Bob Kerrey's Tame Response To Bob Herbert
January 29, 2008 -- 4:08 PM EST // //
The other day this blog took a whack at Bob Herbert's weekend column in The Times, which among other things used a single anonymous racist blog posting about Barack Obama to insinuate that the Clintons are "gleeful" about the rampant racism that's been uncorked by the dust-ups between the two leading Dem candidates.
Herbert's column, which relied on quotes from everyone but the Clintons to make its case, also hit Hillary supporter Bob Kerrey for wrongly saying that Obama attended a "secular madrassa," which Herbert held up as proof that Kerrey was trying to slime the Illinois Senator.
Now Kerrey has responded in a letter to The Times:
Re “Questions for the Clintons,” by Bob Herbert (column, Jan. 26): Mr. Herbert took a piece of a complimentary statement I made about Senator Barack Obama’s being qualified to be president, imputed that my motive was to “slime” the senator, sandwiched a few of my words between a statement by Andrew Young and a vile anonymous Internet posting, and rested his case.Kerrey is "surprised" by Herbert's tactic and attributes it "to the passions this campaign has aroused"? I'm sorry, but this is pretty weak stuff.Though I am generally not surprised by this technique, as a regular reader of Mr. Herbert, I was surprised by his use of the device. I attribute this to the passions this campaign has aroused.
Herbert's use of an anonymous blog posting to score points was straying deep into Michelle Malkin and Little Green Footballs territory; a tactic as rank as this is deeply unbecoming to the paper. And while Herbert did say that Kerrey subsequently apologized, he didn't tell readers that Kerrey also claimed that his reference to the madrassa was unintentional, a key detail given the insinuations, or that the Obama campaign accepted Kerrey's letter of explanation.
In short, the column resorted to some pretty questionable tricks indeed. Whichever candidate you support, such stuff really fouls up our discourse, whoever its target, and we shouldn't be afraid to say so a little more forcefully.
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