All Together Now

Yeah…

There is nothing one can say, honeslty, to defend this. Even if we just center on the word “assassinated,” that’s a charged word, especially against a progressive, black, candidate. Its like she didn’t learn anything from MLK, Malcolm X, or even Lincoln. Unfortunately, though, this is apparently not the first time this has come up from the Clinton Campaign:

TIME: Can you envision a point at which–if the race stays this close–Democratic Party elders would step in and say, “This is now hurting the party and whoever will be the nominee in the fall”?

CLINTON: No, I really can’t. I think people have short memories. Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn’t wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual.

From March 2008.

Seriously, WHAT THE FUCK.

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And now we descend into “Crispin Glover on David Letterman” levels of discourse and dignity.

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If she somehow gets the Democratic nomination, I’ll vote for McCain out of spite.

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Olbermann is not impressed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ba3x-name0

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I’m not a big Hillary fan, and have been behind Obama for quite a while, but I really don’t think that she was being malicious with this. Of course someone that wants to be the leader of the country and interact with other heads of state really needs to understand just how important phrasing is (i.e. I think this points to her stupidity more than malice, which is still a horribly bad thing). “Besides my husbands campaign, I’m sure many remember Bobby Kennedy still campaigning in the California primary in June” would have been a MUCH better way to make the intended point.

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Actually, this Clinton statement is so very indefensible that I’m more willing to chalk it up to exhaustion. It’s so insanely useless even as a dog-whistle that I can’t believe she’d say it deliberately. After all, it buys her nothing, infuriates her opponents, and embarrasses her supporters.

It does make sense if you picture her as exhausted to the point of delirious free-associative babbling: “Sure, some campaigns have gone into June before… Bill’s did… so did Bobby Kennedy’s… of course, that was before he was shot…”

I think the problem here is that human beings simply were not meant to be on the campaign trail for this long. Clinton and Obama frankly both look like their own ghosts at this point.

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True, but there it was stated less stupidly: it’s much clearer that she’s trying to reference the fact that Kennedy didn’t wrap up the nomination until the California primary in June. (That was a good example of a long, close series of primaries, the assassination notwithstanding.)

What made her more recent comment egregious is that she dropped her last sentence from the earlier sentence, instead trailing off disconnectedly. Without that crucial last sentence, her statement changes from “primaries have run into June before, so what?” to “Nice candidate you’ve got there. It’d be a pity if something were to… happen… to him.” Since I can’t fathom any benefit to her in making such a statement, I’m willing to bet she was trying to reiterate her earlier comment, but was simply too tired to do so coherently, and so wandered off into OMGWTFland.

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Llelldorin:

True, but there it was stated less stupidly: it’s much clearer that she’s trying to reference the fact that Kennedy didn’t wrap up the nomination until the California primary in June. (That was a good example of a long, close series of primaries, the assassination notwithstanding.)

It’s a lousy comparison, though, because although the 1968 Democratic nomination did go to the convention, in June it had only been going for two and a half months – the California primary was only the 13th primary, not the 48th. The 2008 campaign effectively began in December.

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Thanks, Jim Smith and Andrew. Much obliged for the explanation.

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Actually, if I’m right about the exhaustion, what this whole sorry episode really kills is her ridiculous “3AM phone call” argument. The presidency is absurdly draining—with the sole exception of Bush, every president in the last thirty years has left the presidency looking 30 years older than they did when they started. If she’s muttering ominously about assassinations after six months of campaigning, is she really ready for those 3AM phone calls?

(Of course, if that same thing hits John McCain, should he be elected, we’ll be dealing with President Xykon by 2012.)

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Wink, wink, crazy person.

Wink Wink. Chuhk chuhk. Bang bang. Hint hint.

If you know what I mean.

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You know some black people have said they wouldn’t vote for Obama because they like him to much. Meaning they are worried he’d be assassinated.

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Llelldorin: the line that separates politics from demented babbling

I had no idea there was such a thing. (And I’d been thinking of how she’s torpedoed her own “3 am” and “ready on day one” mantras as well — granted, it was much later in the day and we’re only on day, what, t-minus 170?)

Claudia: I remember thinking that the only way an Obama/Clinton (or Clinton/Obama) ticket was appealing was if you were a big fan of Spy vs. Spy and wanted to see it play out in the Oval Office on a daily basis. Even if Barack Obama personally thought she would be the best VP — and simply to reconcile this nascent polarization inside the party, she’s worth considering, for all the negatives she brings to the table — I don’t think his inner circle would let him choose her. I think the entire party moves away from rewarding this behavior as of late (until after the election, when she makes her move for Senate majority leader). And hey, maybe she just doesn’t want to disenfranchise assassins.

