Bob Johnson, founder and former CEO of BET apologized Thursday to Sen. Barack Obama for what appeared to be veiled comments this week regarding the Democratic presidential hopeful’s acknowledged drug use as a teenager.
Johnson, a high-profile supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton, said he sent Obama a letter and also was reaching out by phone.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton responded Thursday afternoon, saying, “Obama accepts the apology. We’re going to leave it at that.”
Johnson drew criticism following remarks he made Sunday at a Clinton campaign stop in Columbia, South Carolina.
Earlier this week, Clinton and Obama both called for an end to the bitter, racially charged exchanges that have taken place between their campaigns in recent days.
OBAMA SPLITS BLACK CAUCUS
Many black lawmakers on Capitol Hill are not supporting Barack Obama, who may become the first black ever to represent a major party as the nominee for president. And that’s creating tensions within the Congressional Black Caucus.
More than a third of the black members of Congress are backing Hillary Rodham Clinton or John Edwards in the presidential primary, a stance that puts them at odds with many of their African-American constituents, who, recent polls show, are beginning to shift to Obama’s camp.
The Clinton supporters — among them, civil rights pioneer Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) — have said their endorsements didn’t hinge on race. Instead, they cited long-standing relationships with the Clintons, a respect for Hillary Clinton’s experience in national politics and, for some, geographical alliances with her in New York.
But now that Obama has won the Iowa caucuses and appears poised to do well in other early-primary states, some black lawmakers are pointing to the Clinton backers and calling them political opportunists who did not believe in the electability of a black candidate. Read the article in its entirety.
BARACK IS A DIGNIFIED MAN OF AFRICAN DECENT, HE REPRESENTS DIVERSITY IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY AND HE SEEMS TO BE A DOWN TO EARTH PERSON. BOB HAS THE FREEDOM TO REPRESENT WHO HE WANT TO REPRESENT POLITICALLY, BUT HE TOOK IT TOO FAR. I HATE TO SAY THIS, BUT MOST PEOPLE IN OUR COMMUNITY HAVE A CRAB IN THE BARREL MENTALITY. JOHNSON SOLD OUT HIS PEOPLE BY NOT ALLOWING FOR DIVERSITY TO BE DISPLAYED ON BET. HE IS KISSING UP TO HILLARY SO THAT HE CAN STAY ON WHITE FOLKS GOOD SIDE.
I BELIEVE THAT A LOT OF BLACK POLITICIANS ARE LASHING OUT AT BARACK, BECAUSE HE IS TECHNICALLY 1/2 BLACK AND HIS ANCESTORS WERE NOT AMERICAN BLACK SLAVES. I ALSO THINK THAT THERE IS SOME JEALOUSY GOING ON TOO. PEOPLE TAKE OBAMA SERIOUSLY, AND OTHER RACES RESPECT HIM AS WELL.
vote!
wow, he talks about obama doing drugs, like if that’s any different from bill or bush.
clinton put more black men in jail than ever before.
Outkast-”Bombs over bagdad” = clinton
clinton past a bill that if you are caught even holdng a joint, you lose your financial aid = who needs financial aid more than blacks? he can smoke weed in college, but you can’t, lol
don’t be fooled, the clintons are in the “bush klan”
Hillary Clinton keeps talking about her 35 years of experience. “I am offering 35 years of experience making change,” she said in New Hampshire. “I’m not just running on a promise of change, I’m running on 35 years of change.” And she repeatedly mentioned the 35 years again in this week’s debate in Las Vegas.
Well, Senator Clinton, I’m confused. I’ve done the math. You’re 60, which means that 35 years ago you were 25. And I Googled your name, looking for all the change you were making as a 25 year old and, frankly, I’m not finding much. You were going to Yale Law School at the time — which I’m sure was a personally transformative experience, but it’s hardly the kind of change that should count on one’s Presidential Training Experience resume, is it? Is that when you started your personal Working-for-Change-O-Meter?
That summer, the summer of 1972, you campaigned in Texas for George McGovern’s unsuccessful presidential bid. A worthy — if ultimately futile — endeavor to be sure, but a notch on your Years of Change belt? Kind of a stretch, don’t you think?
But as liberal as you are with your Experience Arithmetic, you are awfully stingy when it comes to the experience and background of Barack Obama.
“He was a part-time state senator for a few years,” you recently said of Obama, “and then he came to the Senate and immediately started running for president,” she said. “And that’s his prerogative. That’s his right. But I think it is important to compare and contrast our records.”
