What the hell, Hill?
 

It's no news that I'm an Obama supporter, but still... watching Hillary make a blunder as stupid as this one still came as a surprise to me, just a few minutes ago... WHAT THE HELL was she thinking?!?! -- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080523/ap_on_el_pr/clinton
Please help me understand her extreme stupidity.

She just let it slip that she's going to have Obama offed in June.

Wow. I can't believe those words came out of her mouth. I think even Stewie Griffin would say that was in bad taste.

um...

yeah.

up to this point, i had exercised no originality whatsoever and imagined that an obama/clinton ticket would be a very good thing.
i still think it would be, but a bit less so.

now i'm thinking about bulworth. i think that having warren beatty rap the last quarter of the film was maybe the last thing as stupid as this remark that didn't emanate from that special quadrant of stupid that we all know and love so, the "i know what it's like to put food on your family" place.

Never dreamed I'd be defending her, but...
I just now saw the videotape, and I fail to see why her comment is a big deal. She was only making the point that she is being told to get out of the race before June, and this call is a historical aberration. To reinforce her point, she reminded her audience that RFK had just won the JUNE 1968 California primary when he was killed. For me, and folks my age, her remark only reminds us that we have witnessed a Democratic primary race lasting into June, and it shouldn't be viewed as unusual.

Of course, I actually hope she takes it all the way to the August convention in Denver. Watching the Dems rip the hide off each other makes this old conservative smile...

I saw that and couldn't believe it myself. Regardless of her intentions or how her people try to spin it there was no way she could invoke Bobby Kennedy in a manner that wouldn't come off horribly wrong.

That is what I thought to. Or at least she was going to gain something if he was taken out by some redneck who thinks the south should have won 150 years ago.

But, it isn't 'really' what she said or was thinking. It is just everyone (including the unbiased media :rolleyes: ) jumped to that conclusion and are using it against her.

I don't care if she says in, it is her right to do so. Just deal with the issues, there are plenty of them.

"I'll still run because if someone murders Obama I'll get to be president."

Kinda tasteless.

...Wait, what?

Now granted I admit to having something of an infirm grasp of American politics. Maybe candidates have a shorter life expectancy there. But from what I'm understanding, she has stated that she will stay in the race even though she knows she's pretty much lost, on the hopes that some misfortune (ie assassination) will befall her opponent.

Where's the ambiguity here?

I rate it as only the second stupidest political comment of the week.

The winner.....someone at the Calif. Campaign for Children and Families following the Cal Supreme Court ruling that county clerks must begin to issue same sex marriage licenses:

Ask your county clerk if they were a Nazi officer during WWII and had been ordered to gas the Jews, would they? At the Nuremberg trials, they would have been convicted of murder for following this immoral order.

And a close third behind Hillary....Mike Huckabee when hearing a loud bang off stage while speaking at a McCain event:

"That was Barack Obama," Huckabee quipped, "He Just tripped off a chair. He was getting ready to speak. Somebody aimed a gun at him and he…he dove for the floor."

Incidentally, it was not an "off the cuff" remark. She made the same, exact reference back in March, in an interview with Time magazine.

I can't imagine she meant she was hoping for Obama to get killed. I understood that to mean that anything can happen, look at history.

Doesn't she get the same pass Obama does for "boneheaded" remarks? If not, why not? (I suspect it's because she pissed off a lot of the press and this is how they take their institutional revenge.)

It doesn't matter what she "meant." We all know that by now, in this campaign. "Pass?" What kind of "passes" have Obama been getting? Quite the opposite, if you ask me...

The Caucus, a blog in the NYTimes, wasted no time jumping on this:

Well, she apologized for it, at the very least.

I'm not sure she implied that she wanted him to be assassinated, however that seems to be the way everyone is spinning it.

She just stated the fact, which wasn't the smartest move, but everyone understands that it could happen.

Well, no, actually. She went a bit further than that. Stating the fact would be strange in and of itself, but what she did was state the fact in connection with her continuing to run. The implication there is that she is continuing to run because she considers such a thing a possibility and, as we can assume that she wants to win, that she's hoping for it.

I'm not surprised by a politician be selfish and/or callous. I am surprised that people are attempting to defend this.

The thought had crossed my mind that the possibility of assassination might be one reason why HRC was sticking around. That said, i don't think she's gained anything in the past 3 months. If something had happened to Obama, and she had dropped out in say, February, she still would have had a much better claim on the nomination than anyone else.

Or, could she be saying this to keep from being put in the VP slot?

I don't think so, because i don't think Obama wants her, but who knows what the party bigwigs have in mind.

