A nice little controversy has managed to flare up over Hillary Clinton‘s “false hope” comment in Saturday’s debate:

So, you know, I think it is clear that what we need is somebody who can deliver change. And we don’t need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered.

Barack Obama responded:

“You know, two days ago in the debate, one of my opponents said, ‘Stop giving people false hopes about what we can accomplish,’ ” Obama said in his remarks in the opera house.

“False hopes? False hopes? There’s no such thing. Is JFK looking up at the moon and saying, ‘Ah, false hope, too far.’ Reality check: Can’t do it? Is Dr. King standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking out over that magnificent crowd … (saying,) ‘Sorry, guys, false hope. The dream will die. Can’t be done.’ … We don’t need leaders to tell us what we can’t do. We need those who can inspire us.”

Clinton countered:

I would point to the fact that that Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done. That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became a real in peoples lives because we had a president who said we are going to do it, and actually got it accomplished.

Quite a brawl, and what a star cast of supporting actors!

Clinton has been widely criticized for making the false hope remark in the first place, and she does, no doubt, wish that she hadn’t. Most people seem to be scoring this in favor of Obama. But I think that’s really a victory for style over substance. (Of course, to me that’s the story of Obama’s presidential campaign, in a nutshell.)

I do believe that Clinton should not have said what she did. But given that she had, the question on the table was: “You’re offering America hope. Can you actually deliver, or is it false hope?”

Obama responded by wrapping himself in a JFK-MLK blanket (in pretty much the same way as Bush reflexively wrapped himself in the flag), but he really didn’t address the question at all. Just dodged it by distracting us with JFK and MLK, and that fine, fine oratory.

Its hardly an argument to say that JFK and MLK offered real hope, therefore no one can question that my hope is real. That’s not substance, that’s demagoguery of the cheapest kind. Of course, there is such a thing as false hope. Politicians peddle it all the time. Does Obama really not have any argument at all to explain why the hope he is offering is not false hope?

I think Clinton could have done a lot better in her response to the JFK-MLK statement.