BET bigwig battles Barack
SOUTH CAROLINA | Billionaire founder defends Hillary, says Obama campaign insulting
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- One of Hillary Rodham Clinton's most prominent black supporters said Sunday he was insulted by the characterization by rival Barack Obama's presidential campaign of her remarks about the civil rights movement.
Bob Johnson, the nation's first black billionaire and founder of the BET cable television network, said Obama's campaign had acted dishonestly and had distorted Clinton's remarks about Martin Luther King Jr.
Johnson also seemed to hint at Obama's youthful drug use, but later denied that was the case.
Clinton was quoted just before the New Hampshire primary as saying King's dream of racial equality was realized only when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Some black leaders have criticized that remark as suggesting Johnson deserved more credit than the slain civil rights leader.
While introducing Clinton at Columbia College on Sunday, Johnson criticized Obama's camp.
''That kind of campaign behavior would not be reasonable with me for a guy who says 'I want to be a reasonable, likable, Sidney Poitier,''' said Johnson. He commented after Clinton said Sunday that she hoped the campaign would not be about race.
Johnson also said Obama's own record should give voters pause.
''To me, as an African American, I am frankly insulted the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues -- when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood; I won't say what he was doing, but he said it in his book -- when they have been involved,'' Johnson said.
Obama wrote about his teenage drug use in a memoir.
Obama, campaigning in Las Vegas, declined to respond. ''I'm not going to spend all my time running down the other candidates, which seems to be what Senator Clinton has been obsessed with for the last month,'' Obama said.
But his wife, Michelle, weighed in, criticizing anyone who would ''dismiss this moment as an illusion, a fairy tale,'' a reference to comments made by Bill Clinton.
The candidate's husband used the term ''fairy tale'' to refer to Obama's characterization of his position on the Iraq war.
AP