Month: May 2008

It’s embarrassing to me that Sean Wilentz teaches at Princeton University. It puts a stain on the entire town. Wilentz has spent this entire primary defending the Clintons against accusations that they have deliberately racialized the campaign. Now he comes out and argues that Obama does not appeal to white working class voters. Dishonest throughout, Wilentz makes no connection between the Clintons’ tactics and rhetoric and results like this:

Pike County, Kentucky

Hillary Clinton 12,915 91%
Barack Obama 936 7%
Undecided 196 1%

Rather than look at the results out of Appalachia for what they are, Wilentz launches an unmerciful attack at the new New Left:

Having attempted, with the aid of a complicit news media, to brand Hillary Clinton as a racist — by flinging charges that, as the historian Michael Lind has shown, belong “in black helicopter/grassy knoll territory,” Obama’s supporters now fiercely claim that Clinton’s white working class following is also essentially racist. Favoring the buzzword language of the academic left, tinged by persistent, discredited New Left and black nationalist theories about working-class “white skin privilege,” a vote against Obama has become, according to his fervent followers, “a vote for whiteness.”

Sen. Jim Webb, who is somewhat of a historian/anthropologist/member of the Appalachian culture, doesn’t like to hear people attribute the primary results to racism. His explanation is more nuanced:

“This isn’t Selma, 1965. This is a result of how affirmative action, which was basically a justifiable concept when it applied to African Americans, expanded to every single ethnic group in America that was not white, and these were the people who had not received benefits and were not getting anything out of it. And they’re basically saying let’s pay attention to what has happened to this cultural group in terms of opportunities.”

I like how Sen. Webb is responding to this issue from a political point of view, but he’s parsing beyond what the facts will allow. Pike County, Kentucky voted against Obama because he is black. It’s that simple. If you want to know why they don’t trust black people, that’s an interesting question and Webb’s answer is as good as any I’ve seen. But racism is what explains the results. Others can dissect the causes of racism. And Clinton fed right into this racism by telling the voters of Pike County that she was their candidate and the other guy was a big-city elitist with weird religious ideas.

Despite the fact that exit polls showed the 18% of white voters thought race was important and that 88% of them (state-wide) voted for Clinton, Wilentz says there is no evidence of racism.

In fact, all of the evidence demonstrates that white racism has not been a principal or even secondary motivation in any of this year’s Democratic primaries. Every poll shows that economics, health care, and national security are the leading issues for white working class voters – and for Latino working class voters as well. These constituencies have cast positive ballots for Hillary Clinton not because she is white, but because they regard her as better on these issues.

Really? Ninety-one to seven percent better?

Selectively ignoring exit polls and county results is no way to further an academic career. But Wilentz’s worst error is his analysis of what it takes to win the Electoral College. He goes into great detail to explain to us how important it has been historically to win certain states. None of that matters. All that matters is who gets more Electoral College votes. No one cares which states are in which column, we only care about who has 270 or more votes.

If Obama wins all Kerry states (and he currently leads in the polls in all Kerry states except New Hampshire) then simply winning Iowa, New Mexico, and Nevada it gives us a 269-269 tie, which Nancy Pelosi’s House of Representatives will decide in Obama’s favor. Never mind that Obama is currently polling ahead in Indiana and Virginia, and the Clinton ls losing to McCain in Wisconsin and Michigan. Wilentz isn’t concerned with facts. For him, winning an election that doesn’t include Kentucky and West Virginia is a betrayal of the Democratic Party’s heritage.

It’s embarrassing to me that Sean Wilentz teaches at Princeton University. It puts a stain on the entire town. Wilentz has spent this entire primary defending the Clintons against accusations that they have deliberately racialized the campaign. Now he comes out and argues that Obama does not appeal to white working class voters. Dishonest throughout, Wilentz makes no connection between the Clintons’ tactics and rhetoric and results like this:

Pike County, Kentucky

Hillary Clinton 12,915 91%
Barack Obama 936 7%
Undecided 196 1%

Rather than look at the results out of Appalachia for what they are, Wilentz launches an unmerciful attack at the new New Left:

Having attempted, with the aid of a complicit news media, to brand Hillary Clinton as a racist — by flinging charges that, as the historian Michael Lind has shown, belong “in black helicopter/grassy knoll territory,” Obama’s supporters now fiercely claim that Clinton’s white working class following is also essentially racist. Favoring the buzzword language of the academic left, tinged by persistent, discredited New Left and black nationalist theories about working-class “white skin privilege,” a vote against Obama has become, according to his fervent followers, “a vote for whiteness.”

