Please stop the "Goldwater Girl" spam; it's only half of the story

To be upfront with you, I really don't want to defend Hillary Clinton.

While I will vote for Secretary Clinton on November 8, 2016 if she wins the Democratic nomination, all of that 2008 talk about "working, hard working Americans, white Americans" and other racist dog-whistles that became regular occurrences during her 2008 campaign still doesn't sit right with me.

However, I am sick and tired of a few rabid supporters of Bernie Sanders spamming that "Bernie marched with MLK" (actually, by Senator Sanders own admission, he was "way way back there") while Hillary Rodham, as a teenager, was a "Goldwater Girl."

First of all, there seems to be a sinister implication that, in her heart, Hillary Rodham Clinton is still a "Goldwater Girl."

Also, it is flat out dishonest to only tell one portion of the story regarding the well-documented teenage years of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

If we're talking about this childish game of  "Dr Martin Luther King dibs," then Hillary Clinton had first dibs.

In the spring of 1962, Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the most controversial men in America. One night in Chicago's Orchestra Hall after delivering a stirring speech on civil rights and the future of America, he shook hands with a standout 15-year-old with conservative parents, Hillary Rodham.

More than 50 years later, the moment still resonates profoundly with Clinton, who has had an illustrious political career and could again seek to make history as the first woman president.

"Probably my great privilege as a young woman was going to hear Dr. Martin Luther King speak," Clinton said earlier this year at an event at the University of Miami. "I sat on the edge of my seat as this preacher challenged us to participate in the cause of justice, not to slumber while the world changed around us. And that made such an impression on me."

Hillary Rodham was taken to Orchestra Hall in 1962 by her Methodist youth pastor (and lifelong friend) Don Jones.

Jones started University of Life when he came to Park Ridge, a youth group for a few dozen high schoolers that met two times a week - Sundays and Thursdays. But meetings were not just bible readings and prayer. Jones, according to the young Methodists who attend the group with Clinton, was determined to broaden their outlook on life.

In an interview with Donnie Radcliffe for the 1992 book "A First Lady for Our Time," Jones said he hoped the Park Ridge kids would "become aware of life outside Park Ridge."

At one meeting, Jones arranged for an avowed atheist to debate a Christian on the existence of God. At another, Jones brought the group to a local synagogue and held a public discussion with a rabbi about Judaism and Israel. He held discussions about teenage pregnancy, drugs and crime and introduced his congregation to new authors and artists.

Jones also took his students to Chicago's rough South Side and introduced them to the lives that other kids their age live - one of drugs, gangs and death. During the height of the civil rights movement, this kind of trip for kids like Hillary Rodham were unheard of.

"He came a very important time in our lives," said Betsy Ebeling, a longtime Clinton friend who attended Jones' youth group. In short, she described Jones as "very influential."

Ricketts went further, telling CNN that Jones wasn't only influential, he was life altering.

"He was very influential in giving us a different perspective, a different world view," he said. "It wasn't revolutionary, but he challenged us to look at things in a different way and a broader perspective.

In her 2003 memoir, Living History, Hillary Clinton wrote of the lasting influence of her youth pastor.

...He was filled with the teachings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Reinhold Niebehr...Rev. Jones stressed that the Christian life was "faith in action." I had never met anyone like him....He was eager to work with us because he hoped we would become more aware of life outside Park Ridge. He sure met his goals with me. Because of Don's "University," I first read e.e. cummings and T.S. Eliot, experienced Picasso's paintings, especially Guernica, and debated the meaning of the "Grand "Inquisitor" in Dostovesky's The Brothers Karamazov. I came home bursting with excitement and shared what I had learned with my mother, who quickly came to find in Don a kindred spirit. But the University of Life was not just art and literature. We visited black and Hispanic churches in Chicago's inner city for exchanges with their youth groups. (Living History p.22)

Miss Hillary has been doing this "black church thing" for a loooooong time.

It is evident that Secretary Clinton's "closet" Democratic mother and youth pastor Don Jones were as influential as her Republican father and history teacher, Paul Carlson (Carlson gave Hillary Rodham a copy of Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative)

But if I am to follow the inane logic of some Bernie Sanders supporters, then Hillary Rodham Clinton's experience as a "Goldwater Girl" is the significant predictor of her policies and positions if she becomes the 45th President of the United States.

If that is the case, then I submit that it is also logical that the policies and positions of Secretary Clinton's predecessor at the State Department were foreshadowed by an association with one of the best-known radical black activists of the 1960's.