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Bill Clinton’s ‘I Almost Want To Apologize,’ Doesn’t Cut It

Bill Clinton’s ‘I Almost Want To Apologize,’ Doesn’t Cut It

By the next day, Bill Clinton was feeling remorse. Almost.

“Now I like and believe in protests,” he explained to an audience at Penn State Behrend. “But I never thought I should drown anybody else out. … So I did something yesterday in Philadelphia. I almost want to apologize for it, but I want to use it as an example of the danger threatening our country.”

That danger, said the former president, is the inability to have respectful discussions with those with whom we disagree. “We’ve got to stop that in this country,” he said. “We’ve got to listen to each other again.”

The reference was to an incident Thursday wherein the 42nd president, while campaigning to help his wife Hillary become the 45th, got into a shouting match with Black Lives Matter activists in Philadelphia. Had this been a Trump rally, the protesters would have been beaten up, so we can at least be thankful the incident ended without stitches or icepacks.

Not to say it wasn’t ugly. In a sometimes angry exchange, Clinton defended himself against hecklers’ charges that the crime bill he signed in 1994, with its harsher sentencing, new prison construction, three strikes rule and revocation of education grants for inmates, helped fuel the mass incarceration crisis that has decimated the African-American community.

That’s nothing but true, as Clinton himself acknowledged in a speech last summer before the NAACP. “I signed a bill that made the problem worse,” he said. “And I want to admit it.”

He should have stuck with that. Thursday’s confrontation was light on contrition and long on finger wagging. Clinton reminded protesters that the bill in question was signed in an era of lurid headlines about gangs shooting children. “You are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter,” he shouted.

He credited the bill with dropping the nation’s crime rate to historic lows, which is a dubious claim. As PolitiFact has since observed, the crime rate was already falling when the bill was enacted.

Clinton also noted that the bill was passed with the support of at least some African-American leaders. That part, at least, is true; it was also supported by his wife and her chief rival, Bernie Sanders. Even so, it would be naive to believe opportunism did not play a part in Clinton’s signing the bill. After all, it gave him the perfect retort to Republicans who accused him of being “soft on crime.”

Now, 22 years later, the bill is back in the news and the ex-president wants to use an argument about it as an example of political incivility? Yes, that is a gnawing concern. But if Clinton thinks it’s the key takeaway from last week’s confrontation, he is missing the point. It is immaterial whether he and those protesters ever apologize for talking over one another.

Who’s going to apologize for all the nonviolent African-American offenders who have lost decades of their lives behind bars while white offenders who had the same records and committed the same crimes went free? Or for children sentenced to live in motherless homes and eat at fatherless tables? Or for the fact that the land of the free now has the highest incarceration rate on Earth?

Who will apologize that a community already withstanding high rates of poverty, unemployment and neglect has been hollowed out by an ill-conceived law?

Who will apologize? More importantly, who will work to change it?

That’s the question for which African Americans and all voters who care about justice must demand answers. “I almost want to apologize,” doesn’t cut it. It’s weaselly and ultimately, it’s not even on topic. If he truly desires to be forthright and to engage the people his crime bill has injured, then what the ex-president needs to say should be obvious:

“I passed a bad law. Here’s how Hillary will fix it.”

(Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132. Readers may contact him via e-mail at lpitts@miamiherald.com.)

(c) 2016 THE MIAMI HERALD DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Photo: Former U.S. President Bill Clinton (L-R) campaigns for his wife Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as she rallies with supporters at an outdoor plaza in Columbia, South Carolina February 26, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Trump Refuses To Condemn Violence At His U.S. Presidential Rallies

Trump Refuses To Condemn Violence At His U.S. Presidential Rallies

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said that “professional agitators” bore much of the blame for violence at his rallies as video showed a protester being beaten and another apparently being grabbed by Trump’s campaign manager.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Trump defended campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and declined to condemn supporters who have attacked protesters at his increasingly chaotic rallies.

Nor did he back down from his warning that there would be riots in the streets if the Republican Party denied him the nomination for the November election, despite his being the most popular candidate among Republican voters.

Senior figures in the party are openly plotting to prevent Trump from becoming the nominee because they view him as insufficiently conservative, and Trump was due to privately meet with some party leaders in Washington on Monday, the Washington Post reported.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I will say this, you’re going to have a lot of unhappy people,” he said on “This Week,” predicting anger at the party’s national convention in July should someone else end up the nominee. “I don’t want to see riots, I don’t want to see problems. But you’re talking about millions of people.”

