Clinton 'a Redneck'?

Rep. Charlie Rangel is blasting ex-President Bill
Clinton as "a redneck" after New York Sen. Hillary
Clinton refused for the second year in a row to
support his bill to help the mother of police
shooting victim Amadou Diallo stay in the country.

"I don't have the slightest clue who Hillary really
is," the dismayed Harlem Democrat tells New York
Magazine this week. "All I see is a gal who knew she
was as good as anyone else, and she saw this guy she
could make something of, so she forfeited Illinois
and went to Arkansas."
 
Rangel then added, "That's a hell of a move to make
for a redneck, which is all he was."
 
Asked if he really thought Clinton was a redneck
Tuesday morning, Rangel told WWRL Radio's Steve
Malzberg and Karen Hunter, "Of course he is. He's
from Arkansas."
 
Later in the interview Rangel tried to backpedal,
telling Malzberg he thought the Clintons were
"terrific people."
 
"You have to remember, you know, Lyndon Johnson was
one of the best presidents we had and he was a
redneck out of Texas," he explained.
 
The congressman's non-pejorative pejorative comes
just days after Sen. Clinton stiffed him on the
Diallo case, a move the New York Post described on
Monday as "a slap in the face to Charles Rangel."
 
Without Sen. Clinton's help, Rangel's legislation to
grant Kadiatou Diallo and her family permanent
resident status crashed and burned in the 2003-04
Congress and has attracted no other support this
year.