Put me down in the “stupid gaffe” column.
Here’s a whole bunch of stupid comments by Presidential candidates,
and here’s a whole bunch of stupid comments by Vice Presidential candidates.
Just take a look at the number of Pit threads where we take each other to task for what we’ve said.
More and more I can not help but wonder if she herself is in fact part of the “vast rightwing conspiracy”. It would certainly seem that this election had been tailor made for her from the time the Clintons left the White House. That is, untill a big earred, skinny guy with a funny name burst on to the scene and screwed it up for everyone(Clintons and Republicans)*. As well she has certainly made use of every tactic within their playbook; at first I thought she was doing it to help/strengthen Obama, but she has taken it way to far for that to be so.
The way that McCain dumped his wife’s tax record and the very specific, secret, and suspect way he dumped his health records(which probably deserves its own thread). Am I so completely off base as to think that she might also have been helping McCain bury these over the holiday weekend? It’s clear to see which of the stories is making more of an impact.
*God, knows I’m happy he did.
Secret how? It’s out there, and if it’s that newsworthy - the Times had it at the top the page for a while - it’ll come back. Meanwhile it sounds like there was nothing interesting in there.
Yes, you really are. And dumping stuff before a weekend is a standard tactic.
Why is it then, that he released his health records in such a completely different way than he has in the past?
Only a select, handpicked group of about 10-20 reporters could see them. Curiously missing was one journalist, and forgive me I can not recall his name, who is also an MD and is typically the guy to go over these things. The reporters were only given a limited amount of time to go over everything and were not allowed to make any photocopies. Coupled all with the facts that it was dumped on the long weekend and McCain has always been in the past very open about his record, as he was in 2000.
Perhaps there really is nothing there of concern, but then why all the new rules? Why make it seem so suspicious?
FTR, my cite at the moment is limited to an appearance Rachel Maddow had made on one of the talking head shows.
I am wondering if perhaps Ms. Clinton is not seeking to harm Obama’s chances but torpedo her husband’s legacy. Obama is just an accidental casualty.
Let me adjust my reflective sombrero before I explain myself…
There.
Is it possible that she somehow blames him (Bill) for having harmed her chance (I believe she always had the presidency in mind) a la Gore, and she wants to make sure she doesn’t go down alone?
But how would this be taking Bill and his Presidential legacy down with her? Just by further sullying the Clinton name? I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, in fact, I had wondered if he was not trying to do the same thing to her with the SC comments, but I don’t see how this politically hurts anyone but her. Or I guess it could be that there have been reports that Bill has been pushing for her to VP; is that what you mean?
I know Hillary defenders are pretty scarce in these parts.
Could someone explain to me why she has repeatedly brought up the RFK assasination?
She did it, I believe, on March 6th, she did it today, she’s apparently done it other times as well.
Why?
Now I know there’s one candidate in this race who’s at a greater risk for assassination than the others. Is Hillary not aware of this? Does she just not care?
I mean, really, what the fuck is wrong with her?
You don’t have to accept my explanation, of course, but I did offer one in post 34. The point she’s trying to make is that RFK was still campaigning in June, when he was killed, so the calls for her to drop out now are premature and off-base because it’s not unusual for campaigns to last this long. She’s relying on a unique perspective and a twisting of facts that don’t apply to the 2008 campaign, but hey, what do you expect?
Thanks Bob for the YouTube link. Yeah he’s on a roll. I even agree with him and I think he’s a bit over the top, but hey, that’s his job.
Meanwhile he provides solid evidence that this is not a casual grasping for historical examples and Bobby Kennedy still running in June just happened to pop into her mind because she’s been thinking about Ted Kennedy a lot lately. Her claiming that is another “misspeak.” No this was not just “dumb dumb dumb.”
No she has, of all the multiple times that the election was still indeterminate with California up for grabs in June, intentionally with full forethought had two examples chosen to put before the American consciousness on multiple occasions with various degrees of directness: a Clinton winning; and a young charismatic leader being murdered. Those contrasting images were chosen willfully to put in front of America to help make her case.
No, it is not tinfoil hat wearing to recognize this premeditated and repeated pattern. It would instead be naive to not recognize it for what it is, and is much more than a mere misrepresentation of the nature of primaries then vs the schedule now, more than falsely claiming that Obama is calling for her to quit when he has been doing no such thing, more than making up stories about the media clamoring for her to get out since Iowa when in truth she has been allowed to string this along for far longer than any one without the Clinton name would have been able to do. No this is a crass and callous evocation of fearful imagery for political gain and without any regard for the clear message it may send to the crazies in this world.
I know that I should be treating her with respect now and trying to mend fences, but this is beyond the pale. Olbermann expresses it a bit large, but it is unforgivable. It is disgusting.
I’m another Obama fan, and because of my thought process, I find Olbermann’s rant pretty compelling. I understand Hillary’s desire to bring the contest down to the convention. However, political assassination is not an appropriate subject to bring up. I realize that some Obama opponents don’t feel the same. If Obama were to die of a heart attack, I’d hope we could recruit Gore. At one point in time, I’d have supported Hillary if such a horrible event transpired, but I don’t think I could anymore.