Scenes of mayhem have become increasingly common at the billionaire New York businessman’s rallies, which have been frequently interrupted by protesters, many of them Democrats, who say Trump’s controversial remarks on immigrants and Muslims are dangerous. The 69-year-old candidate has sometimes encouraged his supporters using violence on protesters, and on at least one occasion said that he would like to punch a protester himself.

Television footage from an Arizona rally on Saturday showed a man punching and kicking a protester as he was led out of the event. Another video appeared to show Lewandowski grabbing a protester by the back of his shirt.

Trump declined to condemn the violence and said it was often provoked by protesters, who briefly blocked a highway leading to an Arizona rally on Saturday.

“These people are very disruptive people. They’re not innocent lambs,” he said.

He also defended Lewandowski and said a security official had actually grabbed the protester. Lewandowski also manhandled a reporter last week, according to the Washington Post.

“I give him credit for having spirit,” Trump said of Lewandowski.

Republican leaders have said Trump needs to more clearly discourage his supporters from engaging in violence.

About two dozen senior Republican figures will meet with Trump at a law firm near the Capitol on Monday afternoon in what the Trump campaign described as an effort to improve “party unity”, the Washington Post reported. The newspaper did not say who would be attending.

Candidates were also required to submit their most recently monthly financial disclosures to the Federal Election Commission on Sunday.

Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic Party’s nomination, raised $30.1 million in February, according to filings, about $12 million less than that raised by chief rival, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the same period.

Clinton began March with $31 million in cash on hand, according to filings.

 

(Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal, Ginger Gibson and Susan Cornwell in Washington, and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Louise Ireland and Jonathan Oatis)

Photo: A member of the audience (R) throws a punch at a protester as Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Tucson, Arizona March 19, 2016. REUTERS/Sam Mircovich

Trump Foes Should Stay off His Stage

Trump Foes Should Stay off His Stage

It’s not easy to turn Donald Trump into an object of sympathy, but the hotheads disrupting his rallies are pulling it off. They may see their invasions as a brave effort to stop a frightening, divisive political force. But others — not just Trump followers — see privileged college kids stomping on someone’s right to free speech.

The “others” are who Trump’s political foes should worry about. The optics of Trump under physical attack — and the little people supporting him treated with contempt — move the focus away from the bombast Trump is peddling.

It’s true that Trump supporters have roughed up peaceful protesters on the street and should be held accountable. But it’s also true that a person renting a hall for a rally has a right to invite or disinvite whomever he chooses — this according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Furthermore, it’s disingenuous to assert that Trump is calling for violence when he makes such bellicose-sounding remarks as “I’d like to punch him in the face.” Trump is talking New York-ese. In New York, “get outta here” means “I disagree.” It’s not an eviction notice.

Trump’s clever responses to disrupters — “go back to mommy,” “bye-bye” — are delivered in a mocking tone designed to belittle rather than threaten. (“Arrest her, arrest her,” meanwhile, was directed to law enforcement, not the mob.)

Some Trump followers obviously fail to view rhetoric through a regional linguistic lens. Populists tend to attract emotional people who identify strongly with their hero. And their trumpeting of dark forces being arrayed against the public interest attracts a good share of paranoids.

So it’s not totally surprising when an inflamed Trump supporter lashes back at a heckler. But that’s not Trump’s fault.

Nor was it Bernie Sanders’ fault when an erstwhile follower rushed Trump’s stage in Dayton, Ohio, and had to be subdued by the Secret Service. Sanders has plainly stated that his campaign does not organize these confrontations.

But Sanders does himself no favors by linking such events to the contention that Trump was “provoking violence.” After the Chicago scuffle, Sanders wrote, “What caused the violence at Trump’s rally is a campaign whose words and actions have encouraged it on the part of his supporters.”

The fact remains that Sanders followers were trying to physically disrupt the Trump event in Chicago. As one proudly told the media, “Our whole purpose was to shut it down.” That doesn’t sound like innocent bystanding.

Hillary Clinton and Trump’s Republican foes have unwisely picked up on the Trump-provokes-this line. Everyone repeat: The First Amendment protects vile speech.

The fact also remains that Sanders supporters are invading Trump rallies while Trump people are not bothering with his. A much-quoted tweet from Trump — “Be careful Bernie, or my supporters will go to yours!” — only underscored that reality.

Trump is so wily. Over the weekend, he told the talk shows, “I don’t condone violence.” He noted that he canceled the rally in Chicago to avoid violent confrontation while expressing relief that “we haven’t had a real injury.”

And he wields a weaponized humor lacking in all his opponents, with the occasional exception of Sanders. Here’s how the least delicate of men feigned shock over a protester’s obscene gesture: “He was sticking a certain finger up in the air, and that is a terrible thing to do.”

