Sen. Clinton mum on husband's affiliation with all-white country club

Here's another major question George Stephanopoulos "forgot" to ask his old boss about tonight.

From the New York Times, March 1992  (h/t: The Impious Digest):

Club Where Clinton Has Golfed Retains Ways of Old South

The Country Club of Little Rock, where Bill Clinton has played golf several times a year since he became Governor, sits on a graceful hill in an exclusive neighborhood called the Heights, its greens sloping down to the Arkansas River. Opened just after the turn of the century, it recalls an older South in many ways, including its membership: 500 white men and women.

Last week Mr. Clinton, his quest for the Democratic Presidential nomination seemingly wrapped up, found himself under fire for playing at the club, and he quickly admitted he had made a mistake and vowed never to play there again until it was integrated.

"A guy asked me to play nine holes of golf," he said on Friday. "It was the only place we had time to play. I should not have done it."

Hillary Clinton stood by the then-Governor's side without challenging his decision to play golf with racists, even after the media revealed that her husband had involved himself in this segregated organization for years.

In her own words, people don't choose their parents, but they do choose who they have relationships with. So by her own rules, isn't it a fair question to ask why she stood by her husband after his affiliation with a racist organization?

Now, to be clear, I'm not a fan of this sort of gotcha' politics. But Hillary Clinton is. And it seems to me that the media is perfectly entitled to raise these questions with her, since they freely challenge Barack Obama for having acquaintances who have said or done things that some people deem objectionable. (And they gave Michelle Obama hell for saying she was proud to be an American.)

It really would have been a great question for either Charlie Gibson or George Stephanopoulos to ask. But, not surprisingly, they whiffed.

Perhaps the reason is that Stephanopoulos worked for Clinton at the time. In fact, it was his job to explain Clinton's affiliation with the racist group to the media.

Irony, eh?

(By the way, contrary to some reports that Clinton paid $20,000 to join the club, it seems that Clinton was not a member. I'm not 100% sure about that, but it turns out that all Arkansas governors are allowed to play there as a matter of club policy. The NYT article also doesn't claim that he was a member.)