…(as in the laast post) she comes out with the astonishing RFK assassination remark. There is simlpy no other way to interpret it except as “one reason I’m stayng in the race is that my opponent might be assassinated befor eth convention and I’d be the last one standing,” the presumptive nomineee, albeit because she’d be the benficiary of murder.
This is so wacko I can’t believe it. Yes I know she apologized, but it’s too late and it’s horrible watching someone disintegrate in public like that. I’d like to blame Bill, but even if it was one of his talking points (in private) she was the one who took it public.
If you want to read something really sad, read the attempts by the commenters at a pro-Hillary blog to rationalize her remarks. Yes, sure it wasn’t about assaination at all, really, it was about..well watch them struggle to make it seem like it was something totally benign rather than deranged and offensive, and potentially dangerous. Sad to see her followers unable to let go as they abadonon their intellects and she drags them under with her.
I think the only way she gets out of this with any hope of a political future is to pledge today that she will withdraw from the race if her opponent is assassinated because having raised the specter, if God forbid it happens, she can’t deny she might have inspired it. The Democratic Party must reject her if she won’t pre emptively declare her withdrawal under those circumstances.
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5 Comments
Ulla Lauridsen:I think the less said about this, the better - so she should just shut up now.
May 24, 2008 - 1:45 am Ulla Lauridsen:Also, it is politically insane to suggest that she shouldn’t run if he is killed. Who would the dems run? For the sake of the country they can’t just hand the presidency to the republicans.
AND: He has been in more than usual-for-a-candidate danger all along. I personally think his security detail is on top of it as much as anyone can be.
Her stupid and offensive (deranged, really) remark probably doesn’t mean much in the big picture. It won’t make anyone jump up and say “yes, she gave the go-ahead, lets go do it”
Addendum: I regret calling her deranged. She’s just extremely cynical and honest enough to reveal it.
May 24, 2008 - 6:35 am charlie finch:The whole mental landscape of America is riddled with underground subconscious racism, a reaction to the Obama ascendancy. The gaffes, faux pas, dark wishes are a kind of surreal minstrel show of race subconsciousness, and there will be many more riffs to come until November and beyond.
May 24, 2008 - 10:23 am Press Millen:This is the problem with Hillary which you identified some months ago. She is a second-rate Machiavellian. The electorate is predisposed to think everything she does is calculated and so she’s never given the benefit of the doubt when she says something like this.
It’s why many were so cynical over the tearing up in the New Hampshire diner (and the later “I found my voice”) which was greeted with such skepticism. We assume that it was all road-tested in a focus group by Mark Penn and her flaks.
There are only a handful of politicians in this country for whom most would assume that a reference to assassination was a calculated move. Hillary is one and it’s a big problem for her.
May 24, 2008 - 11:48 am Swift Loris:I’m a Hillary supporter, but honest to God, even if I were supporting Obama I can’t imagine having taken her RFK remark this way (and quite a few Obama supporters, including Andrew Sullivan of all people, didn’t take it that way either). I think the notion that she was saying she was staying in the race because Obama might be assassinated is not just ludicrous, it verges on the deranged.
What has “raised the specter of assassination” in the current primary wasn’t her comment, it was the media and blog frenzy, encouraged by the Obama campaign, claiming that’s what she meant.
May 28, 2008 - 5:04 pm