were supporting me.”

Koch also strongly defended notorious remarks by Bill Clinton the day of the South Carolina primary. With Obama expected to win, Clinton told reporters, “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ’84 and ’88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

The backlash left Koch bewildered. Jesse Jackson was a superb candidate.”

What really reeks of “racism,” says Koch, is the suggestion that comparing Jesse Jackson to Obama “is to denigrate Obama.”

For that, Koch said, Jackson “deserves kudos”

Koch is not, however, willing to forgive Obama for his 20 year relationship with the now illustrious Jeremiah Wright. McCain even argued unsuccessfully that the North Carolina GOP not to air a television advertisement linking Obama and Wright.

“If you hold [Obama] responsible for [Wright’s] words that’s wrong,” Koch argued. Obama, he says, “spoke up twenty years too late.”   

Who is Koch voting for in November if it’s Obama vs. McCain? If Obama can’t count on support from a traditional Democrat like Koch he could be in trouble with other like-minded voters.