The level of Hillary Clinton’s exasperation at seeing the White House slip from her grasp became apparent last Friday when she committed what is being called her “killer gaffe.” We refer to her determination to keep running in the race with Barack Obama, and an interview with South Dakota’s Sioux Falls Argus Leader newspaper, in which she recounted that Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June 1992 in California. If anyone has been wondering what Hillary meant when she said repeatedly that “anything can happen” between now and the convention, the answer is clear: the same fate that befell Robert Kennedy could be visited upon Barack Obama. And if such a misfortune should occur, Hillary will be there, acceptance speech in hand.
“My husband did not wrap up the nomination until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California,” Clinton said. A spokesman for the Obama camp said Clinton’s comment “has no place in this campaign.” The Boston Herald suggested that the remark hinted of desperation; Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina called her statement “beyond the pale.”
Even allowing for the fatigue and weariness that accompanies a prolonged campaign, the fact is Hillary made the same inelegant comment once before, in an interview with TIME magazine last March. This most recent assassination reference has Hillary once again backpedaling and apologizing. The New York Daily News noted that “with both feet in her mouth, she doesn’t have a leg to stand on,” even though the senator said her words were taken out of context and that she was simply pointing to a historic fact. The faux-pas recalled Hillary’s deplorable playing of the race card earlier this month, after the Illinois and North Carolina primaries, saying that “Obama’s support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening.”
The security risk surrounding Obama is not a new topic. He began receiving Secret Service protection a year and a half before the general election because security officials were worried about possible threats against him. But Hillary’s insensitive reference to the fatal shooting of Robert Kennedy has triggered highly negative reaction nationwide, including the reaction of many Clinton loyalists. Even Clinton’s campaign staff has remained largely silent, apparently feeling that the less said the better. The Daily News described Clinton’s remarks as leaving “a gaping, self-inflicted wound.”
Political analysts say the thought of Hillary becoming Obama’s running mate has now all but been destroyed, even though Bill Clinton continues to play a gumptious offstage role in advancing that possibility. In a campaign already characterized as doomed, this latest stumble has done significant harm to her party as well as to Clinton’s “legacy.” The timing couldn’t have been worse: there is the deplorable news of Edward Kennedy’s brain tumor, the upcoming anniversary of Robert Kennedy’s assassination, and the recent anniversary of Martin Luther King’s death.
So Hillary now faces the dual disappointment of not only losing the grand nomination prize, but also presenting Barack Obama with the perfect justification for not choosing her as his vice president. Any hope of Hillary’s aspiration to unify the Democrat Party in the waning weeks of the campaign has evaporated like the Dixie dew.
- Chase.Hamil
(9 votes, average: 4.78 out of 5)
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Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThink it was a slip? Same slip 4 times?
Four days after ABC polled that 59% of Americans feared for Obama’s safety, Hillary started talking assassination.
Hard to believe,
but this site has the facts and sources: http://zfacts.com
The facts speak for themselves.
Bye, bye BILLARY. No need to wait for a June assassination BEFORE quitting.
QUIT NOW!
It was not a historical analogy. She knows that Super Tuesday used to be in late March and the CA primary used to be in June. In the context of her racial appeals, allegations of extremist ties by Sen. Obama & her claims that his victory over her is due sexism by Sen. Obama and now her invocation of religious faith in the face of adversity to justify her continuing campaign make this an invitation to the unbalanced.. Her campaign’s characterizing the Obama campaign’s understated response to this as an attack exacerbates the situation. Now we have a “journalist” equating the murder of Obama with killing Osama Ben Laden.
If she spoke without considering the implications she is unfit to be the President whose chance remarks can have global implications. If this was purposeful & both her prior conduct and her campaign’s subsequent comments militate against any presumption of good faith, the implications are horrific.
Either way, she should withdraw not only from the campaign but also from public life.
truth be told Hillary has diarhea of the mouth and constipation of the mind
RFK was assassinated June 1968, not 1992. Anyone reading “Obama might get assassinated” into her comment has serious listening problems. What she clearly meant was that even revered Bobby Kennedy did not and would not have wrapped up his candidacy this early, he was still campaigning in June. As a matter of fact, one of his last sentences on earth was “Now it’s on to Chicago…and let’s win there” - He wasn’t going to step down anytime soon either.
I think that Hillary doesn’t know any historical facts because RFK was assassinated in 1968, not in 1992 as Martin Brundle said before
This is what happens when you deal with someone who assumed she had the nomination locked down just by giving her intentions to run. She is not accepting defeat well
The reference to 1992 was an error by the author. Clinton’s remark are factionally incorret and has no relationship to her campaign. Bill Clinton was leading in 1992, and in 1968 the campaign was shorter. There are more errors made by Clinton.
I agree that Hillary was not referring to Obama being assassinated, rather the fact that Robert Kennedy was still campaigning in June, so she should continue to campaign. That said, I also think the reference was in poor taste because it implied on some subtle level that she is as qualified a candidate as RFK was. Sorry Hillary, but you are not.
I don’t trust Hillary, and I don’t want her to be president, but I do acknowledge that she is a very smart, educated women, and why she resorts to these kinds of statments is a mystery.
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