Clinton, Obama spar over her comments on civil rights battle

Duel comes at key time in campaigns

Senator Hillary Clinton sought to defend her comments about Martin Luther King Jr. on "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert yesterday. Her Democratic rival Barack Obama criticized her for "talking . . . about my record in a way that was flat-out wrong." ("meet the press" via associated press)

WASHINGTON - Senator Hillary Clinton, battling to win the crucial support of African-Americans in the upcoming South Carolina primary, yesterday sought to explain her widely publicized remarks about civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. that have offended some black leaders.

In a high-stakes national television interview, Clinton said the campaign of Democratic opponent Senator Barack Obama was "deliberately distorting" her comments.

Clinton had said in an interview last week that it "took a president" to accomplish King's dream of passing civil rights legislation. Some black leaders have said they were offended because it seemed to diminish King's role and give more credit to former president Lyndon Johnson.

The New York senator has been hammering Obama as more of a talker than a problem solver. "One of the significant contrasts in this campaign is between talking and doing, between rhetoric and reality," she said yesterday.

The duel between the two leading Democratic candidates for president came at what could be a crucial moment in their campaigns, with Obama having won the Iowa caucuses and Clinton having snared a comeback victory in the New Hampshire primary.

Obama responded immediately to the Clinton interview, saying she had offended people who believed she had diminished King's role. The Illinois senator criticized her for spending an hour on television "talking about me and about my record in a way that was flat-out wrong." He denied distorting her remarks.

"What we saw this morning is why the American people are tired of Washington politicians and the games they play," Obama said after Clinton made her appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"But Senator Clinton made an unfortunate remark, an ill-advised remark, about King and Lyndon Johnson," Obama said. "I didn't make the statement. I haven't remarked on it, and she, I think, offended some folks who felt that somehow diminished King's role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act. She is free to explain that, but the notion that somehow this is our doing is ludicrous."

Clinton also was pressed repeatedly in the NBC interview to explain a comment her husband, Bill, made about Obama last Monday. Obama's assertion that he consistently opposed the Iraq war was a "fairy tale," the former president had said.

The senator stood by the assertion. She said Obama had made his 2002 opposition to the Iraq war the "story line" and rationale for his candidacy, but she contended he was inconsistent because he supported funding for the war and did not always express opposition to it. Obama's campaign put out a detailed rebuttal of Clinton's remarks, saying it showed the Illinois senator consistently opposed the war.

Obama and Clinton, along with former senator John Edwards of North Carolina, are slated to participate in a Las Vegas debate tomorrow night. A Nevada caucus vote will be held Saturday and the primary in South Carolina a week later, on Jan. 26.

With blacks making up about 50 percent of South Carolina's Democratic Party voters, the fight for their support is intense.

Obama, who has written a book about the African ancestry of his father, faces Clinton, whose husband twice won the presidency with strong support from black voters. South Carolina's largest newspaper, The State, said in the lead story of its Saturday edition that many blacks found Clinton's attacks "painful" and were "offended by criticism of Obama [and] remarks about King."

Using that article as a springboard to question Clinton, "Meet the Press" moderator Tim Russert asked her to explain what she meant when she said a week ago on the Fox News Channel that the credit for passing civil rights legislation went beyond King's work.

In her remarks on Fox News, Clinton said: "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do; presidents before had not even tried. But it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became real in people's lives because we had a president who said 'We're going to do it' and actually got it accomplished."

Yesterday, Clinton sought to explain the comment by saying that her point was that "Dr. King didn't just give speeches. He marched, he organized, he protested, he was gassed, he was beaten, he was jailed. He understood that he had to move the political process and bring in those who were in political power, and he campaigned for political leaders including Lyndon Johnson, because he wanted somebody in the White House who would act on what he had devoted his life to achieving."

The Clinton campaign, asked for evidence that the Obama campaign distorted Clinton's statement about King, cited a memo that it said was distributed by the Obama camp last week. The memo quoted part of Clinton's comment about King on Fox News. An Obama spokesman denied that any distortion took place and said that the campaign had not engineered any response from black leaders upset about the comment.

The Obama campaign also denied having anything to do with a statement by Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina. Clyburn, who has said he was neutral in the contest, stated that Clinton's statement on King "bothered me a great deal."

Merle Black, professor of politics at Emory University in Atlanta, said yesterday that Clinton's effort to defend her remarks could signal trouble for her campaign.

"Anytime she has to explain a remark about Martin Luther King is not good for her," Black said. "It puts her on the defensive and gives a resource to the Obama campaign . . . if you have to explain what you said, you didn't say it the right way."

Edwards, who was born in South Carolina and won the state's primary in 2004, yesterday added to the criticism of Clinton. "I must say I was troubled recently to see a suggestion that real change that came not through the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King but through a Washington politician. I fundamentally disagree with that," Edwards said at a predominantly black Baptist church.

Clinton used her TV appearance yesterday to continue trying to define Obama as an orator without major accomplishments. She began by saying that she has "the greatest regard for rhetoric and particularly the ability that Senator Obama has to, you know, lift our sights and our hearts with his oratory." But she added: "I think it is fair to point out that he has not had a record of actually producing positive change."

Clinton spent much of her appearance explaining what her husband meant when he said that Obama's opposition to the war has been a "fairy tale." She said the comment referred only to Obama's record on the Iraq war, which she said was the appropriate subject of questioning.

She said that Obama deserves "credit" for opposing the war in 2002, but she that he went on to back Bush's strategy and supported funding for the war. In one example, she said that "by 2004 he was saying that he didn't really disagree with the way George Bush was conducting the war."

Obama said Clinton's assertions were false. Pointing out that Clinton voted to authorize Bush to use military force in Iraq, Obama said "She suggested that I didn't clearly and unambiguously oppose the war in Iraq when it is absolutely clear and anyone who has followed this knows that I did. I stood up against the war when she was voting for it, at a time when she didn't read the intelligence reports or give diplomacy a chance."

Clinton, meanwhile, stood by her long-held position that her vote was intended to put pressure on Iraq and that it was "not a vote for preemptive war."

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report. Kranish can be reached at kranish@globe.com