Bond Criticizes Clinton, Endorses Obama?
Remarks Test NAACP Standards
Charles Johnson
Last Updated: 2/25/08 Section: News
NAACP Chairman Julian Bond came close to endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in a speech he gave Jan. 23 at Claremont McKenna College's Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum. Bond visited CMC just before the South Carolina primary where Obama carried 78 percent of the black vote.
It was Bond's second visit to CMC.
"Ironic is the prospect of the man who likes to be called the first black president helping to bring down the real first black president," Bond said. The statement refers to author Toni Morrison's October 1998 piece in The New Yorker, which called former President Bill Clinton "our first black president." Clinton has garnered criticism from top Democrats for his attacks on Senator Barack Obama. Newsweek reported on Jan. 19 that Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., called Clinton to tell him to "pipe down."
Clinton has claimed that Obama's position on the Iraq war was a "fairy tale" and criticized Obama for positively invoking the Reagan years.
His remark was a surprising detour from the rest of his speech and from the normal political practice of the NAACP. He began his talk by assuring the audience that the NAACP "does not endorse candidates and will not do so now." He later reiterated this, saying that the NAACP's non-profit status prevents it from endorsing political candidates.
Bond recently responded to a circulating email, allegedly authored by the NAACP, with the headline "Your Ten Reasons To Choose Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton."
According to Bond, the email is a hoax, which prompted him to issue the following statement: "I did not write the '10 reasons' and have not and will not support or oppose any candidate or party for president." He also said the group "is studiously non-partisan."
Bond's tiptoeing around political endorsements comes after a two-year IRS investigation into Bond and the NAACP over whether speeches he made in 2004 violated rules banning political speeches by tax-exempt groups. The IRS dropped its investigation in August 2006 after verifying that Bond did not violate those rules, but criticized Bond for refusing to comply with IRS inquiries.
It was Bond's second visit to CMC.
"Ironic is the prospect of the man who likes to be called the first black president helping to bring down the real first black president," Bond said. The statement refers to author Toni Morrison's October 1998 piece in The New Yorker, which called former President Bill Clinton "our first black president." Clinton has garnered criticism from top Democrats for his attacks on Senator Barack Obama. Newsweek reported on Jan. 19 that Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., called Clinton to tell him to "pipe down."
Clinton has claimed that Obama's position on the Iraq war was a "fairy tale" and criticized Obama for positively invoking the Reagan years.
His remark was a surprising detour from the rest of his speech and from the normal political practice of the NAACP. He began his talk by assuring the audience that the NAACP "does not endorse candidates and will not do so now." He later reiterated this, saying that the NAACP's non-profit status prevents it from endorsing political candidates.
Bond recently responded to a circulating email, allegedly authored by the NAACP, with the headline "Your Ten Reasons To Choose Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton."
According to Bond, the email is a hoax, which prompted him to issue the following statement: "I did not write the '10 reasons' and have not and will not support or oppose any candidate or party for president." He also said the group "is studiously non-partisan."
Bond's tiptoeing around political endorsements comes after a two-year IRS investigation into Bond and the NAACP over whether speeches he made in 2004 violated rules banning political speeches by tax-exempt groups. The IRS dropped its investigation in August 2006 after verifying that Bond did not violate those rules, but criticized Bond for refusing to comply with IRS inquiries.
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