Sen. Jim Webb, who is somewhat of a historian/anthropologist/member of the Appalachian culture, doesn’t like to hear people attribute the primary results to racism. His explanation is more nuanced:

“This isn’t Selma, 1965. This is a result of how affirmative action, which was basically a justifiable concept when it applied to African Americans, expanded to every single ethnic group in America that was not white, and these were the people who had not received benefits and were not getting anything out of it. And they’re basically saying let’s pay attention to what has happened to this cultural group in terms of opportunities.”

I like how Sen. Webb is responding to this issue from a political point of view, but he’s parsing beyond what the facts will allow. Pike County, Kentucky voted against Obama because he is black. It’s that simple. If you want to know why they don’t trust black people, that’s an interesting question and Webb’s answer is as good as any I’ve seen. But racism is what explains the results. Others can dissect the causes of racism. And Clinton fed right into this racism by telling the voters of Pike County that she was their candidate and the other guy was a big-city elitist with weird religious ideas.

Despite the fact the exit polls showed the 18% of white voters thought race was important and that 88% of them (state-wide) voted for Clinton, Wilentz says there is no evidence of racism.

In fact, all of the evidence demonstrates that white racism has not been a principal or even secondary motivation in any of this year’s Democratic primaries. Every poll shows that economics, health care, and national security are the leading issues for white working class voters – and for Latino working class voters as well. These constituencies have cast positive ballots for Hillary Clinton not because she is white, but because they regard her as better on these issues.

Selectively ignoring exit polls is no way to further an academic career. But Wilentz’s worst error is his analysis of what it takes to win the Electoral College. He goes into great detail to explain to us how important it has been historically to win certain states. None of that matters. All that matters is who gets more Electoral College votes. No one cares which states are in which column, we only care about who has 270 or more votes.

If Obama wins all Kerry states (and he currently leads in the polls in all Kerry states except New Hampshire) then simply winning Iowa, New Mexico, and Nevada

It’s embarrassing to me that Sean Wilentz teaches at Princeton University. It puts a stain on the entire town. Wilentz has spent this entire primary defending the Clintons against accusations that they have deliberately racialized the campaign. Now he comes out and argues that Obama does not appeal to white working class voters. Dishonest throughout, Wilentz makes no connection between the Clintons’ tactics and rhetoric and results like this:

Pike County, Kentucky

Hillary Clinton 12,915 91%
Barack Obama 936 7%
Undecided 196 1%

Rather than look at the results out of Appalachia for what they are, Wilentz launches an unmerciful attack at the new New Left:

Having attempted, with the aid of a complicit news media, to brand Hillary Clinton as a racist — by flinging charges that, as the historian Michael Lind has shown, belong “in black helicopter/grassy knoll territory,” Obama’s supporters now fiercely claim that Clinton’s white working class following is also essentially racist. Favoring the buzzword language of the academic left, tinged by persistent, discredited New Left and black nationalist theories about working-class “white skin privilege,” a vote against Obama has become, according to his fervent followers, “a vote for whiteness.”

Sen. Jim Webb, who is somewhat of a historian/anthropologist/member of the Appalachian culture, doesn’t like to hear people attribute the primary results to racism. His explanation is more nuanced:

“This isn’t Selma, 1965. This is a result of how affirmative action, which was basically a justifiable concept when it applied to African Americans, expanded to every single ethnic group in America that was not white, and these were the people who had not received benefits and were not getting anything out of it. And they’re basically saying let’s pay attention to what has happened to this cultural group in terms of opportunities.”