For starters, the state senate in Illinois is not a full-time job, but you make it sound like he was some kind of political temp worker, just filling in when someone called in sick. But leaving that aside, why is it that you get to count your time canvassing for McGovern as working for change, but Obama’s time as a community organizer and public housing advocate aren’t worthy of mention? And what about his time at Harvard Law (where he was the first black president in the history of the Harvard Law Review)? Doesn’t count? But your time at Yale Law does? In the now immortal words of your husband: Give me a break.
I know you are good person who is devoted to public service. But that doesn’t absolve you of the responsibility to not distort your record. And to not distort the record of your opponent.
Your 35 years talking point just doesn’t add up.
@ 117 , you might want to do more reading of FREEDOM OF SPEECH you so think you have.It’s not even absolute, it can be taken away.Like you said it’s “a right” and rights can be taken away.Just to let YOU know.Why you think Johnson is apologizing?Read and then discover tort law.
@121/2: Nail on the head.
#120 NOMOSOUL ^^^
– It can sound bogus all it wants, but something sounding “true” doesn’t make it factual now does it?
You’re going off of how something sounds instead of actual research (Obama IS a good speaker you know)
AND…BILL SHOULD HAVE PIMP SLAPPED HILLARY FOR TRYING TO IMPLY THAT MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. DIDN’T GET THE JOB DONE. LYNDON JOHNSON WAS THE PRESIDENT, SO OF COURSE HE WOULD BE ABLE TO GET BILLS PASSED AND IDEAS INTO LAWS. BUT DR. KING, MALCOLM, THEIR PEOPLE, THE OLD MAN WHO LIVES DOWN THE BLOCK, YOUR AUNT FRANCINE OR WHOEVER STOOD UP AT THE TIME TO BRING ATTENTION AND ALERT THE MASSES THAT THINGS HAD TO CHANGE FOR ALL PEOPLE TO HAVE BETTER AND SAFER LIVES. JOHNSON REACTED BECAUSE HE HAD TO OR THERE WOULD BE MORE VIOLENCE AND MORE BAD LIGHT BROUGHT ON AMERICA SHOWING THE REST OF THE WORLD THE EMBARRASSING TREATMENT THAT CERTAIN RACES AND CLASSES WERE, AND IN SOME INSTANCES STILL, RECEIVING. THE CLINTON’S LOST ALL RESPECT FROM ME THE MOMENT I SAW IN PRINT WHAT THAT TRICK OF A CHICK SAID. HAS ANYONE HEARD THAT SHE HAS RETRACTED OR APOLOGIZED FOR THAT IDIOTIC STATEMENT. “HE WAS JUST A BIG TALKER…” IF HE WAS JUST A BIG TALKER, WE WOULDN’T STILL BE TALKING ABOUT HIM OR REPEATING HIS WORDS. BIG TALKERS GET MORE DONE THAN SHELTERED, CLOSE MINDED PEOPLE LIKE HILLARY GIVE THEM CREDIT FOR…JESUS, NELSON MANDELA, GHANDI, MOTHER TERESA, ETC. THE PEOPLE AFFECTED BY THEIR BIG TALK LIVES WERE CHANGED DRAMATICALLY FOR THE BETTER YEARS, DECADES, MILLENNIA LATER. HILLARY’S WORDS WILL … UMM, NOT SO MUCH.
“Black politicians who are supporting Clinton are “good old boys.”
They are business-as-usual, old-guard politicians and it’s hard for them to break out of that mold. Blacks who doubt Obama’s ability to compete are guilty of “a slave mentality. No matter how much education they have, they never graduated from the slave mentality. The slavery mentality compels us to say, ‘We can’t win, we can’t do.”
Joseph Lowery
I couldn’t agree more!!!
Politics.. I love it!
This has to be one of the most interesting races I’ve ever seen in my years. I have been a Young Black Republican since high school and this race has certainly had me looking outside my party lines. I am utterly shocked that Black folks are so blind to follow the Clintons and worship them like they are Gods. Bill and Hillary are two of the most deceitful and conniving couples in Washington. Let me know what they have done for Black America?? I’m curious if anyone actually has an answer for that one.
I find it interesting that the Clintons sought out another Black person to try to smear the character of Obama. Bob Johnson should be ashamed of himself. There is no way in the world you gonna get me out there trash talking another brother or sister who is trying to do something positive. I think it makes us all look bad.
