Politics

BET's Bob Johnson, Obama and Drugs

By Matt Cooper

By now, you've probably heard of the dustup between Bob Johnson, the Black Entertainment Television founder, and the Obama campaign. Speaking at a Hillary Clinton event in South Carolina he seemed to take a swipe at Obama for his acknowledged past used of drugs. "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.

John later issues a statement saying he was referring to Obama's community organizing and the Clinton campaign has accepted his clarification. Maggie Williams, who the Clinton campaign--where my spouse works--has brought in to help run day-to-day operations accepted Johnson's claim this morning.

Okay, I have a few thoughts:

First, I can't imagine Johnson wasn't really referring to drug use. It's the only context in which his comments make sense.

Second, at some point the Obama campaign can't keep being shocked that people bring this up. The Senator brought up his past drug use in a startling way in his book so when a presidential candidate talks about "smack" and "blow"--he never did the former and briefly indulged in the latter--why should he or anyone be shocked that it gets brought up. Does the Obama campaign think the Republicans will show any restraint on this? Personally, I like how Obama dealt with the issue rather than the usual relucant drug admission in which politicians diminish their drug use to an absurd degree. Back in 1987 when the Supreme Court nomination of Douglas ginsburg was derailed ove rhis marijuana use, a slew of politicians came out and admitted their drug use, most of them all in ways intended to diminish how much they did and the circumstances under which they did it. Al Gore, then a presidential aspirant, noted that he'd smoked pot--but quickly added it was while he was in Vietnam. So Obama gets credit, in my mind, for bring it up in a refreshing way but shouldn 't be shocked when others aren't as accepting

Full post as published by Portfolio.com: Capital on January 14, 2008 (boomark / email).