Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton defended her recent remarks on civil rights Sunday, as Sen. Barack Obama weighed in on the controversy for the first time, describing Clinton's earlier comments about the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. as "unfortunate" and "ill-advised." 

Obama had previously tried to sidestep direct engagement in the debate over race. But the recent controversy has touched a nerve with many African Americans, including some sympathetic to the Clintons, and Obama chose to address it Sunday. 

The primary source of the debate is a comment Monday from the New York Democrat: "Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act," she said, adding that "it took a president to get it done." Critics read that as playing down King's importance in the civil rights movement. Clinton said Sunday that the Obama campaign was "deliberately distorting this." 

Klinton Klan's Velvet Lynching Continues: Clintons Continue Racist Assault on Obama - They're Trying to Make Sure People Think the Black Man is Threatening the White Woman ... it is transparent