Emanuel Cleaver story on politco.com

Ben Smith of politico.com was the first in the blogosphere/media to post this story, 2 days after the Emanual Cleaver interview aired on the CBC Radio 1 show the Sunday Edition. Within hours CNN, AP and others had picked it up.

It would be interesting to find out when the interview was conducted, my guess would be sometime during the week prior. This would be before a lot of the media had started to mention that Clinton's quest was unreachable and polls were still showing Obama as tied with Clinton or even below.

Smith's take on it was that Cleaver was being blunt. I'm wondering was the motivation for Cleaver, very recklessly not only going off-message, but even mocking the Clinton campaign "party line" was.

"EC: No question about it. I agree. I'm not supposed to agree with that, I'm supposed to, if I do the party line, I'm supposed to say, maybe I'll say it just so if anybody hears it they could say Cleaver did do the party line, before he told the truth: Ummm, we believe that a contest going all the way to the convention is good for America. It gives people an opportunity to hear both sides and see the debates between the two, which in the long run will equip America with the kind of information they need to make an intelligent and informed decision.
Now having said that ...

ME: (chuckling)

EC: ... having said that, we are headed for the tragedy of tragedies."

Cleaver is clearly taking a shot at what the Clinton campaign has told him is the official policy and saying "to Hell with it" as he tells Enright his real opinion. 

So short of any new interviews with Rev. Cleaver, I'm wondering what prompted him to go so completely off message in this interview.

Did he stupidly think that speaking to the host of Canadian nationally broadcasted radio program was like speaking off the record? Did he think that the interview was off the record? Did he think that somehow an interview on Canadian radio wouldn't get back to the USA?

Or more interestingly, did he know full well this interview would come back and he was seeking a way to help end the Clinton campaign, to avoid that tragedy of tragedies that he speaks about for the Democratic party?

His support for Rev. Wright, his expressing "outrage over the outrage" and his support for Obama in this case seems to be going directly against the Clinton campaign also, which was referring to this case and using it as a wedge issue in the campaign. Likely Cleaver is feeling a lot of pressure from his African-American constituency and wants to show that he hasn't bought into all the unfair demonization that occurred from the Wright sound bites.

"EC: If you listen to the sound bites, it sounds like this is a demagogue, a racist, a person who wants to enjoy the fall of the United States. And none of that is true. I think Jeremiah Wright reflects in his sermons and his theology, what is experienced by many African-Americans and I think many African-Americans vicariously live through the expressions of people like Jeremiah Wright. And while I don't deliver those kinds of sermons, I do believe that it is an over reach to declare that Senator Barack Obama is Satan's first cousin because he's a member of Trinity Church in Chicago. I think it's just outrageous what's happened and it is a very clear sign that there is a lot of work to be done in race relations."