P-E-O-P-L-E.... Alladin Sane's is probably the most accurate description of what happened.....what Clinton's intent was.... I was attending one of the final school days of my sophomore year in high school when, while waiting at the bus stop earky on the morning after, a classmate told me that Senator Kennedy had been shot in Los Angeles.

My reaction when I first heard what Clinton said, on radio news, was that she was evoking a memory common to people of our generation, a kind of "short hand"....notice how she made back to back references of the Califfornia primary, the one in the largest state, taking place in a time in the election year that has not even come yet. She used two memories, back to back, to make her point.....her husband's 1992 California primary campaign, and RFK's.

She is trained to make "sound bite", points. She, herself, her daughter, and her husband, have lived in a Secret Service protection "bubble" for 16 years. In 1996, while she lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the Secret Service and it's parent agency, the US Treasury, took the unprecedented step, out of concern for the protection of the white house, to permanently close the closest portion of the avenue to vehicular traffic.

Clinton's comments were obviously meant to evoke a comparison of how early in the contest it actually is, compared to in campaign years most prominent in the collective memory of Clinton and her generation. She used the two examples of this that made the biggest impression on her. Her second example, the one referencing RFK winning in California, and then being shot even as he was declaring that victory, I "got".

I don't like either democratic candidate, but I need to believe both are better than McCain, on their worst day. Everything Clinton says is not "about Obama". This wasn't......trust me.

The reactions of some of you seem absurd to me....alien (to my concerns and ways of thinking)....not well thought out, especially considering that Clinton herself lives an abnormal life in a security "bubble", with the memory of the tendency of her protective detail to err on the over protective side, every day for the past 16 years.

Some of the posted comments seem to come because of a visceral, negativity towards Clinton....thinking the absolute worst about her. She made a mistake, attempting to conjure up a reaction.....to make a strong point within just one sentence. Supporters and ambivalent folks close in age to her, instantly made the connection with what she was trying to get us to picture.

The cost was that those who suspected she is the "anti christ", an opportunist still "sticking around", because she hopes someone will "off" Obama....and then she can step in and take the nomination, think that she has publicly and loudly confirmed their suspicions.

The prime reason that issues like the following one are not dominating the campaign focus, but "Jeremiah Wright", "John Hagee", and the opinions voiced in thread like this are.....I think.... is because it is much easier to wrap your mind, and thus, your post, around a thread topic like this one's, than it is to wrap them around this:

People can't or won't wrap their minds around what the sentences above describe..... some even label it a "paranoid" subject, but the majority of the reactions about a "nothing" incident, are uniformly and comfortably embraced.

WTF ????

P-E-O-P-L-E.... either Hillary or Barak are equally our hope for confirming and reversing the condition of the removal of our right "to be secure in our papers", because we ARE NOT !!!!!!!!!!! Every email address, (and the subject line) you've written to or received messages from, every telephone number, date, time, duration, and every credit card transaction, internet search attempt, and web page visited, are the least of which have been "swept up".

Distractions and suspicions like this thread and almost all of it's posts ain't bringing us closer to retrieving what has been taken from us.

The reaction of unnamed people represented as being close to Obama, in reference to how comments made by Hillary are about Obama, as distributed in a "news" article, are as supportive of your suspicions about Hillary's intent, as you permit them to be.....

Me ???? I want my fucking fourth amendment protection back, god damn it!!!
Why aren't Hillary, Obama, Obama's unnamed aides, and the press talking about that?

Really???????

How big of news is it that this messiah, this Saviour, this great soon to be president....... stated there were 57 STATES...... that's right people 57 states in the US of A. Not 50.... last time I counted there were 50.....

Can anyone name the 57 states??????

Here's the link WATCH IT and make excuses for this man then.


A link talking about how no major news agency carried this:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blu...uayles-potatoe

But this says it best:

We read about all these every day..... headlines these are...... demands for clarity are made from all the major news sources........ ummmmmm yeah.

Look at how Bush was teated for his mispronouncing words.... I called him the village idiot..... but Obama makes him look like a Rhodes scholar.

Where is the news coverage of all Obama's gaffes, mistakes and idiotic comments?????????? WHERE?????????

Ohhhh yeah, only from right winged news sources that take all of these out of context..... but Hilary and McCain say something and EVERY news agency jumps on it and makes sure it's blown way out of proportion.

WOW.... I fear for our country.

Whoa....we need clean up in the Politics aisle...another meltdown!

But thanks for taking out the OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) reference, pan!

BTW, for presidential voting, there are in fact 51 "states"....Washington, DC is counted as a "state" for electoral college voting.

50 states, 1 district that is a far cry from 57.

No problem..... but now that you mention it...... how many OIC members are there?

damn...dude.

Im not excusing the flub...but most reasonable people might conclude he meant he visited 47, and as noted in the video, he has one to go..not counting AK and HI.

