As you probably know by now former President Bill Clinton got into a raucous shouting match with Black Lives Matter protesters while speaking at a rally on behalf of HIllary Clinton in Philadelphia.
To be sure, much of his address was self-serving as was the case when he said this country needed a President “who will tell you the truth.” The Clintons have scarcely a passing acquaintance with the truth.
But even the most accomplished of liars occasionally drops a kernel of truth:
I don’t know how you would characterize the gang leaders who got 13-year-old kids hopped up on crack and sent them out onto the street to murder other African-American children. Maybe you thought they were good citizens …. You are defending the people who kill the lives you say matter. Tell the truth.
The truth of the matter is that Black Lives Matters protesters don’t give a damn when black people are killed by other blacks unless they are cops. Black Lives Matters exists to delegitimize the police and to intimidate people into submission. They are interested in rabble-rousing, not in reason. They are interested in screaming and shouting, not in solving problems. That is what matters to them. So on the rare occasion when Bill Clinton actually speaks truth to power it isn’t going to matter much for Hillary. The average left-wing activist in this country thinks the police are inherently and systemically racist and that Black Lives Matter is a greater force for good than Martin Luther King, Jr. Throw in the younger activists who see Hillary Clinton as part of the system and today’s exchange between Black Lives Matters and Bill Clinton only draws more young people to Bernie Sanders.
As raucous as the Republican Convention will be, the Democrat Convention could be equally contentious if Black Lives Matter sees fit to make their presence known.
UPDATE: During a rally for Hillary in Erie, Pennsylvania this afternoon, former President Clinton expressed regret for his exchange with Black Lives Matter protesters. Clinton told the rally, “I realized, finally, I was talking past her in the way she was talking past me. We got to stop that in this country. We got to listen to each other.”
When you consider how far the Democratic Party has moved since Bubba left office, I would consider an attempt to mollify a constituency he can no longer call his own. But Clinton wasn’t talking past Black Lives Matter at all. He simply told them what they didn’t want to hear. Listening is a two way street and Black Lives Matter isn’t interested in listening to anyone who calls them out on their nonsense.