I like how Sen. Webb is responding to this issue from a political point of view, but he’s parsing beyond what the facts will allow. Pike County, Kentucky voted against Obama because he is black. It’s that simple. If you want to know why they don’t trust black people, that’s an interesting question and Webb’s answer is as good as any I’ve seen. But racism is what explains the results. Others can dissect the causes of racism. And Clinton fed right into this racism by telling the voters of Pike County that she was their candidate and the other guy was a big-city elitist with weird religious ideas.

Despite the fact the exit polls showed the 18% of white voters thought race was important and that 88% of them (state-wide) voted for Clinton, Wilentz says there is no evidence of racism.

In fact, all of the evidence demonstrates that white racism has not been a principal or even secondary motivation in any of this year’s Democratic primaries. Every poll shows that economics, health care, and national security are the leading issues for white working class voters – and for Latino working class voters as well. These constituencies have cast positive ballots for Hillary Clinton not because she is white, but because they regard her as better on these issues.

Selectively ignoring exit polls is no way to further an academic career. But Wilentz’s worst error is his analysis of what it takes to win the Electoral College. He goes into great detail to explain to us how important it has been historically to win certain states. None of that matters. All that matters is who gets more Electoral College votes. No one cares which states are in which column, we only care about who has 270 or more votes.

If Obama wins all Kerry states (and he currently leads in the polls in all Kerry states except New Hampshire) then simply winning Iowa, New Mexico, and Nevada

Teen PTSD researcher Ilana Rice

Why do I get the feeling you two are destined to meet? And by all means don’t change your first names!

Many already know Ilona Meagher, many have worked with her, and she posts on many of these boards, when not the busy young lady she’s become with her dedication to her new found much needed cause as she joined many of us who had already been trying to get others to pay attention to. She has done wonders, as have all those who joined her from ePluribus Media, in their research and their PTSD, and other, Timelines which are used by many.

For those who don’t know Ilona, I won’t go into a book writing here, she’s done enough in a short few years that could turn into a personal history book, already, but will say that she hosts her own well visited site PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within and she has written a great referance book Moving A Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America’s Returning Troops

Visit her site to find out more about this remarkable young woman if you hadn’t before.

This post is an introduction, not only to Ilona about Ilana but for all to meet, to what seems to be another remarkable young lady, a very young lady with a growing dedication beyond her years.

Yesterday, 5-24-08, I had NPR on while driving back from getting some work done on my van. Weekend America was on and in the second hour of the show, when I caught “PTSD Research” and I thought “Ilona” as the name given, had the radio down low as my cell had rang. Thought that Ilona was being interviewed and hadn’t told anyone about it, than I heard the voice, it seemed much younger and not how Ilona sounded, as we’ve heard her being interviewed before. Than the name was said again and it was Ilana.

As soon as I got home I brought up the Weekend America site.

This was the title of this short interview and report Teen Researcher Targets PTSD Treatment

A New York researcher hopes that veterans of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan won’t take decades to work through their Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) issues. Maybe her youth as something to do with her impatience — Ilana Rice is only 16.
For the past year and a half, she’s been studying how relationships can help heal PTSD. The high school junior hopes her study will help fill in the gaps in the research about the disease.
She became interested in the subject through her mother’s work as a psychologist at a Veteran’s hospital. Weekend America’s Desiree Cooper asked Ilana to describe the focus of her study:

She has a unique approach to her PTSD research and study, through relationships, and a very intelligent approach I might add, she really has paid attention watching and listening to her mother.

Ilana, why are you interested in PTSD?
When I was younger, my mom is actually a VA psychologist. So that’s why I’ve become so passionate about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in combat veterans. I used to send them Veteran Day cards every year, and some of them saw these cards and offered to meet me. And I’ve known some of them for many years and when I got older, someone of them shared their stories with me.

I love it when a youngster says “when I was younger”, but in this case she’s is matured well beyond her young years, with it seems more understanding than the majority of adults who think they are adult.

How hard has it been to find people to fill out the questionnaire?
That has been the single most difficult part of this project. I think it’s… a lot of it has to do with the fact that I am a high school student. My resources are not that extensive. I’m really working with a lot of local organizations when it comes to actually finding people. Originally I was looking only at the most current Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, and there are simply not enough of them to fill out a questionnaire so my study would be valid and that my data would be accepted. So I had to expand it to include Vietnam vets, veterans of the Korean War, Desert Storm, as well as the two most recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it’s also very difficult to find people who have non-veteran romantic partners who are married to or living with them. Sometimes these partners don’t want to fill out the survey.

