McCaskill: Obama the First Black Leader to ‘Come to the American People Not As a Victim But Rather As a Leader’

Perhaps Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, can file this under the "defenses I don’t need" column…

Obama-backing Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said at a press conference (watch the video, courtesy of the Kansas City Star, HERE):

“What this man has done, Barack Obama, is, he, for the first time I think, as a black leader in America, has come to the American people not as a victim, but rather as a leader. To say to white people who have legitimate resentments about racial politics in this country and black people who have understanding about bitterness and anger, especially older black Americans who lived through some of those times where they were told that drinking fountain isn’t good enough for them."

The first black leader to not come to the American people as a victim?

Um….

Martin Luther King Jr.?

Malcolm X?

Doug Wilder?

Do I even need to make this list?

- jpt

UPDATE: I added the fuller quote above.