First off, I’ve updated my earlier post on contact info for the Democratic leadership, “We Can Call Them” with new email addys and fax numbers and website links provided courtesy of our members. Take a bow all who collected and provided that information, you know who you are.
Second, a big shout out to John Aravois of Americablog for calling for Clinton to quit, and for the Dem Leadership to give her a push if she won’t do it voluntarily. I’ve had my run-ins with John in the past, but I am very proud of the position he has taken on this RFK assassination controversy.
Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see Atrios or Jane Hamsher or Digby or Josh Marshall (though at least he posted the video of Clinton’s remarks) weigh in on this controversy. I think at the very least they ought to take some kind of position.
Just my insignificant opinion, but is neutrality a virtue at this point? Maybe they’re all away for the weekend, and will post something eventually, but this is a significant event in the campaign. Why the silence? Atrios big post this morning is about mass transit, for chrissakes? (ps. Duncan, these are my views and not Booman’s so don’t blame him if I riled your feathers).
(cont.)
Update [2008-5-24 13:41:7 by Steven D]: Atrios has now commented on the Hillary’s RFK assassination controversy. He doesn’t think it’s that big a deal. Go read it if you wish.
Third, if you’re a Clinton delegate (pledged or super) and a person of color, or married to a person of color, or have a grandchild who is a person of color, do you really want Hillary Clinton as your candidate after this? Seriously, do you? I recommend you inform her that for “personal reasons” you can no longer support her campaign. And I’d make it real clear what those personal reasons are. I imagine it’s been bad enough for you watching her march around declaring herself the champion of poor, hard working class WHITE people over the last 2 months, but opening up the Pandora’s box of assassination talk ought to be the last insult to your integrity you should have to take from her.
Finally, a compendium (off the top of my head) for the Clinton camp’s reasons why she should be President.
She’s a fighter
She’s more experienced
She’s passed the commander-in-chief test
She’s inevitable
She has more name recognition
She’s got Bill to be her co-president
She’s got more money (well she used to have more money)
She’s running an historic campaign
She’s ready to answer the phone at 3 am
The media is against her
She’s winning the important states
She’s a shot and a beer kind of gal
She knows how to shoot a gun
She’s the only one who’s been vetted
She’s more electable
Obama’s support is only among out of touch liberal elitists and blacks
She’s for hard working class white people
She’ll obliterate Iran
She likes John McCain (okay, that’s not really a reason, but she has said he’s more prepared than Obama to be president)
She can handle the heat in the kitchen
Obama has a crazy pastor
Something could still happen to Obama to throw the nomination to her, something like what happened to RFK in June, 1968
I’m sure I forgot a few, but notice the pattern? Its all I’m the greatest, bestest candidate in the whole world, or Obama’s a stinking dead fish who should be thrown away in the trash ASAP. Not much else. Not much that’s very inspiring, or offers a vision of a new politics. Long on self promotion and short on leadership.
And that doesn’t exactly make me want to see her get within a thousand miles of the White House. Again, just my humble opinion.
Duncan just flew in from Spain last night, I believe. His vacation failed to cause an end to the campaign. I don’t think he is in the mood to weigh into the deep muddy.
I’m sure he has his reasons. But this ain’t your usual campaign contretemps. In any event, these are my views and mine alone. I absolve you of all responsibility for them. I hope he’ll post something about this later today. He doesn’t have any obligation, of course, but considering the number of readers he has and the seriousness of the issue (indeed the outrageousness of the issue), you’d think he’d at least acknowledge the problem exists.
If I had to guess, I’d guess he’ll have something dry and generally (but not entirely) serious to say about it, something to the effect of “Has she dropped out yet?”
He’s been dying for this thing to be over more than the average person because he is close to so many Clinton supporters. His semi-neutrality is partly a strategic decision to maintain relationships in real life. In other words, he may or may not weigh in on this, but he is probably more exasperated that the campaign simply won’t end.
Are like alcoholic parents sleeping one off on the couch. Everyone else in the party is supposed tip toe around to avoid waking them and setting them off.
Fuck that. She lost. They need to deal with it.
I have a different set of questions for Clinton regarding her appalling RFK remarks than the one already well-addressed in an earlier frontpage story:
“Senator, from the start you have touted yourself as the most experienced and vetted candidate in the Democratic field. You have repeatedly noted your decades in the public spotlight as a reason you would be more prepared for a general election fight.
“Let us take you, for the moment, at your word that you did not intend to offend with your RFK remarks. How is it, then, Senator, that such an ‘experienced’ public figure as yourself did not realize the outrage and pain these remarks would instigate?
