Face it, any way Emil Jones tries to parse this, he was out of line. I just don’t believe him.
From the Chicago Sun-Times:
A black Hillary Clinton delegate on Sunday accused state Senate President Emil Jones of calling her an “Uncle Tom.”
Jones — Barack Obama’s political mentor — denied using the racially loaded slur against Chicago political consultant Delmarie Cobb, but two aldermen who said they witnessed the Saturday night exchange back up Cobb’s account.
“Last night, I was called an ‘Uncle Tom’ by Emil Jones in the lobby of the hotel, right in front of [Ald.] Freddrenna Lyle and [Ald.] Leslie Hairston and [Ald.] Latasha Thomas,” said Cobb, a member of Clinton’s Illinois Steering Committee. “I walked over to him and asked him, ‘What did you just call me?’ “
Emil’s credibility took yet another dive with his backhanded apology to Ms. Cobb:
Cobb said Jones finally apologized during a Monday event.
“He came over, sat down. A couple of people obviously had something to do with it,” Cobb said, without elaborating. “He sat down at the table with me. He said, ‘I apologize and let’s move forward.’ I accepted his apology and said, ‘OK, we will.’ It was never my intention to continue things that would hurt Barack Obama.”
Jones, however, offered a much less apologetic version of his Monday conversation with Cobb.
“I said ‘If that’s what you think I said, I don’t want to have no hard feelings, so I apologize. We’ve known each other too long.'”
This is childish nonsense, the stuff of the grade school yard brawl. A conditional apology is no apology at all.
Cobb has every right to support Hillary Clinton. Hillary deserves that support and more. Her run for President of the United States was historic, and she stands as one of this party’s greatest leaders.
Get over it, Emil, and grow up.