I give her the benefit of the doubt: I don't believe HRC meant it the way it's being interpreted

[EffieBlack]

But I am amazed that she would be so careless with her words under the circumstances.

It's ironic that Hillary has often dismissed Obama's eloquence by claiming that words don't mean much. But as she showed today, words have great power, meaning and impact. The right, well-chosen words can avert disaster, heal wounds and soothe a restless nation (example: RFK in Indianapolis, April 4, 1968). On the other hand, poorly thought-out, sloppy, insensitive comments such as Hillary made today can do tremendous damage, not just to others, but to the speaker.

I really don't think her words were intended to convey what many are interpreting. But I certainly can understand how someone can interpret her comments that way and why they have provoked such pain and anger.

They just make me sad. So sad.

[BlooInBloo]

1. Gosh - if her benefit of the doubt donations were money, she could pay off the national debt!

[msallied]

13. Or at the very least her OWN debt.

[AspenRose]

2. She's said it twice before.

.

[EFerrari]

3. I don't care what she meant. n/t

[ShortnFiery]

4. I respectfully disagree: I believe that HRC has "a dark heart" as well as sociopathic tendencies.

More vengeful than Bill, IMO, Hillary is capable of just about anything.

[bhikkhu]

11. That's what I get as well - its a sociopathic slip

a mind that doesn't "get" the idea that it is wrong to benefit from the assassination of a competitor. She has said it often enough, and the last two times she apparently heard nothing back to suggest that it was wrong.

No center, no compass, no empathy.

[VolcanoJen]

16. I worked all night and am just now getting caught up on the brouhaha.

To me, it seems like it's something she's said in private conversation that slipped out and it didn't occur to her how awful it sounds. How awful it is. Near the end of an historic campaign, forty years after that turbulent year of 1968, when we find ourselves traumautized after eight years of the wretched Bush administration, yet hopeful about our future, and with a candidate and likely nominee who many have compared to Bobby Kennedy already.

And all of this after the horrible news about Ted Kennedy this week, to boot.

It's just inexcusable. Horrible. What she said is not leadership. What she said is not presidential. What she invoked was shameful.

[TheZug]

5. It's a pattern: she's said it before, her surrogates talk about how "anything could happen."

[EffieBlack]

12. Maybe I just don't want to believe that's what she meant

As I said, I understand how you can see it that way. But I still think she just made a horrible mistake. A mistake that will likely be her undoing, but a mistake nevertheless.

There are two ways to look at this. On the one hand, her comments can be read to mean that she was referencing the "anything can happen" scenario. On the other hand, it can be assumed that she just meant that Bobby Kennedy was still campaigning in June and would have continued had he not been killed.

But, as I said, even read in the light most favorable to her, her wording of this was so grossly insensitive, so tone-deaf, so bizarre that the recriminations are justified.

[tblue]

6. It was the non-apology that did it for me. She doesn't get it, at all.

[The Wielding Truth]

18. Yes, it is a nasty twist of the knife, like not confirming that Obama

was a Christian.

[chill_wind]

22. Yep. It has to heard and seen. It told me everything I needed to know.

That was not remorse.

[Snarkoleptic]

7. Imagine if she were tired and confused and spouted some inappropriate shit on the world stage.

Image the diplomatic faux pas she would be capable of.
DO NOT WANT.

[Tatiana]

8. No serious thinking person believes Clinton wants Obama dead.

That's not what this is about, much as others try to insist otherwise.

This is about not going "there." This is about the Clintons riding the political edge one too many times. Everyone has simply had enough. There was no legimitate excuse for using the assassination of a Democrat (especially a Kennedy, given the news about Teddy) to prove a political point.

No excuse. Period.

Hillary realized she crossed the line. You could tell in her attempted apology. It's time for everyone to just step back and let karma do its thing.

[Whisp]

9. if she wants the presidency, maybe she should be a bit more careful

with her words.

too many bad ones have comes from that gaping yap. If this was the first, yes, maybe forgiveable, but she has a history of it.

[doublethink]

10. Oh geesh now it's 'sloppy thought out comments' .....

here :http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6096452

[tyedyeto]

20. I agree.....

when has she ever been 'sloppy' about her comments, thoughts, words or actions?

Every step of the way has been carefully thought out, now, all of a sudden she's 'sloppy'?

Something is 'Rotten in the state of Hillary's Campaign'. And it's at the top, meaning the candidate herself.

[doublethink]

21. It's something she's said before .... only this time it was caught on tape.

Actually video ..... of which I think the impact was overwhelming, astonishing, words cannot describe the different reactions we all had to it today .... :wow:

Pushed quite a few of us that we're willing to let this primary play out ... say enough. This needs to end Now. Hopefully it will. Peace.

[Quixote1818]

14. I agree 100%. nt

[madeline_con]

15. I thought she said words matter.

Which statement is true?

[msallied]

17. This is about her tact, or serious lack of it. This is not about intentions. This is about her being

irrefutably tacky, brazen, and saying ANYTHING to justify her staying in a race that she simply has already lost. Screw her. This is the third tim she's invoked this tragedy, and this time just 2 weeks before RFK's 40th anniversary of his death and just after the devastating news about Ted Kennedy. She's gets no benefit of my doubt.

[2rth2pwr]

19. I hope you have your flame proof pj's on. Some Clinton haters will not

be denied today.

[casus belli]

23. It only takes one psycho who doesn't understand that's not what she meant...

I think the bottom line of all of this is that she suffers from an apparent disconnect between her words and the meanings people will derive from them. And it isn't as if this is the first time she has made stupid comments which at the least are completely unbecoming a candidate for POTUS.

Words have the power to move and to motivate...for better or for worse.

[JVS]

24. And there are plenty of psychos over at Hillaryis44.com