These are but a few cuts of a short important interview, there’s abit more at the subject link as well as backtrack links to important PTSD information.

At the bottom, in case some might miss it, you’ll find this:

If you are interested in participating in Ilana Rice’s study, please Click Here to fill out our contact form.

To Listen to the podcast visit the site link

Earlier they had another report on, that is equally important and also on the subject of PTSD, but this one is covering the Combat Vets of the past before Vietnam.

Decades Later, Haunted by PTSD

Leslie Martin, at the head of the table, is director of PTSD Outpatient Services for Los Angeles Veterans Affairs. She runs the support group for older vets with PTSD. Here she is with “her guys,” as she affectionately calls them.
Credit: Krissy Clark

A white cap, gray trousers and a navy-blue jacket, pinned with medals — that’s what Don LaFond will be wearing this weekend when he attends a Memorial Day ceremony in Los Angeles. He goes every year, and he always wears his Purple Heart.
Don earned that medal in World War II in the battle for Saipan. He showed incredible courage — but also fear:
“You never know where the bullets coming from — over here, over here, coming overhead. Like mortar shells, bombs, artillery. You’re frightened. Anybody who says they’re not afraid when they go into combat, they’re a big… they’re a liar, you know.”
Don is 84 years old, and like many veterans of his generation, he has never been too open with his emotions about the war — until recently. Now, he talks about them every Friday, in a support group for older vets. Weekend America’s Krissy Clark dropped in on them:

Every one of these men is in his 70s or 80s. Every one fought in a war that ended more than a half century ago. And every one has been living with strange symptoms since then: constant nightmares, anxiety, emotional numbness. Most of these men had never given the collection of feelings a name. They’ve discovered recently it is called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD.
“I’m 84-years-old now, and all this stuff happened when I was in my early 20s,” LaFond says. “It makes you wonder, gee whiz, if it will ever leave your mind.”

We could have been much more advanced in treating PTSD once it was finally taken for the serious result of War after Vietnam if the Nation had paid much moree attention to those Veterans who took up the cause and Especially the civilians, to few in numbers, who recognized how serious it is and how common to Veterans of all conflicts. The advancements would have been felt worldwide and understood in the civilian population of those who live through traumatic life events and develope their own PTSD, suffering in silence!

The Veteran’s Administration now estimates one in 20 veterans of World War II — the “good” war — probably have symptoms similar to LaFond’s and probably suffer from PTSD. The numbers are vague, because most older vets were never diagnosed.

Sometimes Martin asks herself why now, after all these years? She thinks there are two main triggers. First, retirement: Men who long buried their war traumas under work and responsibilities have more time to dwell on old fears. Second, because we’re at war again now. “It’s everywhere,” Martin says. “There are movies about it, it’s on television.” And it brings things up again for her guys.

“Not too many people know that I come to meetings,” he says. “People think it’s a weakness. I don’t want to be classified as such. Macho thing, I guess.” But Medina says he does have fewer nightmares since he’s come to meetings.

To listen to this podcast visit the site link

There’s abit more at the site visit and read, you won’t be sorry, it isn’t long but it is powerful and informative, especially those who have returned, are still there, or in rotation for another tour In-Country. These two present day conflicts OIF and OEF, and especially with the multiple tours and stop loss, I fear will cause even greater problems for the individuals, their families, their communities as well as the Nation if we all don’t step up and give the care promised, for All related War injuries, physical and mental!

We will have many more stories like this, Iraq put his life on the trigger

But the carousing masked Morris’ troubled state. His PTSD was so severe, his friends said, that he couldn’t sleep. He had terrifying visions of people he had killed in combat.

Morris showed his friends horrific photos from Iraq — “people with their heads blowed off . . . guts ripped out on barbed wire . . . bullet holes in every piece of body,” said a friend, Dustin Newton.