Barack Obama strikes me as one who can actually lead this country in a better direction.
When I think about the time that the Clintons were in Washington I can’t help but remember Whitewater, Monica Lewinsky Scandal oh yeah and the White House room for Rent program!! Oh yea, I forgot to mention all the pardons Clinton issued for the right amount!!! What a legacy!
there r quite a few african american leaders making unintelligent remarks in trying to throw support behind hillary.
Seems like they should simply voice why they support here.
Those unintelligent remarks will harm hillary and those who made the remarks in the long run.
@ 129 Ms. TrustME
what you’re saying is partly true but you’re putting it as if its one giant CONSPIRACY.
How can you say obama is in league with DICK CHENEY just b/c their distant relatives or whatever? That my friend, is BOGUS. I can assure you that Obama doesnt even LIKE CHeney. Hell, NO ONE does. lol
There is no conspiracy. At least not like that.
First, I need to thank Stop-the-Hate, the young brother on the last thread on Bob Johnson’s idiot comments, for suggesting that I re-think my ambivalence about Barack Obama after visiting some sites he referenced. I am now leaning toward Obama
Hey Guys, I thought you all might be interested in something I just posted on John Ridley’s blog on Huff Post. Its still under moderation.
Here’s my comment to Ridley’s spiel on the unimportance of the internet in the upcoming election:
The right has always understood the internet’s value much better than the left. Check out this seemingly innocuous piece by Cindy Adams, New York Post gossip columnist.
http://www.nypost.com/sev...he_oval_office_700665.htm
In it, she lays the groundwork for a draft Supreme Court Justice Alito for president campaign; she uses Will Smith to characterize Obama’s candidacy as laughable; and she dismisses the country’s growing movement toward citizen activism (a plus for Obama) by slamming Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt as little more than sex freaks. She even throws in a little anti-Semitism for the Christian right. Coincidence? Not hardly.
While we on the left are debating the power of the internet, the right wing is using it effectively. The millions of people Cindy Adams reaches (not through the newspaper but through the internet) are the silent majority who will decide the outcome of the upcoming presidential election.
My hope is that the millions of young people being reached through sites like concreteloop.com will be a counterbalance. One thing is for sure, we better get as savvy about the internet as the right, or we’re doomed.
Incidentally, Adams is listed as a scientologist as are Halderman and Ehrlichman, Nixon’s diabolical twins. Will Smith must’ve resisted Tom Cruise’s recruitment efforts.
Willie Lynch syndrome at work….Black people automatically detest anything that looks, walks or talks like them. Why? Because black people hate themselves.
I have been praying for Barak and family and I will continue to pray. Whatever at Bob Johnson like others have said this man created BET a network that at least for the past 15 yrs has been showing african americans in a negative light.
No surprise to see that Stepin Fetchit is alive and kicking and using the name Bob Johnson. How sad that a white woman can always some foolish Black man to do their dirty work. Bob Johnson should be concerning himself with the stereotypical junk he has been transmitting on BET and not seeking to denigrate an outstanding presidential candidate, the most credible Black presidential candidate ever, Barak Obama. Maybe Johnson’s problem is that he likes the idea of being head coon and likes dancing to Hillary’s tune.
Black people are not a homogeneous lump who all need to vote democrat but what is apalling is that some coons can’t see through Hillary – she’s not Bill. She will do anything to get that nomination, she will stamp on anyone in her path and keep shedding crocodile tears (were people really that gullible). But I note that Barak is too dignified I hope doesn’t join her in the gutter.
She does not deserve mindless Black support
Scurz, Great site and cartoon of Johnson!!!! Obama all the way!
African Americans and Black people in general have been whipped by the whole issue of Slavery that their psyche is not always their own. By that I mean they can be heavily influenced by a media that often denigrates them to look at other Black people through similar suspicious lens. Therefore, eventhough there have always been issues around many of the other candidates how often do you hear Black people saying that they would not choose someone who may have had a reefer, eventhough they may not have inhaled. Barak has been honest in a way that many of the others have not. Maybe if we started rooting around in some closets we might find a lot more than infidelity – but how much research are Black people doing on them if they had been would the present incumbent be there I wonder?
BOYCOTT BET…….STOP WATCHING ITS PROGRAMMING!!!!! THAT”S THE BEST WAY TO RESPOND TO BOB JOHNSONS MESS!!!!!!