Stupid gaffe, my ass.
She said the same thing in a Time interview published in March.
My first thought: “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?”
Darn it, I thought we were in The Pit! Sorry if that was a little abrupt, kunilou, it was aimed at Clinton rather than you.
We, as representaives of the public, are to be presumed to be, on average, not too bright. She is trying to become POTUS which, theoretically, a position reserved for the fairly smart. I know what she was TRYING to say (“Other primary seasons extended into June, so it ain’t over 'til it’s over.”) but here she strayed into Stupid and Insensitive Land, something a POLITICIAN is not supposed to do, and it raises the “Is she smart and sensitive enough to negotiate with the rest of the world?” flag.
I don’t think Clinton was remotely suggesting to lunatics to grab their guns and start aiming. To assume that is truly thinking the worst of her, and while the elbows have been sharp at points during this campaign, you’d have to have an incredibly low opinion of Clinton as a human being to take this as a dog whistle communique to sharpshooters everywhere.
When you hear the full context of her statement, it seems very clear that the point is that Dem nomination processes have gone until June. Seeing that RFK, Jr. and several “lesser” Kennedys endorsed Hillary, and did it early (before Ted endorsed Obama), it sounds more likely to be an acknowledgment of the tragedy of RFK’s campaign. Whatever disappointment the Clinton camp had from Ted’s endorsement, they clearly have the support of many in the Kennedy family.
Having said that, it’s a ghoulish comment, and as others have noted, you would think a handler might point out to Clinton that it could be construed as a somewhat macabre observation. We all know what happened in the 1968 campaign to Kennedy; need it be mentioned? It’s a gaffe for sure, and doesn’t help her standing with those who think the worst of her.
Candidates make gaffes. This is a badly timed one, for sure, but I’d be a lot more concerned if this was a comment made off the record in the back of the campaign bus versus one that was made on camera and on the record. I don’t this comment has anything to do with Obama. My understanding of the '68 campaign was that Kennedy peaked in the final months of the campaign, while McCarthy and Humphrey were favored earlier in the nomination process.
Her apology seemed heartfelt and I think she truly was remorseful that the comment might have hurt the Kennedys in light of the news about Ted’s health this week.
Keith Olbermann is a fucking joke of the highest order. The funny thing is, when he was bashing Bush I enjoyed it a little, but then I realized he’s essentially living out a journalism fantasy camp dream on MSNBC’s dime. I wish he’d go back to SportsCenter and making Boston Market commercials.
And a liar, too. Bill in 1992 clinched the nomination well before the California primary.
What apology? That just in case someone was offended, she regrets fucking up?
That’s the danger isn’t it? That one of her more fanatical followers might take these comments as marching orders.
Hippy again when you see that in context of multiple interviews it is very clear that it is part of a handler coached regular talking point to choose those two campaigns as her June examples, not Mondale-Hart or Carter-Teddy Kennedy, but to cravenly evoke the contrast of a June Clinton win against a young charismatic leader being killed. That some obsessed nutjob may take it as a request is just incidental to her and of no concern if it serves her propaganda aims.
I suppose. Does that mean that you will now retract any defense of Kerry or Obama that you might have pled at those times? Any candidate (or proponent) who spends 24 or more months having to speak repeatedly on the same topics thoughout that period is going to say some dumb things at some point.
= = =
I’m glad everyone is getting their recreational outrage out of their systems, but reading this thread really wants to make me invest heavily in Reynolds Aluminum.
As to the charges that this is all “calculated,” I would note that no one made a big deal about the statement when she spoke it on the earlier occasions. It is much more likely (to me) that people who are forced to repeat answers to identical questions for weeks at a time would latch onto catchphrases that sound good as they are employed and repeat them in later interviews. She is trying to keep her candidacy alive into the summer as she desperately hopes that Obama will make some grievous error that will swing the superdelegates over to her. To do this, she has to make a summer primary campaign look reasonable. She reaches back into her own history on the grounds that what she remembers will be recalled by her middle aged cohort while reaching back to the Democratic convention of 1912 would look pedantic, she uses 1968 as her benchmark for long campaigns. No one (especially in the Democratic Party) is going to mention the 1968 primaries without a nod to RFK. So she throws out that line in March. No one gets upset at that time, so she begins frequently using that line when asked why she has not conceded.
I think that Obama’s “bitter” remark about working class whites was a bigger blunder in terms of getting votes, but I do not think that he really considers everyone who opposes him to be ignorant, blue-collar, rednecks with bad attitudes.
One of the reasons that pundits put forth to exalt the U.S. presidential selection process over that of the parliamentary states where elections are decided in a few months is that the grueling run for office both demonstrates the stamina and tests the ability of a candidate to survive in the pressure of the White House. However, over that time, every candidate is going to make ill-considered comments at some point. Folks can be as outraged as they wish, but I am more bothered by the reactions of people who actually have the capacity to vote who react violently to individual missteps than I am by the inevitable missteps the candidates make.