The only place to defeat Trump is at the polls. Invading his show only widens his stage. The fuming disrupter rapidly becomes Trump’s straight man (or woman). When it comes to showmanship, Trump has everyone else outgunned, and everyone else ought to have figured that out by now.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM

Photo: Protestors hold hands in the air as they yell at U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign event in Radford, Virginia February 29, 2016. REUTERS/Chris Keane

Trump Says He Accepts No Responsibility For Campaign Protesters

Trump Says He Accepts No Responsibility For Campaign Protesters

By Doina Chiacu and Bob Chiarito

WASHINGTON/BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (Reuters) – Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump refused to take responsibility on Sunday for clashes at his campaign events and criticized protesters who have dogged his rallies and forced him to cancel one in Chicago last week.

When a protester interrupted his speech on Sunday at an airport hangar in Bloomington, Illinois, minutes after it began, Trump derided him as a “disrupter” and told the cheering crowd: “Don’t worry about it – I don’t hear their voice.”

“Our rallies are so big and we have so many people, I never hear their voices. I only hear our people’s voices saying: ‘There they are, there they are,'” the billionaire businessman said as the audience roared approval and some 2,000 protesters waited outside.

Two later rallies on Sunday in Ohio and Florida passed without disruption.

Trump is trying to cement his lead over his remaining Republican rivals – U.S. Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida and Ohio Governor John Kasich – in five states that hold presidential nominating contests on Tuesday for Republicans and Democrats: Florida, Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina and Missouri.

The four Republicans and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are vying to run in the Nov. 8 election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama.

Trump used a round of Sunday morning television appearances to rebut strong criticism from Republican rivals and Democrats that he was encouraging discord with divisive language disparaging Muslims and illegal immigrants.

“I don’t accept responsibility. I do not condone violence in any shape,” Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The 69-year-old New York real estate mogul defended his supporters and said he was considering helping pay the legal fees of a 78-year-old white man who punched a young black man at a Trump rally in North Carolina last week. The man, Trump said, “got carried away.”

“I’ve actually instructed my people to look into it,” he said.

The man, John McGraw, was charged with assault and later with communicating a threat after he was seen on video saying he enjoyed hitting “that loudmouth” and threatening next time “to kill him.”

Trump had earlier promised to help cover the legal fees of supporters involved in clashes at his rallies.

 

Simmering Tensions

On Friday night, thousands of protesters, many of them telling journalists they were Sanders or Clinton supporters, showed up at the Chicago rally, forcing Trump to cancel the event and casting a shadow over his weekend rallies.

Trump drew condemnation from his rivals.

“We are now seeing images on television that we haven’t seen in this country since the 1960s, images that make us look like a Third World country,” Rubio, 44, said at a campaign event in The Villages, a retirement community in Florida. “Do we really want to live in a country where Americans hate each other?”

Clinton, the Democratic front-runner and former U.S. secretary of state, said Trump was “incredibly bigoted” and pitting Americans against each other.

“He is trafficking in hate and fear,” she told CNN. “He is playing to our worst instincts.”

Trump said tension at his rallies came from people being “sick and tired” of American leadership that has cost them jobs through trade deals, failed to defeat Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, and treated military veterans poorly.

“The people are angry at that – they’re not angry about something I’m saying,” he said. “I’m just the messenger.”

Trump has harnessed the discontent of white, working-class voters who blame trade deals for costing them jobs. He has proposed building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, disparaged some Mexican immigrants as criminals and advocated a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.

A few dozen protesters, mostly young, stood in the rain outside a later Trump rally on Sunday in West Chester, Ohio, near Cincinnati.

Alexander Shelton, a 26-year-old student and activist, wore a white Muslim prayer robe with a picture of the civil rights leader Malcolm X painted on front.

“We have to stand up against white supremacy,” he said. “Trump stands for that.”

Michael McKinney, 47, a self-employed credit-card processor from Ohio, came to the rally with his wife and young daughter, and blamed the protesters for the violence.

“If the protesters don’t act civilly, people on the edge are going to snap,” he said.

“We are not a Third World nation. We don’t stand for killing each other because we disagree or even harm each other,” he said. “This isn’t the United States I grew up in.”

 

(Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikana and Patrick Rucker in Washington, Steve Holland in The Villages, Fla., Jim Oliphant in Boca Raton, Fla., and Joe Wessels in West Chester, Ohio; Writing by Doina Chiacu and Jonathan Allen; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)

Photo: U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Bloomington, Illinois, March 13, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Young