Sometimes, friends said, Morris would show the photos and laugh.

Video Presentations and More

Picking Up the Pieces

With Jane Pauley
Meet the families of wounded veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers’ loved ones are making inspiring and often shocking sacrifices to care for them. Jane Pauley talks to some family members and also interviews ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff and his wife, Lee, who share their personal story of recovery and healing.

When Wounded Vets Come Home

Hosted by Sheliah Kast
Families of veterans disabled in Iraq and Afghanistan are becoming their primary caregivers, and support from the federal government and the military is, in many cases, woefully inadequate. “Inside E Street” visits families, talks to members of Congress, the Wounded Warrior Project, and Veterans of Foreign Wars about the challenges these servicemen and women and their loved ones face.

Resources for Family Caregivers of Vets

Numerous organizations and agencies provide assistance to Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans and their families.

And Much More

And from NPR Morning Edition:
Army Hospitals Struggle to Stop Drug Overdoses

Eleven medications were found in Nichols’ body, including painkillers to treat his physical wounds from an explosion in Iraq and drugs to ease the nightmares, insomnia and memory loss caused by his post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.
You can listen here

Sometimes in politics there is a thing known as ‘a tell’. That’s when a politician drops their guard and tells you something true that they ordinarily give inordinate energy to hiding. For example:

“[T]he activist base of the Democratic Party… [T]hey are very driven by their view of our positions, and it’s primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don’t agree with them. They know I don’t agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me.”

Hillary Clinton made that statement back in April February in response to MoveOn.org’s endorsement of Barack Obama. Now, we in the Netroots are definitely part of the activist base. And we have been the people most vocal about the fiasco in Iraq and the abuse of our civil liberties that have been carried out in the name of ‘national defense’. It’s absolutely true that it is ‘national security and foreign policy that drives us’, although everyone has their own areas of policy concern. What’s remarkable is that Clinton so openly admitted that she does not agree with us on these issues and that she knows that we know that she doesn’t agree with us on these issues.

In one sense, I take her observation as a compliment. She knows that we’re not stupid enough to take her word on foreign policy. After all, her official positions are not all that different from Barack Obama’s or from our own. But she sees that we are not buying her rhetoric.

The Clintons hated Left Blogistan long before they realized that the activist base was going to cost her the nomination by dominating the caucus states. Now she hates us even more. What’s remarkable is that she gave too much credit to the Blogosphere. I looked around early in this contest and I didn’t see too many bloggers that had a stone-cold understanding that they were the blood enemies of Team Clinton. I tried to tell them that the people around the Clintons absolutely detested us and everything we stand for, and I got accused of being a pie thrower.

Unfortunately, the result is that the bloggers can’t take much, if any, credit for Obama’s success. He didn’t ask for help and that was resented. He didn’t follow (mostly bad) advice and that was seen as disrespectful or suspect. But, you know what? The readers of blogs…the audience…they knew all along. They understood instinctively. In every Daily Kos or MyDD poll, Clinton never cracked double digits. The readers knew that the Clintons were for shit on issues of national security and foreign policy. They knew that the Clintons hated the activist base and would sideline it if allowed to take over the DNC.

So it didn’t matter that most bloggers were hedging their bets. What mattered was who was showing up in the caucuses and who was manning the phones and who was knocking on doors. The activist base took this nomination away from the Clintons even with a substantial fraction of the leadership abandoning their posts.

So I just want to thank you…the readers…for helping to take back the Democratic Party for the people, and for the people that opposed this war from the beginning. Thank you. You are the people that give me hope for this country and for our future.

I’ve really stayed out of the Presidential candidate frenzy except for a few posts here and there which were critical of both Obama (and his supporters) as well as Clinton (and her supporters) over specific actions or accusations, so it is quite ironic to me that I would feel the need to write a diary about something that one of them said – let alone something that was most definitely not with nearly as much malice or disingenuousness as pretty much every thing that has come out of John McCain’s mouth.

So, while it is not surprising for me to be offering up this “Captain Obvious” observation – I am not going to be doing it with outrage, as both Delaware Dem and Keith Olbermann did over the past day, but with a just as obvious thought.

