During an interview today with the Editorial Board of the Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD) today, Sen. Hillary Clinton defended staying in the presidential race by referring to previous campaigns that were not decided until summer. She mentioned Bill Clinton’s California victory in June 1992 and Bobby Kennedy’s assassination during the primary season in June 1968. Her reference to that tragic event triggered a nationwide volley of criticism.
Nonsense!
Sen. Clinton said: “People have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa and…I find it curious because it is unprecedented in history. I don’t understand it and 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…You know my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere around 
the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I just I don’t understand it. There’s lots of speculation about why it is.”
Most of the news analysts were shocked, shocked that she had so casually mentioned something that should never be spoken aloud.
Jennifer Palmieri, a Democratic strategist, bloviating with Wolf Blitzer on CNN, asserted that Hillary’s statement will be “really big trouble for her.” It will cause uncommitted delegates “to say ‘enough!’ and push her out of the race.” Kevin Madden, CNN’s Republican counter-lightweight, called the reference “extremely tasteless.” Demonstrating a staggering inability to understand Sen. Clinton’s words, Madden followed with, “The fact that she would cite assassination from 1968 as a reason for staying in the race just causes so much more concern about her motives during this race.”
Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithe explained the senator’s statement clearly and correctly: “She was simply referencing her husband in 1992 and Robert Kennedy in 1968 as historical examples of the nominating process going well into the summer. Any other reading is inaccurate.”
What’s going on here? The real story is not assassination in 1968; it’s assassination in the future. My stepson, querying with a gimlet eye, asked me a few weeks ago which Democratic candidate would be more apt to be the target of an assassin. I refused to answer. I refused to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
Mark Shields, speaking on today’s NPR NewsHour, finally pointed to the lurking presence: “The unspoken story of this campaign have [sic] been the assassination threats against Barack Obama. It’s widely known. It’s widely whispered. It’s widely discussed, always in private. He had Secret Service protection earlier than any candidate in our history. He is the first African-American. I don’t care who it is, who’s covering an event, whether it’s 75,000 people on the Portland waterfront or when he plunged into the crowd in Des Moines, there’s a sense of holding their breath for fear that some lunatic could step forward.”
Assassination is a serious concern, but Sen. Clinton’s reference to Robert Kennedy had nothing to do with it.
Unless the Democrats once again find a way to lose, America will have the first woman or the first African-American president in January. Pundolts like Palmieri and Madden, by mistaking Sen. Clinton’s calendrical reference for a veiled monition about impending tragedy, demonstrate the media’s unquenchable thirst for controversy. If it isn’t available, shills like Wolf Blither create it.
There was nothing in Clinton’s statement that deserved this wind.
One Comment
Just a brief response:
1. Freudian slip betrays “Anything, even assassination or Democratic Party destruction, is OK as long as it benefits me” motivation.
2. The numbers were in. In those elections California and its big numbers represented the pivotal votes in still undecided primaries.
3. All of us may occasionally have a death fantasy about our opponents, bosses, spouses, bad umpires, etc. But her characteristic shifting of the truth during the campaign hinted at a ruthless obscuring of ethics that was shocked and supported by her comment on RFK…
Brief epilogue…
I actually believe that the way Hillary conducted her campaign may represent a setback for feminism in the same way Nader represented a setback for the Green Party.
Her most vociferous backers’ fanatacism and petulance in the end was repugnant to many who had previously supported her, and was an echo of Naderites saying that Bush would be better than Gore, so that things would get so bad we would run to the Green Party for salvation.
Hillary is willing to burn the village to save it.
…. of course I can’t help but ask…
Who, then, would raise the child?