Posted on 05/25/2008 6:41:16 AM PDT by CWWren
Sen. Hillary Clinton
Context, as in "you've taken my words out of context," is the last refuge of a politician caught with foot in mouth. That's where Hillary Clinton is today, alternately explaining and apologizing. But with both feet in her mouth, she doesn't have a leg to stand on.
Gravity is the toughest opponent of all, even for a Clinton hellbent on a comeback.
Of course the meaning of words can be distorted if they are lifted from their surroundings. The problem for Clinton is that her reference to the assassination to Robert F. Kennedy is just as outlandish when everything she said before and after is taken into account.
There is no question she was citing the RFK murder of 40 years ago in the spirit of "anything can happen" and thus as a reason she should stay in the race against Barack Obama.
Which means she was thinking of murder as a momentum changer. Not a pretty thought in any context.
But the full context works against Clinton for a larger reason, too. The assassination remark is the latest evidence that her increasingly erratic campaign suffers from a severe case of split personality disorder.
One day it's a focused machine, gobbling up votes in numbers big enough to stave off Obama's nomination triumph. The next day the same machine spews out gaffes and B.S. as though it's been sabotaged.
Dr. Jekyll, meet Mr. Hyde.
Consider the last three months. Fresh off big popular vote wins in Ohio and Texas in March, she shot herself in the foot with a tall tale about coming under sniper fire during her trip to Bosnia as First Lady. Only when she became the subject of ridicule, with a videotape showing her smiling and accepting flowers from a child in Bosnia, did she confess to being wrong.
In April, her top strategist, Mark Penn, was caught working both sides of a key issue in the upcoming Pennsylvania primary. Among Penn's private clients was the government of Colombia, which was pushing for approval of a free-trade agreement at the same time Clinton was denouncing the idea. When Clinton fired him, he was her second campaign honcho to get dumped.
May brought more of the same, even before the RFK reference. The day after disappointing results in Indiana and North Carolina, she trotted out the race card, saying "Senator Obama's support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again." She went on to landslide wins in West Virginia and Kentucky by tapping that very demographic.
The headline-grabbing blunders stopped her from scoring big gains against Obama, even though he was wounded by the Jeremiah Wright issue, his "bitter" comments about small-town values and growing concerns about his kumbaya foreign policy overtures. The delegate deficit is a hurdle for her, but she had a potent argument about his vulnerability in the general election.
Instead of cashing in, Clinton repeatedly stepped on her own story. And with finger-wagging Bubba piping up with frequent off-message zingers, the prospect of the restoration of the Clinton presidency has been a political wash at best.
She's now so toxic she's probably doomed any hope of being named Obama's running mate. He didn't want her to start with; now he won't have to take her.
This one matters most because the notion of Obama being assassinated has been much discussed. He is the first black candidate with a real chance to be President, and, not incidentally, received the endorsement of Ted and Caroline Kennedy, making him the symbolic heir to the Camelot legend that was twice felled by assassin bullets. She couldn't have picked a worse point.
Still, myths aside, Obama is looking weak. In addition to Clinton's pounding him in key states, President Bush and Republican nominee John McCain have taken turns using Obama as a piñata. His yes-we-can crusade has been reduced to explaining why he wants to meet personally with the leader of Iran, whose militias are killing American troops in Iraq and who pledges to wipe Israel off the map.
Obama's views on the Mideast are so muddled the appeasement label is starting to stick, but Clinton is in no position to benefit. That's the impact, full and final, of her mentioning murder in a political context.
Barack Hussein Obama is a racist. Will Kanye West or Jerry Seinfeld ever stand up on national tv during a telethon and say "Barack Obama doesn't like white people."?
It's true. At least if we are to take him at his words he wrote in his 2 books.
And what of the "context" for Jeremiah Wright's comments? That the US government created AIDS to target the black community? That we never landed on the moon? Etc? What is the context of THOSE GDAmeriKKKa statements?
Screw the editors who cover for Obama.
I'll bet the guy who wrote this thinks that people such as myself who are quite sure that Vince Foster was murdered, and that we don't know all we might about Ron Brown's death, are certifiably nuts.
But unconsciously he know that it's all true: Foster, Brown, and the whole damn list.
ML/NJ
In true Operation Chaos style, using the Left to expose the Left, it has become clear just how much the media DOES cover for protected Democrats. Hillary is no longer one. Barack certainly is protected.
How many times will get away with slips like 57 states? We need arabic translators in Afghanistan, that’s why the mission there is going so poorly. Sunshine instead of Sunrise as the city he’s stumping in, etc?
Not a very flattering pic?? If she becomes VP, Black Oblack better not go to Dallas.
Pray for W and Our Troops
The MSM has already started on McCain; there will be much more. Barry is their boy.
:)
As a NY Daily News writer put it........"We have seen an X-ray of a very dark soul."
Looks like she and Bill had some pillow talk about her chances to get the nom. And that's the only way they figure she'd get it...if someone took out Obama.
The Clinton's have gotten away with so much for so long.
We have known for some time what the conniving Clintons are capable of.
"SEE YOU MOTHER @#$%^&*!@ SEE?? I TOLD YOU THIS COULD HAPPEN!
That would pretty much have to rank up there with my favorite klintoon moments.
| A big part of her problem is that she still can’t get used to the MSM no longer covering for her. For her entire career on the national stage the Lib media has been carrying her train.
|
Hopefully the Secret Service is good enough to keep any American president from being assassinated.
What split personality??? This is quintessential clinton. I've heard at times that clinton is qualified to the nth degree, that she is among the smartest women in the world. If that is so, I don't think I could ever be attracted to a nitwit of the female persuasion.
They want the "threat" to be an "issue" to add another layer of smears disguised as "issues."
I don't have a TV but I bet the turning begins today on those frothy Sunday "news" interview shows.
I take “anything can happen” to mean that Drudge could pull the trigger (no pun intended) on Obama’s skeletons a little too soon and she would win at the convention.
wishful thinking on her part.
I guarantee if something happens to Obama, they will be sure that it will be some white dude from Alabama or Mississippi with a rebel flag on his pickup truck and a noose in his back yard, along with his rifle on the front seat who will be the culprit. (Oh, and a Nazi Flag hanging over the mantle in his living room).
Wanna make a bet? :)
The only thing that will stop The Hildabeaste's drive to be POTUS will be her death.
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Her and John McCain.