And while many many people have given their opinion as to why she said this, what she may or may not have meant, whether she actually thought this, or whether her apology should have been more direct or even directed to Obama and his family, it is much more basic than that – so basic that I am not going to even offer up my opinion of her comments or even analyze why she said it, who she pissed of the most and whether the outrage is as deserved as it is.

This is her “Dean scream” moment. This is her “I voted against it before I voted for it” moment. This is her “macaca” moment. She can’t recover from this – even if she actually gave the most heartfelt apology and retraction and clarification and innocent explanation that she has ever given.

This is the kind of moment that the corporate media has been waiting for in order to bury either hers or Obama’s campaign. And they now have something that will be the “defining moment” of the final phase for the campaign. Oh sure, she has been built up time and time again (think New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and whatever else I forgot), only to be gleefully torn apart as she faltered (or was even perceived to falter) by people like Chris Matthews and his talking meatstick counterparts.

It doesn’t matter if she said something that was on her mind that never should have been said.

It doesn’t matter if this was more callous, more calculating or more thoughtless than anything else that she or her surrogates may have said or hinted over the course of the campaign.

It doesn’t matter that Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with cancer this week, or that the comment was about RFK, JFK or MLK.

It doesn’t matter if she was truly trying to invoke history and picked a very poor example.

It doesn’t matter if she admitted that she was very tired and that it was an incredibly stupid or insensitive thing to say.

It doesn’t matter, at this point, if her supporters will be alienated by what she said – especially since most of those supporters have already voted and/or donated to her campaign.

What matters, sadly but true, is that she has now been officially declared “done” with the one moment that can be played over and over and over and over.

And over.

Sure, her campaign is hemorrhaging money. And sure, superdelegates are committing to Obama over her pretty much every day. And sure, her Michigan and Florida arguments are so patently transparent that even people in Florida know it. And sure, the whole “poplar vote” theory isn’t even being given any credence by anyone who is being the least bit objective. And sure (just for good measure), there are threats (empty, in my opinion) that she better be the Vice Presidential candidate – a sign that her camp knows that the end is near. But after this, even if she stays in past June, she and her campaign will be largely ignored (and quite possibly mocked by many).

Obama will not focus on her. McCain will not focus on her. And the corporate media will not focus on her. And yes, Obama has started to focus on McCain at her expense, just as the corporate media has started to focus on the fact that she can’t win enough delegates to get the nomination. The difference now is that they don’t have to focus on her anymore and no one will think twice about it.

Right, wrong or other – this is what will ultimately end her campaign – whether it be a slow, painful end that will never really result in her conceding to Obama or an announcement over the next few days due to internal pressure. She is very resilient and has come back from what may be worse gaffes, worse positions or worse actions by her or her husband or her top aides.

But that is because she was also given the leeway and was allowed to continue for the benefit of her campaign, to the benefit of the media narrative (so they have something to talk amongst themselves about) and to the campaign of the republicans who have a 20 year dossier on her.

There is no longer a need for her campaign in this narrative. She is no longer viewed as a serious and credible candidate at this point in the primary process by those who kept her candidacy alive and pumped up for the past few weeks.

She can realize this and bow out with whatever dignity she has left, or she can continue on and become a caricature of the serious candidate and groundbreaking campaign she set out to run.

But either way, she is done.

This piece in The Sunday Times, UK, leaves me conflicted – coming so soon after Hillary’s colossal gaffe, essentially the airing of “her dark soul.”

It appears Obama’s ‘senior aides’ are mulling bringing Bill Clinton on board to heal the rifts created by his wife, Hillary …and may I add, himself.

Excerpts from
The Sunday Times, UK

Barack Obama wants Bill to heal Hillary Clinton wounds
An assassination remark is the latest twist to sour relations between the two rivals

Barack Obama, the probable Democratic presidential nominee, wants Bill Clinton to help him heal the deep party rifts created by his wife Hillary’s divisive campaign – culminating in her dramatic claim this weekend that the 1968 assassination of Robert F Kennedy was a reason not to be pushed out of the race.

The tension between Hillary Clinton and Obama intensified after she told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader in South Dakota, which holds the last primary contest in 10 days’ time: “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June.”