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Now for the unpleasant question everyone has been avoiding…

Can a black man be president in the USA for a full term without being assassinated?

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Because it’s like that.

And that’s the way it is.

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HRC: [re calls for Clinton to drop out of the race] You know, between my opponent, and his camp, and some in the media, there has been this urgency to end this. And, you know, historically, that makes no sense. So I find it a bit of a mystery.

INTERVIEWER: So you don’t buy the party unity argument?

HRC: I don’t, because, again, I’ve been around long enough. My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary, somewhere in the middle of June. Right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.

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Her invoking RFK in the context of the question asked–about whether a late nomination is damaging to party unity and by extension the party’s chance of winning the general— makes no sense. Nixon won in ’68. That RFK’s murder is being used by Clinton as an example of how the party isn’t hurt by a long nomination process is factually wrong and undercuts her answer to the question. That is, if you assume that she brought it up for no other reason.

It’s like when, for no reason, Bill Clinton brought up Jesse Jackson before the SC primary after being asked about Obama’s gripe about having to run against both Clintons. His answer made no sense on the context of the question that was asked him. It was code meant to manipulate press coverage, and to create a viral thought-meme among voters that Obama = “fringe black candidate”.

Similarly, evoking the assassination of “hope” candidates/figures like RFK, JFK and MLK is meant to create an expectation in the minds of the media, superdelegates, and voters that an Obama candidacy is fated to catastrophe. It’s an attempt to brand Obama as doomed, therefore unelectable. It’s a narrative that they’ve been building on for awhile–at least as early as January, a day before the NH primary. Then you have the first RFK reference in the March Time interview, on the eve of Super Tuesday. On April 2, George Stephanopoulos leaks Clinton telling Bill Richardson that Obama “can’t win”, in an apparent attempt to call back both the “fringe black candidate” and the “doomed therefore unelectable” memes (not to mention anticipating the William Ayres bomb that Stephanopoulos would soon drop in the ABC Penn. debate) a couple weeks before the Penn. primary. After squeaking out a victory in Indiana, she brought up RFK again in West Virginia, according to Keith Olbermann. And now that the media have all but written off her campaign, she brings it up again.

This was no gaffe. It’s a Clinton talking point.

And, you know, it was working. The Clintons have shaped the media discussion of the race so that many pindits still consider Clinton’s chances for taking the nomination possible if something catastrophic were to happen to the Obama campaign, and almost expect it.

Of course, now that the only possible way she can overturn the delegate vote is for Obama to leave the race/be taken out of it, people are looking at this assassination talk differently.

At least this means this scuttles the Clintons’ attempt to strongarm the Obama campaign into giving her the veep position.

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“at this point I almost hope she stays in the race, because she’s going to lose her senate seat if she keeps this up.”

I’m waiting to see if Bill Clinton keeps his office in Harlem.

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Kennedy wasn’t the front-runner when he was shot, as I understand it.

That was her point–she’s not the front-runner right now either, but in June 1968 RFK had time left on the clock to win (or would have, if he hadn’t been killed) and (at least by her reckoning) so does she in June 2008.

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>>>>>>Yes. Secret Service protection is insane

Well keep in mind that months ago there was that story of Secret Service telling policemen during a Obama rally to stop checking people for guns because they appeared to be goodfolks or something (IN FUCKING DALLAS!!!).

That was a major concern in the discourse amongst many black voters (I remember Tavis Smiley in his show asking Obama about his security).

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Actually, Malakim, the asteroid that is the most likely to bitchslap earth in the next 40 years or so, Apophis, is predicted to only generate approximately around 800-900 megatons of power upon impact. It’ll be bad, but shouldn’t be earth ending. Of course, where it lands will determine who will die first. Most likely it will land in the Pacific Ocean somewhere.

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Jim Smith wrote: “That was her point–she’s not the front-runner right now either, but in June 1968 RFK had time left on the clock to win (or would have, if he hadn’t been killed) and (at least by her reckoning) so does she in June 2008.”

Actually, in June of 68 there were still big, delegate-rich states left, like California (which RFK won) and New York.

That isn’t the case now. The remaining votes have few delegates, and proportional allocation means that the net delegate margins will likely be slim, not nearly enough for Clinton to come from behind.

So 68 really isn’t useful for her.

(Never mind that, if she was thinking she is the RFK analogue, that means her argument sounded like “I’m staying in because, who knows, I could get shot!”)

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