Article..'First Black Prez' Invites Few Black Friends to White House Sleepovers..
Monday September 25, 2000; 9:59 AM EDT
newsmax.com
The White House loves it when African-Americans describe Bill Clinton as the nation's "first black president." But America's "first black president" apparently hasn't had much time to honor the close relationship he's forged with the country's African-American community - at least judging by the White House sleepover list released on Friday.
While Bill and Hillary's overnight guestlist is chock full of Hollywood names, movers and shakers from the business world, old Arkansas cronies, congressmen, governors and mayors, not too many of them seem to hail from the Clintons' most loyal constituency.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, America's most prominent African-American, who ministered to the first family in their Monicagate moment of crisis and serves as Clinton's unofficial ambassador to Africa, didn't rate a sleepover invite.
Neither did Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan, who is regularly pictured golfing with the first duffer. Jordan fibbed his way through hours of impeachment testimony and saved the president's butt big-time. But Clinton's black golfing buddy gets no closer to the Lincoln bedroom than the eighteenth hole of their favorite golf course.
And Maxine Waters, the California congresswoman who was so outraged over Clinton's impeachment that she once suggested Ken Starr should be prosecuted, isn't on the sleepover list either.
How about Charlie Rangel, the Harlem congressman who first suggested that Hillary would make an excellent U.S. Senator for New York? Surely he's been invited to luxuriate in Lincoln's bed. Well, not exactly. Rangel's name is nowhere to be found on the list of the Clintons' four hundred closest overnight friends.
And Maya Angelou? The Clintons thought so highly of her book "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" that they invited her to speak at Bill's first inauguration. But apparently Angelou didn't rate highly enough to have her stay over.
Neither did Hillary Clinton's longtime friend and mentor Marian Wright-Edelman, whose Children's Defense Fund Clinton repeatedly cites to boost her child-friendly credentials.
Not even African-American author Toni Morrison, who was the first to popularize the concept of Clinton as "America's first black president," made Bill and Hillary's final sleepover cut.
Here's a list of other prominent black Americans who have staunchly supported the Clintons over the years but whose names you won't find on the sleepover list they released Friday:
The Rev. Al Sharpton, Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, Georgia congressman and civil rights pioneer John Lewis, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, New York State Comptroller Carl McCall, NAACP chief Kweisi Mfume, Illinois congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., Tennessee congressman Harold Ford, Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Texas congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee, Michigan congressman John Conyers, former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary.
The Clintons came to Washington boasting they would appoint a Cabinet that "looked like America." Now we know that policy wasn't meant to cover White House sleepovers. |
