Andrew Young plays fool, not clown

                                Andrew Young 

Andrew Young said he was just "clowning." That was obvious in his pause to chuckle as he surveyed the audience like a self-satisfied comedian. But the remarks he made to an Atlanta forum, endorsing Hillary Clinton instead of Barack Obama, mocked the former leader of the civil rights movement.

It started innocently enough. "I want Barack Obama to be president," the ex-United Nations ambassador, ex-Atlanta mayor and ex-Martin Luther King Jr. confidant said to applause, then added, "in 2016."

"It's not a matter of being inexperienced. It is a matter of being young ... There's a certain level of maturity. You've got to learn to take a certain amount of s—-. You've gotta have a certain protective network around you."

Sen. Obama is 46 years old. So was Bill Clinton when he was elected president in 1992. Too young?

John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when, in his presidential inaugural address, he urged his "fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." Too young?

If youth were really the reason Mr. Young is not supporting Sen. Obama for president, so be it. It's a weak excuse, but he's entitled to his opinion. The more Mr. Young talked, however, the more his political allegiances slipped out.

In the video that begins playing when you visit Newsmakerslive.com, Mr. Young says: "Barack Obama does not have the support network yet to get to be president. He's smart. He's brilliant. ... Hillary Clinton, first of all, has Bill behind her, and Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He's probably gone with more black women than Barack."

The "clowning" continued. Presumably to further prove Bill Clinton's blackness, Mr. Young recounted a party in South Africa after Nelson Mandela was inaugurated. "Clinton was the one who said, 'Let's start a Soul Train line' ... and Bill did the moonwalk down the Soul Train line ... " Bill Clinton qualifies as African-American because he's "gone with" black women and got down on the dance floor? To borrow from Bill Cosby, Come on, people!

The part of his interview that Andrew Young intended to be comedic was stunning in its distastefulness. The part of his interview that Andrew Young intended to be serious was stunning in its myopia. "To put a brother in there by himself," Mr. Young said, "is to set him up for crucifixion. His time will come and the world will be ready for a visionary leadership. Now, somebody's gotta clean up the mess."

It's jolting - unnatural, even - to hear someone who was told from Little Rock to Selma that "it's not your time," who was told over and over that equality and justice had to wait, say, 40 years later to the first electable African-American presidential contender: You deserve this, but ... not yet. It's not your time.

Before Mr. Young's Sept. 5 interview became publicized last month, Michelle Obama tried to explain on MSNBC why polls showed African-Americans supporting Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama, 46 percent to 37 percent. "What we're dealing with in the black community," she said, "is just the natural fear of possibility ... And I think it's one of the horrible legacies of racism and discrimination and oppression."

Mr. Young signaled another horrible legacy, a presumed hierarchy that seeks to command approval from "old guard" civil rights leaders over "be there" people of the movement and subsequent generations.

Mr. Young's endorsement shames Hillary Clinton more than it discredits Barack Obama. "If you read about the Clintons," Mr. Young said, "when (Bill) Clinton decided to run, Hillary set up a defense committee, and that's what they called it. And you know what it was? It was to go around and neutralize all the women that he'd ever been involved with." With friends like Andrew Young ...

Before discussing Barack Obama in the interview, Mr. Young acknowledges his tendency to speak before he thinks: "I don't really think about words ... I don't censor myself." In a conference call with reporters Tuesday, Sen. Obama said: "I understand that the Clintons have a lot of chits that they've collected over the years. I don't begrudge them that." He also extended an invitation to the old guard upon election: "They'll all be sitting around the table with me."

Too young? Too immature? Sen. Obama sounds exactly like the type of leader Andrew Young once fought to empower.

 PalmBeachPost.com

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2007/12/14/m22a_cramercol_1214.html