And if education is your sole criteria for determining qualifications for Pres, I would take a guy who graduated at the top of his Harvard law school class (and was editor of law review) over a guy who graduated in the bottom third of his class at the Naval Academy.

Ummmmmm unless you were born like ummmmmm I don't know before 1959 and never went to school, read a newspaper, watched tv or travelled.... I can see how maybe you might believe there are only 48 states...... and Michigan and Florida don't count because he didn't campaign in those states....

I think you are truly stretching and trying to find an excuse.

But again, where is the news coverage? That was my point, there slick.

And, no the person I want as president doesn't have to be an overly intelligent man..... but being able to state 50 states, with no need for excuses. Hell, I would want the president to know all 50 states and the majority of state capitols.

And then there are all those other gaffes and misstatements that I have listed that haven't gotten hardly any press at all....... but had it been anyone other than the anointed one, the messiah, the great Saviour, Barack Hussein Obama ..... the press would have jammed each one down our throats until every last one of us had heard about them.

(Oooopsie please forgive me, I used his middle name.)

BTW again, how many countries are in the OIC?

Capitols are buildings.....cities are capitals.

And there are 57 muslim nations in the OIC....and I am not surprised that rightwing rags (and you) would suggest some hidden meaning in Obama's slip.

If he wins, do you believe he will take the oath of office on a Koran or that he is secretly a muslim and stopped wearing a flag pin because of some muslim belief?

Its this kind of bullshit that he, unlike other candidates, has to encounter at every stop.

_dux, the talking points framing this on salem talk radio was, "Here is Obama when he is tired....he doesn't even notice he has misspoken and that the crowd is laughing at him"....a president cannot "get tired" or be off his mark in crisis.....(Remember the look on the decider's face as he sat paralyzed in the classroom with the Pet Goat book in his hand?)...and "what kind of a president admits that his staff tell him where he can and cannot go?"

I have to agree with pan.....some of the posts here seem so invested in Obama the phenomenon, the larger than life figure, who, despite a generally hostile press treatment, soldiers on....to unity and victory in a new age of racial and political harmony.....

whoa, _dux....kinda harsh, especially since Abaya's "pass, what pass" post was ripe for pan's response. I don't expect you're wearing a set of patented Obama blinders, too?

host..I think I am grounded in reality and understand how the rightwing hacks will play up every Obama miscomment....and as i noted, how he has to deal with questions of his patriotism and religion at every stop.

That hasnt detracted from the millions of new voters that he will bring to the election this year...something that neither Clinton nor McCain can match.

What I really look forward to are the possibility of McCain-Obama unmoderated town meetings (as proposed by McCain and accepted by Obama) and the moderated debates.

Just FYI (although I see this thread has already degenerated in the direction I expected), if Clinton somehow gets the nomination, I'll fuckin' vote for her. However, that doesn't mean I can't still be critical of her mistakes as a candidate. I am an Obama supporter first and a Democrat voter next, at least when it comes to this election. But I still find it appalling that Hillary, so carefully schooled in the art of soundbites, made such a grievous error.

abaya, what motivated you to embrace your conclusion so strongly that you also created and structured this thread, in the manner that you did?

Isn't there enough of this issueless "stuff" coming from the other side?

Consider what a difference two days and a sound bite from Clinton made on the opinion of this pundit:
Why are you more upset by Clinton's remarks than the republican sympathizer, Randall Beck, an eyewitness to Clinton's statement and it's context, and RFK Jr., the son of the assaasination victim who Clinton referred to?

What influenced Bill Burton to say anything at all? He makes a condemnation of Clinton, of behalf of the Obama campaign, based on.....what? Isn't it on the spin of third parties who have interpreted what Clinton said, but who were not present?

We don't need to do this. What is the point of it? We are united in our goal of voting out the republican control of the executive branch, in 2008.

Both democratic candidates have battled to the point of exhaustion. I think we agree that Hillary can blame no one more than herself for her present, almost hopeless position.

Obama has run a better campaign, is more likeable, more exciting, and seems like he is going to win the nomination. I see no need for the negative gesture I perceive in doing thiis thread. I couild have doen a "57 States" thread, but that's something for the other side to feature.

I heard the sound bite, with Obama saying it like he meant it....I decided that he was tired....that's it....not unpresidential, just tired from campaigning. I'm not anti-Obama.....I'm impressed by him, but not inspired, and I am worried that he can't beat McCain, and I've posted why.

I think that Clinton has a better chance of beating McCain. I've posted why. Let's agree to leave it to the other side to attack both Obama and Clinton, and to vote in November for whoever is the democratic candidate running against McCain. Deal?

