AA

I don't get it. I honestly feel dumb, but I don't get what the big fucking deal is about Clinton citing Bobby Kennedy's death in an interview. That's historically an accurate statement. I think people should be more outraged by the other half of her soundbite where she says that her husband's primary race ran into mid-June, because that's factually incorrect. It ended late March.

Please, explain it to me.

playerpiano

I know this a but late in response, Hillary is out of the race, and Unity New Hampshire is now firmly on the nations map, however I feel this should be responded to. The parallels between the election cycles of 1968 and 2008 are many. Charismatic young democratic candidate running against the establishment candidate, preaching hope to throngs of vibrant multiracial crowds at a time when the country was deeply divided. There was an unpopular war that was costing the lives of many young servicemen, though then more than now. There was also a specter of assassination hanging around. The assassination of Kennedy, Malcolm X, Medger Evers, and the attempts against Johnson, were all recent memory when Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down the day after his haunting and famous mountaintop speech in Memphis. The country fell apart in one maddening instant, there were riots in over 200 cities and towns accross the country, thousands of arrests, dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries. Amidst it all one city remained calm, Indianapolis. Bobby Kennedy campaigning in an Indiana primary that hasn't mattered again until this election, chose to break the news in the heart of the inner city, where riots were almost a certainty. The cheif of police refused him escort and the mayor pleaded with him to forgo the stop. He went and delivered extemporaneously a speech that has gone done as one of the best in American history. A simply speech sent men and women home in prayer rather than in outrage. That same eloquence was taken by what Bobby Kennedy called the mindless menace of violence in our society. In that toxic atmosphere where even George Wallace was the target of a hail of bullets is a point in time that is almost to painful to recall. There is a reason its said America lost its innocence in the 1960's but political assassinations are an even more painful vein than simply that, Lincoln, McKinley, Garfield, Kennedy all felled. Reagan, Ford, Johnson, Roosevelt, all shot all nearly lost. Security is a very real concern in American politics. She brought up its evil specter at a time when it was especially painful and poignant, when two historic candidacies, her own and Sen Obama's were drawing a surge in sexist and racist hate groups vitriol and when the only surviving Kennedy brother was in the hospital. The threat of violence is very real and Hillary was once even in the white house while an armed gunman tried a roughshod assassination attempt against her. Even for Obamas children or Chelsea that threat is very real. Before Bobby Kennedy there was no secret service protection afforded to presidential candidates. Thier very pressence on the trail is a reminder of the sad truth of what might have been. Thats an ever present painful reality that was called upon and exploited and thats why people felt strongly about it. Even as a freudian slip it sent a poor message, from someone who has had to live under secret service protection for nearly two decades to use the threat of essentially murder was a reason for her to stay in the race was unacceptable. Though its sadly a real possibility, engaging in the hypothetical aloud is appalling. Its a line that isn't crossed in American politcs, not because it shouldn't be crossed but because it must not be crossed.

lin

ANYTHING somebody says in a campaign can be given a nasty twist.

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AA

Sorry, that's ridiculous. She shouldn't have brought up what you even say was a 'real possibility' because it is 'appalling' and makes people feel bad? No. I'm afraid that when I was genuinely confused by people's reaction her remarks it was because the only reasoning I was hearing was exactly what you're giving me. I feel like there's some secret that no one is saying, or something obvious that I must be missing.

Assassination is a possibility. And, given the context in which she listed three other campaigns that lasted into and had a surprising result in June, I would say there is absolutely nothing appalling about it. As for drawing on historic events that make people feel bad, we don't not talk about the holocaust because it was an awful thing.

I hate when people just go around looking for nonsensical rules to invent and enforce.

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There's not much else to say about that.

The Hack

Politics has gotten to a point where it's nothing but nonsenical, AA. For Pete's sake, Obama reportedly had two women wearing traditional Muslim head wear moved at a rally so that they wouldn't appear in pictures of him. That is just crazy - but given all the BS floating around about his "Muslim extremist" ties, I don't know that I blame him. There's more BS to the process than there is substance (go ahead, call me Cpt. Obvious).

AA

Yes sir, Captain Obvious, sir.

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There's not much else to say about that.

Mklangelo

Hillary does not have any use for the truth. She doesn't know the difference between sniper fire and a welcoming committee. Nor does she know the difference between March and June. Why she even brought up Bobby Kennedy's assassination is absolutely beyond me. Just unfathomable to me.

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A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

- Mark Twain

Mklangelo

Try a paragraph once in awhile. How in the world you could go from Bobby Kennedy to drinking the Kool-aid for Obama is really quite an accomplishment.

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A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

- Mark Twain

AA

Well, actually I agree with you completely on the integrity of Hillary (and Bill for that matter) Clinton. However, I don't believe the whole Bobby Kennedy thing mattered at all. It was one of the least offensive mistakes she made in this campaign. And in that SAME statement she lied about when her husband's campaign ended. People didn't seem to care about that, but citing Bobby Kennedy's death was SPOOKY SCARY HORRIBLE TERRORISM.

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There's not much else to say about that.