“How does this supposed failure to anticipate the effect of your statement reflect on your ability to learn from political experience? And given that you are indeed quite accustomed to the spotlight and how our political media operates, can you understand why some conclude that you fully intended to stir the political pot with these comments?
“Finally, despite the graciousness of RFK, Jr. in trying to defuse this lastest controversy, why did you not at minimum consider the recent serious health problems of Bobby Kennedy’s borther reason enough not to make this self-serving and inflammatory argument at this time?
I could go on, but you get the idea…
Here’s the question that I would like the junior senator from New York to answer:
“Ms. Clinton, if something awful were to happen to Barack Obama, how long do you think it would be before something awful happened to you?”
Steven, you forgot a few:
“My opponent was a crack dealer.”
“My opponent’s bff was a terrorist in the ’70s.”
“My opponent can’t win the Klan vote.”
I’m sure there are more.
Indeed, my 51 year old memory ain’t what it used to be.
That’s okay. My 24 year old one isn’t any better. Just happens to be good at fixating on outrageous Clinton statements.
Inho, the best is from Michael Goodwin, NY Daily News
Just in case you missed it, considering it’s from Hillary’s home state – it’s worth reposting… go take a read
It’s a snip and save kind piece.
You forgot that he’s a Muslim.
Does that make Rev Wright a crazy imam?
choose to not soil themselves and choose to be intellectually honest and remain mentally balanced?
Yeah, that’s it. We should all stop whining about Clinton raising assassination as a reason to keep campaigning. We should all show a little more equanimity to all the bile Clinton’s campaign has spewed out over the last 4 months.
I apologize for being so unhinged and acting in such an insane manner. What could have gotten into me?
That’s what’s so baffling. They really don’t understand that this was offensive, let alone how offensive a statement it was to make. Hillary clearly doesn’t get it. Many of her supporters, to their credit, have been outraged by it, but many others are in another galaxy, morally.
the only real perceptions? The show here is circus worthy. Then this blog cries about what a circus everything is when it has been complicit in creating said circus Oy!
I think we have a troll infestation.
And a boring (but racist) troll at that.
l think you’re right.
Vote accordingly.
More circus here
Duncan Black rarely calls something as it is. It’s not cool and he could turn out wrong. Mass transit is hardly anything anyone could hold against him in the long run. The Eschaton threads are appalling.
One good thing to come out of this is that it should bullet-proof Barack Obama – if anything were to happen to him then the Clintons would be blamed for it and all of the 90’s conspiracy theories about the Clinton body count will be revisited with vigor. Thus, the Clintons now have a vested interest in making sure that nothing happens to Obama – not to mention their own well-being.
Oscar, Definitely over the top.
What I learned about the progsphere during the nomination battle:
No surprise about Digby and Jane. Both were gutless and near invisible in their support of Hillary. Why would anything change now? Same for Atrios and Obama.
As wacky as the commentariat at Taylor Marsh has been at least she engaged in the fight. I hope they don’t burn her in effigy as she pivots to support the nominee.
Not a regular reader of Aravois. The one screed I did read he came across as a loudmouthed dick.
Johnson and Hu are a low rent rat fuckers.
Al Giordano is proof you can teach an old dog new tricks.
What any of these folks have to say isn’t all that relevant. I guarantee the SD’s aren’t taking this well at all. She’s done.
The post by Atrios about mass transit is thoughtful and informative. At least he is not chasing after inconsequential fluff that the MSM is running around yelling about. Booman I expected better of you, usually you make more sense.
check the author.
Same old train foamer stuff that he, Klein and Yglesias always run. They should get a model railroad or something.
He wasn’t the OP. Try reading before commenting moran.
Anonymous Liberal looks at a different angle in his latest post – that she has shattered her own self-propagated myth that she is a more “vetted” politician. This should be a sobering moment (like Bosnian sniper fire) for her die-hard supporters. I don’t think Obama’s suffered from such self-inflicted wounds in his campaign.
Unfortunately, I’ve yet to see Atrios or Jane Hamsher or Digby or Josh Marshall (though at least he posted the video of Clinton’s remarks) weigh in on this controversy.
Maybe telling other people what they should blog about ain’t such a hot idea.
I am amazed how little attention is paid to the statement of RFK Jr. on this matter.
It would be grossly improper for Dean, Pelosi, Reid, or anyone else tell Clinton she has to leave the stage. I suspect Obama has won this thing and his interests are best served by letting this thing play out.
As for Aravosis & co., I, for one, am more than tired of some blogger with six readers thinking they can issue an ukase and the world take notice of it. Let the process play out.
