Sharpton: Clinton 'Coffee' Remark About Obama 'Disturbing'

The Rev. Al Sharpton on Monday said he was disturbed by condescending remarks reportedly made by former President Bill Clinton about Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign. Sharpton was referring to a passage in the new book, "Game Change," which recounts the conversation Clinton had with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy when he was trying to convince the liberal lion of the Senate to endorse his wife for president. 

"A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee," Clinton told Kennedy, according to the book -- a comment that angered Kennedy, who later endorsed Obama.

Sharpton, speaking on Fox News, defended Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid over a passage in the book in which he said Obama doesn't have a "Negro dialect" unless he wants one. But the reverend would not give Clinton such a pass for his remark. 

"I think that's far more disturbing because this is someone seeking to stop Mr. Obama's campaign and making a direct reference -- I don't know the context in which he said it -- but that is far more disturbing to me than even the comments that were made by Mr. Reid," Sharpton said. 

Sharpton and other civil rights leaders last took on Clinton during the Democratic presidential primaries, after the former president compared Obama's win in the South Carolina contest to Jesse Jackson's victories in the state two decades earlier. Sharpton brought up the South Carolina flare-up Monday in discussing the "coffee" remark. 

"If someone said that he would have been getting us coffee like that in the context they said he said it, that would be very offensive to me, and I would definitely take Mr. Clinton on as I did in South Carolina," Sharpton said. 

He said Clinton has not yet called him over the report, "So I guess I'll have to make the call." CONTINUE READING...