Jackson Sees Clinton ‘Flaw’ in Attack on Rapper

NEW YORK — The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Thursday that Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s attack on a rap singer “again exposed a character flaw” and was aimed at winning over conservative white voters.

Jackson, in an interview published in today’s New York Times, said the Arkansas governor’s denunciation last weekend of singer Sister Souljah was designed “purely to appeal to conservative whites.”

Jackson’s remarks come after Clinton has spent months trying to put to rest the “character” issue. He had been plagued in the early days of his campaign with allegations of womanizing, reputed efforts to avoid the Vietnam War draft and questionable business dealings in Arkansas.

The latest rift between Jackson, a two-time Democratic presidential candidate, and Clinton widened last Saturday when the governor criticized Souljah at a conference of Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition in Washington.

Clinton quoted the rap singer as telling the Washington Post in an interview following April’s Los Angeles riots that “if black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?”