RFK, Jr: “It is clear from the context that Hillary was invoking a familiar political circumstance in order to support her decision to stay in the race through June.”
Well, maybe too familiar for the Kennedy family, but with the exception of the wounding of George Wallace in 1972 (part of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”?) no American Presidential candidate has been gunned down since 1968, forty years ago. I’m not saying that it should be more “familiar,” just that it hasn’t been familiar for forty years. So while RFK Jr. said it was okay for Hillary to talk about the potential assassination of Obama as a reason to stick it out, I find it a pretty ghoulish, ugly thing to say or think. And this is the second time, and I think there was another time someone in her campaign said the same thing.
Maybe Clinton is so burned out that she can’t think of another way to say I’m sticking in to June (or July, or the convention). But really, why even talk about it? Alice, you don’t see how awful it is to say this? Really?
My mom is in her eighties. I don’t talk to her about how neat my inheritance is going to be, you know, if she dies.
Ahem. Reagan.
I just went over and read what Atrios had to say. I agree with it, really. Whether you feel all the outrage being expressed in some corners or not, what should be clear to most observers is just how much contempt the Clinton campaign has for us as sentient beings.
It’s getting harder and harder for me to get outraged by Hillary anymore. To me she has become a nuisance that needs to go away and nothing that she says should be believed by anyone. It amazes me that she has so many loyal kool-aid drinkers left.
The first time she suggested Obama might be assassinated I was offended. That was months ago. The 20 or so times Lanny Davis has implied such an event or some other unspecified scandal might occur that would end Obama’s campaign, I was outraged that people weren’t tougher on him for trying to sow seeds of doubt with no substance to back it up.
We’re all getting very tired of Hillary’s sleazy campaign and sometimes I feel like she’s just playing a mental game of “uncle” with us, where she thinks that sooner or later we’ll all just throw in the towel and say “Stop! our brains hurt too much, Hillary! Just take the damn presidency if you want it so badly because we can’t take anymore of this mental torture anymore.”
Unfortunately we’re not really her audience. This is a game being played out for the sole benefit of the superdelegates, and one can only speculate how much pressure/intimidation is being brought to bear on them to throw Obama under the bus regardless of pledged delegates, popular vote, etc.
That’s why the news about the 40 California delegates yesterday was so encouraging.
which brings up the other point she interjected into their deliberations…l’m not saying the assassination reference is beyond the pale…but adding the spectre of a chicago ’68 style melee in denver really ices the cake.
rfk’s murder was the beginning of a long hot summer in 1968, and the convention in chicago is…imnsho, as someone who was there…a nadir in the history of the democrats.
her inferences are deeper than political assassination, they go to the very heart of the bizarro world of limbaugh dittohead’s and operation chaos.
these are not simple faux pas’, they are carefully coded threats.
Boston Joe’s recommended diary: stepping through the door lays out the intent with great clarity.
as michael goodwin wrote:
h/t idredit
to that l would append,the comment above re: the melee in chicago…again, not the dem’s finest hour.
l’d prefer not to go there again, still have scars from the first time.
Remember when Samantha Power was forced to resign from Obama’s campaign for calling Hillary Clinton a “monster”? I think that everyone who called for her resignation owes her a big apology.
Was she allowed to resign? I thought she was actually fired.
You’re probably right. It’s not an important distinction though, since I don’t think she was getting paid.
What do you think the reaction would have been had someone other than HRC (say Rush or Rove) invoked RFK as a reason for her staying in the race? Who would be speaking out instead of being silent now and vice versa?
You mean like Michael Savage playing a Dead Kennedys song in reaction to the news of Teddy Kennedy’s tumor diagnosis? Nothing significant, I would say. IOKIYOAR, even now when everybody hates the GOP brand.
I just read this in madfloridian’s journal at the Democratic Underground:
………………………………………………………………………………………
Hillary Clinton in Broward County. She at a rally says the votes in Florida must be counted in full. Then she says:
If Democrats send a message that we don’t fully value your vote, we know that Senator McCain and the Republicans will be more than happy to have them.
This is the wife of the former Democratic president in effect telling Floridians to vote for John McCain.
……………………………………………………………………………………….
….
There’s video too, but I didn’t watch it.
Can we please stop pretending this woman is a Democrat? She’s clearly a Republican who’s gotten confused about which ticket she should be on.
I’ve been saying since Clinton made his big push for NAFTA before he was elected in ’92 that Bill was a DINO on economic issues. He proved to be subpar with social issues too. From what I’ve seen H. Clinton is farther to the right than her husband. Being a woman seems to obscure this to some.