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If NYT's columnist Paul Krugman - who made the bizarre claim again today that Barack Obama is less of a progressive than Hillary Clinton on social policy - would like to get on a high horse about the realities of the campaigns and the candidates, perhaps he might write a column exposing Senator Clinton's new black best friend, billionaire BET mogul Robert Johnson. Attempting to garner African-American support for Hillary, Johnson stood next to Clinton the other day and made a coded comment that was clearly another one of those "spontaneous" references to Obama's "shady past" - chronicled in his memoir - as a teenaged drug abuser.

Turns out Johnson himself has an even shadier past. Leaving aside the issue of BET's willingness to program any sleazy crap that fills the owners' coffers - and the network's union-busting - Johnson has been a vocal advocate of total repeal of the estate tax and for Bush-style Social Security "reform." You can read about this disingenuous, politically and socially retrograde black billionaire's alliances with the Bush administration and opportunistic use of the "race card" when it serves his business interests here (assuming PK doesn't follow up on this.)

I don't hold candidates responsible for all of the baggage of their supporters or for all missteps in the course of their campaigns, but with Bill Clinton defending Johnson's remarks rather than repudiating them (as Obama forthrightly did when a "reformed gay" gospel singer affirmed his homophobia at a South Carolina campaign event), it would appear that there's little shame left in Hillary's campaign, only strategy.

Clarification and update: Johnson founded BET but sold it a few years ago. And this note on the Clinton/Obama showdown from Josh Marshall: "Just a Thought - Who do you figure pitched Richard Cohen on the Obama/Farrakhan column?" (I've long assumed that the Illinois Senator would eventually get flak for his church affiliation and his friend and pastor Jeremiah Wright's more "radical" views. I didn't expect it to start in the "liberal" press at the behest of Clinton operatives.)

Comments

[slickleb]

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[Rob Grocholski]

That guy's a billionaire?(!)