Opinion: Bill Richardson’s mom takes offense

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The flap over long-time Clintonista James Carville tagging Bill Richardson a ‘Judas’ for rejecting Hillary Clinton and endorsing Barack Obama in the Democratic presidential sweepstakes has pretty much receded. The race moves on, and other controversies flare (as Obama, at the moment knows only too well).

But the slur Carville directed at Richardson can be expected to fester for at least one living soul -- the New Mexico governor’s mother.

‘She’s 94,’ Richardson told Times reporter Mark Z. Barabak during a recent interview. ‘And very Catholic’ (making Carville’s epithet of choice all the more grievous for her).

Worse, Richardson confided, his mother thought former President Bill Clinton had made the remark. (Clinton, who made Richardson his U.N. ambassador, then Energy secretary, had some choice things to say about the governor in a red-faced tirade at the California Democratic Party convention last month, but avoided biblical references. At least in public.)

‘How could your friend say that?’ asked Mother Richardson, who still lives in Mexico City, where the erstwhile presidential candidate was raised.

‘That’s politics, mom, ‘ Richardson said he replied.

Then he added to Barabak, ‘You know mothers ...’

Indeed, we’ve been told that even Carville had one.

-- Don Frederick