She quickly apologised, ashen-faced, for a comment which appeared dangerously close to wishful thinking about Obama, but the damage was done.

Senior officials on Obama’s campaign believe Bill Clinton has the unique status and political gifts to reunite the party after such gaffes. They expressed confidence that the former president would rise above the perceived slights and grudges of a hard-fought campaign and work flat out for an Obama victory in November’s presidential election.

“If anybody can put their arms around the party and say we need to be together, it is Bill Clinton,” a senior Obama aide said.

“He’s brilliant, he has got heart and he cares deeply about the country. It’s tricky because of his position as Hillary’s spouse, but his involvement is very important to us.

“Bill Clinton will give permission to Hillary supporters to come into our camp and become one party. He is critical to this effort.

Hillary, 60, claimed that her remark about the assassination had arisen because the “Kennedys have been much on my mind” after Senator Edward Kennedy, Robert’s younger brother, was diagnosed with a brain tumour last week.

[.]

However, while she expressed regret for “referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation”, she did not apologise to Obama, who has been receiving secret security protection for the past year after death threats.

“We have seen an x-ray of a very dark soul,” wrote Michael Goodwin, a New York Daily News columnist. “One consumed by raw ambition to where the possible assassination of an opponent is something to ponder in a strategic way. Otherwise, why is murder on her mind?”

[.]

After the Kennedy gaffe, however, the implausible has become the unthinkable.

It is a delicate matter to bring Bill Clinton on board. The former president believes that Obama should offer his wife the vice-presidential slot as a mark of respect after she proved her electoral strength in the big must-win states for Democrats, but her latest error is widely perceived to have squandered what little chance she had.

“It would be hard to take the country in a new direction with the Clintons in the White House,” a source in the Obama campaign said. “They bring controversy.”

[.]

“When this primary is over, we’re going to unite as one and Bill Clinton will play a huge role,” said Patrick Murphy, a congressman who chaired the Obama campaign in Pennsylvania, a battleground state.

It’s been twenty four hours with wall to wall coverage, including the three daily papers in New York City – Daily News, New Yorks Post and Newsday – not a word from Bill Clinton and, Hillary has not issued an apology to Obama.

We are in tricky waters filled with mines. How do you heal such raw wounds? How do you trust the Clintons ever?

Instead of friendly intra-party rivalry, this campaign has been more like a nasty divorce.

As Michael Goodwin and Keith Olbermann observed, Hillary’s actions and thoughts precludes her from any public office – not even a dog catcher.

Certainly not the VP slot. Hillary obsession with the presidency goes beyond the comfort level.

It’s sad to see some people’s disappointment.

Carol Palmore, 59, former Kentucky labor secretary, said she’ll support Obama in the fall, overcoming aching disappointment she and many other women feel. “Never in our lifetime will we have another chance to have a woman president,” she said.

But it ain’t necessarily true. There is a very good chance that John McCain or Barack Obama, or both, will pick a woman as a running mate. And, allowing for factors such as age, a sitting vice-president is very likely to become a candidate for the presidency down the road. I think one of the problems for some grieving Clinton supporters is that they don’t recognize that this isn’t a once in a lifetime event. One thing that Clinton accomplished was she got people used to the idea of a woman as president.

For all the outrage directed at Clinton for being insensitive, she is revealing a truth about American political life many of us have failed to grasp.

The many politically motivated assassinations from the 60’s to the 90’s have always been dismissed as the handiwork of lone assassins or accidents as in the case of Paul Wellstone and John Kennedy,Jr.

If all these assassinations were random events,mutually exclusive, the probability of these being connected and executed by a hidden hand becomes very small.However, there are many features common to these events that makes them interconnected and mutually non exclusive.

That being the case, as a probability theoretician, I would expect their being executed by a central authority (persons or organizations) very probable.

Clinton, having been in the inner sanctum of government for over thirty years,must have participated in “contingency Planning” for many such scenarios.Given her participation in such deliberations, one can also expect that her assassination remark may well be the way her mind works when confronted with a possibility of losing her power.

Just a thought.