I agree with you. I think her remark was completely out of line. She's been pushing this "he might get assassinated" BS for a while now. I find it kind odd the press gave her a pass for so long. But if given the choice between Hillary and McCain I'd have to hold my nose and vote for her.


I see a big difference between repeatedly bringing up RFK's assassination as one reason you'd continue in a mathematically impossible battle and gaffing one time on the number of states. Seriously when you start adding up the number of actual primary votes I'm not so sure you couldn't end up with 57. Let's see 50 states, plus D.C. then add in American Sonoma, Expats abroad, Guam and their voting and campaigning today in Puerto Rico. That's get you to 55 primaries, just off the top of my head perhaps I'm missing two? I don't know and granted they're not all states, but they all have votes in the primary. I see this a lot less of issue then Hillary's repeated inappropriate remarks.

Edit:

I forgot about the US Virgin Islands. They held a primary right? That brings the total to 56. If the Northern Mariana Islands, another US commonwealth, also holds/held a primary then you have 57.

i'm way more offended by her fudging the facts about her husband's nomination. he had that puppy all but wrapped up in March

Maybe he made a mistake and spoke to soon about his plan to take over Puerto Rico, Guam, US Virgin Islands, Iraq, Afghanistan, Mexico and Canada ;) and make them into states.

Aren't there 57 Islamic states? ;)

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

There's also Heinz 57..... maybe he thought he was John Kerry.

The US seems to be already working on Iraq and Afghan. And the they took nearly half, if not more(?), of Mexico years ago. Also there's a reason they're called the "US" Virgin Islands. Plus we already have Puerto Rico, Guam and the Northern Marianas'. So, that just leaves Canada. Once the removal of oil from shale is perfected... Well, I'll let you do your own math on that one.

"War Plan -Red"...from the 1930s and declassified in the 70s.
Hillary can stand on the tarmac at Toronto airport and claim how dangerous it was to face incoming mortar fire.
("I remember landing under sniper fire...")

And McCain can walk the streets of Montreal..proclaiming it safe, while wearing a flack jacket and being surrounded by armed US guards in humvees. ("..you can walk the streets of Baghdad safely.")

I think "57" is really the spirit of some lost soul being channeled by limousine-liberal presidential candidates. There may be actual evidence.

Here's the classic Dukakis "Beetle Bailey" picture.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3078/...830ce452_m.jpg

Now here is a picture that was taken from that same photo-shoot recently featured on SciFi's Ghost Hunters.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2262/...1612f042_m.jpg

Did you notice the eerie image appearing in place of Micheal Dukakis's face? Is it a coincidence?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3160/...d809fc7943.jpg

Perhaps the curse will finally be lifted ... like for the Boston Red Sox. Very mysterious.

To me...the President is supposed to be elected by the will of the people. If people are pushing her out... you'd think she'd be aware that maybe people don't want her as President. You can't become president just because you want the title, despite the lack of national support - We're not a Divine Right country.

Maybe she's just not willing to become British to be the next Queen Elizabeth.

Clinton hopes out loud someone might shoot Obama, backtracks later...
 

What a disaster for the Democrat party this woman is.

It is getting to the point that it actually seems she is working for the Republicans. She seems determined to damage the movement and the party as much as she can, even at her own expense.

She has no path to victory for at least a month, but still she is here slinging mud at the Democrat candidate.

The 57 state thing was very clearly an example of misspeaking. There are only a few options here: 1) Obama actually thinks there are 57 states (one would have to be as much of an idiot as they apparently think Obama is in order to believe this, considering his educational background (graduated top of Harvard Law) as well as career background (professor of constitutional law at another prestigious law school, University of Chicago)), 2) Obama let slip that he he's a secret Islamic plant (in which case, one would have to be a major conspiracy theorist and probably even more of an idiot than in option 1, and 3) Obama was tired, meant to say 47 (which fits perfectly with having one more state to go, not counting AK and HI), and said 57 instead. It's amusing that he didn't notice his mistake - well worth a joke or two on The Daily Show - but nothing more.

Pan: There's really no sense in anyone here going through each of Michelle Malkin's points one by one. You've reached a point now where you're quoting someone who is so far on the right wing fringe that John McCain is completely ignoring her, even while pursuing (and, to his minor credit, eventually rejecting) such crazies as John Hagee. Now think about that: John McCain thinks Hagee is more worth his time than Michelle Malkin. Fox News Commentator and frequent O'Reilly Factor guest Geraldo Rivera dislikes her so much that he said he'd spit on her if they were in the same city. That's how crazy she is.

And if that doesn't drive the point home enough:

You'll have to forgive me for not thinking anything Michelle Malkin says is worth my time or effort.

I'd hit it.


wait, what? oh crap, politics! RUN!