“I was discussing the Democratic primary history, and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged California in June in 1992 and 1968,” she said in Brandon, South Dakota. “I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That‘s a historic fact.
“The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy. I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, particularly for the Kennedy family, was in any way offensive, I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever.”
“My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to and I‘m honored to hold Senator Kennedy‘s seat in the United States Senate in the state of New York and have the highest regard for the entire Kennedy family. Thanks.”
Not a word about the inappropriateness of referencing assassination.
Not a word about the inappropriateness of implying—whether it was intended or not—that she was hanging around waiting for somebody to try something terrible.
Not a word about Senator Obama.
Not a word about Senator McCain.
Not I‘m sorry.
Not I apologize.
Not I blew it.
Not please forgive me.
God knows, Senator, in this campaign, the nation has had to forgive you, early and often. And despite your now traditional position of the offended victim, this nation has forgiven you. We have forgiven you your insistence that there have been widespread calls for you to end your campaign, when such calls, in fact, had been few. We have forgiven you your misspeaking about Martin Luther King‘s relative importance to the Civil Rights movement.
We have forgiven you your misspeaking about your under-fire landing in Bosnia. We have forgiven you insisting Michigan‘s vote wouldn‘t count and then claiming those who would not count it were Un-Democratic.
We have forgiven you pledging to not campaign in Florida and thus disenfranchise voters there, and then claim those who stuck to those rules were as wrong as those who defended slavery or denied women the vote.
We have forgiven you the photos of Osama Bin Laden in an anti-Obama ad.
We have forgiven you fawning over the fairness of Fox News while they were still calling you a murderer. We have forgiven you accepting Richard Mellon Scaife‘s endorsement and then laughing as you described his “deathbed conversion.”
We have forgiven you quoting, the electoral predictions of Boss Karl Rove.
We have forgiven you the 3 a.m. phone call commercial.
We have forgiven you President Clinton‘s disparaging comparison of the Obama candidacy to Jesse Jackson‘s.
We have forgiven you Geraldine Ferraro‘s national radio interview suggesting Obama would not still be in the race had he been a white man.
We have forgiven you the dozen changing metrics and the endless self-contradictions of your insistence that your nomination is mathematically probable rather than a statistical impossibility. We have forgiven you your declaration that some primary states count and some really don‘t.
We have forgiven you exploiting Jeremiah Wright in front of the editorial board of the lunatic-fringe “Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.” We have forgiven you exploiting William Ayers in front of the debate on ABC. We have forgiven you for boasting of your “support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans.”
We have even forgiven you repeatedly praising Senator McCain at Senator Obama‘s expense, and at your own expense, and at the Democratic ticket‘s expense.
But Senator, we cannot forgive you this. “You know, my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.”
We cannot forgive you this, Senator, not because it is crass and low and unfeeling and brutal. This is unforgivable, because this nation‘s deepest shame, its most enduring horror, its most terrifying legacy, is political assassination. Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy. And but for the grace of the universe or the luck of the draw, Reagan, Ford, Truman, Nixon, Andrew Jackson, both Roosevelts, even George Wallace.
The politics of this nation is steeped enough in blood, Senator Clinton. You cannot and must not invoke that imagery anywhere at any time!
And to not appreciate, immediately—to still not appreciate tonight just what you have done today is to reveal an incomprehension of the America you seek to lead. This, Senator, is too much because a senator, a politician, a person who can let hang in mid-air the prospect that she might just be sticking around, in part, just in case the other guy gets shot has no business being, and no capacity to be, the President of the United States.<snip>
Link:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24842254/:shrug:
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