And it all started on KTVT-Channel 11, almost immediately after Clinton demanded Barack Obama reject, denounce and spit upon Farrakhan's endorsement. Clinton found herself on the Dallas CBS affiliate being asked about Callejo's comments to KTVT, apparently made late last week, that "Obama simply has the problem that he happens to be Black." And Callejo didn't mean it in an oh-he-might-be-unelectable way. She meant it in a, "When Blacks had the numbers, they didn't do anything to support us" kind of way.
Clinton was on KTVT yesterday, and when Jack Fink offered her the chance to, ya know, reject and denounce Callejo's comments, Clinton passed: “People have every reason to express their opinions. I just don’t agree with that. I think that we should be looking at the individuals who are running.”
Only later, Fink reports, did the Clinton campaign call back to ... oh, you know:
Late Wednesday night, the Clinton campaign called to clarify the senator's remarks. In a statement, the campaign said, "Senator Clinton was unaware of these remarks until this afternoon when she was asked about them on a local newscast. After confirming that they were accurately portrayed, Senator Clinton of course denounces and rejects them.And now the story's everywhere. Here. And here. Here too, with the headline, "Adelfa Callejo, Welcome To The Spotlight." And here, on The Washington Post's campaign-trail blog, which reminds:
Callejo, a Dallas Democrat, was quoted in a 1997 New York Times interview about conflict in the city's school system as saying that "the black American is the racist against the Hispanics and whites," and blacks wanted power only for themselves. In 2006, a Dallas Morning News opinion piece quoted Callejo complaining about a "black agenda" in the city.Which is probably not what she, or Hillary Clinton, had in mind. --Robert Wilonsky
