I definitely would have been a Kennedy supporter I know my grandparents were saddened by his passing so…. I just don’t think people should hang on to that you don’t get brownie points for what you’re supposed to do. Since Kennedy’s light was extinguished someone else (in presidential seat) should have picked it up and pushed for the full ‘dream’.

Misperceptions about that era are common,

Like the prevailing thought that the movement was about intergration when in fact integration was just a means to an end.

Seperate but equal hadn’t worked.

If seperate could have been equal the need to join whites in the mainstream wouldn’t have been a focal point. But they understood that would be the only was to be seen and heard.

As opposed to being swept under the historical rug.

Civil Rights Act and my issues with it.

It is an act and not part of the fiber of the nation. I don’t pretend to know if it can be made permanent but the fact is it can be rescended. So earth to Hil, where we the presidents since…. if we are all so progressive why didn’t it become permanent surely the freedom and rights of a group of people could just be slid in there as a cemented fixture. But I guess the strikethrough of the 3/5th’s thing was enough.

And King’s dream included better neighboorhoods and schools and what not , no red lining…. just ya’ know little stuff…. so if she’s preparing to seriously tackle these things then let’s talk. kudos to Kennedy and even LBJ for what they did, but Kennedy was a war hero and all sorts of wonderful red,white, and blue things——– he got shot for as much and less.

Top down interpretation is right.

http://charlieford.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/what-worries-me-the-hillary-file/

What she was saying, I think, is something like: “Inspiring rhetoric is one thing, but what you really need is a legislative maneuverer like LBJ. I’d be more effective at getting a program enacted even if I don’t give out grand sweeping rhetoric.” And here I think Ari is right: This is a top-down view of change

True, but I’m still not sure, given the reality ac noted, we can quite attribute that top-down view to Hillary. That she actually holds such a view and that her rhetoric merely gives the appearance of such a view as an artifact of other, prior choices, are equally probably hypotheses, IMHO.

So while I’m on board with saying the statement likely hurts her, I can’t quite get to saying she actually holds that top-down view.

Still, the Montgomery movement left some people unimpressed. Thurgood Marshall said privately at the time, “All that walking for nothing. They might as well have waited for the Court decision.” King, he added, was “a boy on a man’s errand.” (Marshall nonetheless aided efforts by the NAACP to get King out of jail.) Marshall’s reaction, while ungenerous, captured an important point: it took a decision of the Supreme Court to force city authorities to surrender. The Court (and NAACP litigation) may have saved the boycott.

Patterson, 405-6

But this is a slightly odd thing to do in the circumstances. Because the person she’s criticizing is someone who’s himself running for President. So she can’t make the argument, “Hey, whatever you want, you need me on the inside, just like MLK needed LBJ.” Because, if Obama wins the presidency, he’s on the inside.

What she was saying, I think, is something like: “Inspiring rhetoric is one thing, but what you really need is a legislative maneuverer like LBJ. I’d be more effective at getting a program enacted even if I don’t give out grand sweeping rhetoric.” And here I think Ari is right: This is a top-down view of change, because the point of the inspiring rhetoric is to mobilize support. If there isn’t any inspiring rhetoric, there isn’t anything there to sign.

Another thing she’s trying to do is set Obama up as JFK rather than LBJ, where JFK is the one who talked big but couldn’t get things done. Which I think is a slight misreading of the history — as I understand JFK didn’t really try for much on civil rights until he was pushed by the Movement. So again, a bottom-up approach is important.

Of course one of the issues here is that we don’t seem to be dealing with a movement that’s as specific as the civil rights movement. That makes it harder to tell whether we should be dealing with top-down or bottom-up views of change anyway.

Again, no argument on the broader issues. But I’ll stand by my point that we can misunderstand by virtue of close readings of such statements. I don’t doubt that she sees the world from an executive point of view more than the rest of us do. And, as Heidegger said, “every revealing is a concealing.” But, how sophisticated do we have to be to grant all that (charity, in other words) as we analyze her statement and its import.

Again, golly.

I’ll let it rest with that, since I’m already repeating myself and I’m not being funny.

I think this is an excellent point, ac. By making the strategic and rhetorical choice of favoring experience as a theme, she had fewer rhetorical options when she got around to making this point — which is, in itself, a fair one.

I still think Ari is right that it was unfortunate and may well hurt her, but, in light of your point, it’s hard for me to tell whether her rhetoric indicates the top-down view of history Ari suggests, or is simply a by-product of earlier rhetorical decisions.

(Did I use the word “rhetoric” in its various forms enough times in that comment? If not, here’s one for W: rhetoricalocity.)

Y’know it may be that my current project — on historical memory — has placed a bee in my bonnet. That said, I’m interested in the way that a presidential candidate, not a professional historian, understands the past. And from there, I get VERY interested in the production and consumption of historical mythologies: in this case, that Hillary suggests, I think, that presidential politics was the driving force behind realizing MLK’s dream.

So, getting back to the original post, yes, I think Hillary’s political history is pretty darned good. As you say, had Goldwater been president, not so much with the Civil Rights Act. Also, probably, if Kennedy had lived. But in terms of an understanding of how the Civil Rights movement — and maybe social movements more broadly — affected chage, Hillary’s comment strikes me as deeply wrong. And maybe, though I’ll grant only maybe, telling.