Enough Already

You know it's a tough week when I find myself in agreement with Greg at Espresso Pundit... :))

During an interview last week, Hillary Clinton made a remark that the mentioned the June 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

That set off a firestorm of criticism on the internet and by media pundits ever since. Most took the view that her remark was some sort of wish/threat that Barack Obama could be assassinated.

(Don't believe me? Just go to Google's 'advanced news search' and use the words "Clinton" and "RFK" and set it to "search by date - newest first.")

Anyway, after reading the remarks in print and watching the YouTube video of the interview, I find myself in agreement with many of the pundits - she did mis-speak that day.

However, her mistake was not her reference to the assassination of Bobby Kennedy.

At most, the hubbub is an overblown reaction to a clumsily delivered line (see: the uproar over John Kerry's lack of education/Iraq war jab at George Bush). From the context of the video, it's clear that her point was that primary races frequently last until the end (or nearly the end) of primary seasons.

Even Obama, Clinton's opponent in the hard-fought Democratic primary, says that her remark was more careless than malicious.

Instead, her mistake, and it is one that she has repeated more than once, is her equating of herself and her husband to the Kennedys.

While the Kennedys are a *long* way from perfect (hell, what family is perfect??), they do have a long history, covering multiple generations of the family, of public service. A history that compares favorably with any other family's.

Actually, few families have a history that is even in the same ballpark as theirs.

The Clintons? Not so much.

When she has nieces, nephews, and grandchildren with careers in public service including politics, charity, and even some military service, maybe she can talk about the Clintons and the Kennedys in the same breath.

That time hasn't come to pass yet, and may never


Anyway, her RFK reference, while clumsy, doesn't merit the sort of rhetorical pigpile that she has been subjected to. It's been unfair, and on the part of the media pundits (Faux News, Chris Matthews, etc.), it's also been unprofessional.

I'm not a huge fan of Hillary Clinton, but this needs to be said -

Enough already.