According to the news, Hillary said that she isn't dropping out in June because, you know, "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California." Uhm. WHAT?
This
commentator at the Huffpost got it exactly right.
She has a point: June is a great month for political assassinations.
Why drop out of the race before all the assassins have had their say?
After all, we know Barack Obama has received multiple death threats
-- because he is black, of course, and because some of our fellow
citizens think he's a secret Muslim terrorist who is going to take the
oath of office on the Koran and make us all pray to Mecca five times a
day with that screechy music coming over the loudspeakers(?) and then
he'll fly Air Force One into the White House(?).
But it's all good. Hillary apologized... to the Kennedy's.
On another note, I learned something nifty from Obama's townhall yesterday. His name, Barack, is a loose translation for "Baruch", meaning "blessed." That's cool.
UPDATE (5/25/08):
I just read a very interesting
blog report from the NY Times analyzing the gaffe and the media's role in it. The article breaks down the day from top to bottom.
It also makes the point that she was not referring to Obama, but trying to ground her time-line for campaigning this late in the year. Other campaigns, she's basically trying to say, have gone this long. It's not unusual. Well, that point is arguable too.
From the Huffpost:
Andrew Sullivan suggests that Clinton's comments are a sign of her imploding:
As for her argument that June primaries are nothing new,
she is correct. But in no previous primary election did the voting
start just after New Years' Day. The New Hampshire primary in 1968 was
on March 12, two months later than this year. For June, therefore, read
August. Yes, this season has gone on for ever. And for Senator Clinton,
it has now obviously gone on too long.
She's been waiting for Obama to implode. Instead, she just has.
Ultimately, what really gets me is that this wasn't the first time she made this comparison. But her apology made it seem like it was.
Again from the Huffpost:
Time's Swampland blog points out that this is not the first time Clinton has made such comments:
Though she has now apologized for that very strange and
tasteless comment to the Argus-Leader, this was not the first time
she's said it. This from her interview with TIME Managing Editor
Richard Stengel, published March 6.
Her excuse now is that the Kennedys have been "much on my mind these
days" with the illness of Senator Edward Kennedy, but that doesn't
explain what brought it to mind more than two months ago.
Now, maybe she doesn't RECALL the previous mention... but still, it is a poor choice at a poor time (all things considered).
The end of the NY Times blog is what got me. It made me feel bad for jumping on the attack wagon. Even though I do feel Hillary was wrong to make such a comparison... how much was this gaffe exploited to simply bring her down?
After a day like Friday, it is hard to imagine how she keeps going,
not just with her campaign, but emotionally. Even if she wanted to let
off steam, she can't, at least in public. She may have little heart for
carrying her race forward, but she has committed many times to doing
so, at least through June 3. She told her audiences in South Dakota
that she and her husband and daughter would be back before the primary.
But the day obliterated the arguments she had made in an earlier
part of her interview with the editorial board -- that she was "more
progressive" than Mr. Obama and would be a stronger candidate in the
fall.
And it may have shattered any strategy for trying to win over
superdelegates. The question is, did this episode alienate those who
would have helped her to find a graceful way out.
