http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0801/13/rs.01.html

CNN RELIABLE SOURCES

January 13, 2008

KURTZ: But some black leaders in South Carolina and elsewhere, Michael Medved, have taken offense at Bill Clinton's comments as if he was talking about Barack Obama's civil rights record or his whole candidacy. And it seems that's very different from what Clinton said and what the press reported that he said.

MEDVED: Well, yes, but there is that element. I mean, when you say "fairy tale," the question is, which fairy tale you have in mind. Rachel mentions Camelot. I think it's more Cinderella, which is the idea that the clock strikes midnight, which who knows which primary that's going to be in, and then all of a sudden the coach turns into a pumpkin and the footmen turn back into mice, and Barack Obama goes back to the -- God forbid -- the kitchen. And in that context, "fairy tale" is probably the kind of loaded language that Republicans in particular would get slammed on given the fact that Obama himself is what he calls a hope monger.

MADDOW: I mean, I will say, there's something going on here, which is that, on the Democratic side, the two front-runners right now are an African-American man and a white woman. And we have never had that situation before in politics. And there's something going on with both the coverage of Obama and Clinton, which is pundits feel like, I feel, treat them in a way that is weirdly patronizing. Whether it's the metaphors, whether it's Chris Matthews actually reaching out and grabbing Hillary Clinton's cheek, whether -- I mean, even just today, while we have been discussing this, Michael, you described -- you used terms likes Barack Obama getting back in the kitchen or him being exotic.

I mean, there's stuff that is -- there's the language that is used, there are techniques that are used to describe and talk about these candidates that I think is -- looks uncomfortably like patronizing them. And it feels racist and gendered (ph) to me in a way that I think a lot of people, potential voters, react to.

MEDVED: Well, it seems to me that, first of all, I'm doing those phrases, obviously, in quotes to deal with the fact that people do recognize that this is a history-making campaign. Either way the Democrats vote, they're going to be making history, which is one of the reasons, it seems to me, that one of the problems in everything that we've been talking about is that if Democrats do what Republicans have done to Republicans' detriment, and start going back and arguing "about the past," who took this position on the war five years ago and three years ago, that's going to hurt them.