May 25, 2008. Explaining why she stays in, Clinton said: "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California."                Spread the word

Obama generously labeled it a slip, but there's a lot more to it. (1) The statement was cooked up in March and used three times before. (2) Its use doesn't make sense. (3) She refuses to acknowledge, let alone regret, the implications of her remark.

Cooked up in March. On March 2, an ABC poll showed 59% of Americans worried about Obama's safety. On March 6, Clinton was reminding Time Magazine of Bobby's assassination. Fast work, and tricky. She can't just blurt out "Bobby was assassinated, and Obama might be too." So her team cooked up a way to slip in a reminder, and she has now used it at least four times. This time more brazenly, and she got caught. So she claimed she slipped because "The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy [hospitalized last week]." That wasn't her reason the first three times she said it.

Doesn't make sense. She claims her statement meant that races often last till June. But why bring up a 40-year-old assassination to make this point? She claims it's because "We all remember" when Bobby was assassinated.

Did you remember it was in June? I sure didn't. She knows that almost no one remembers. Since we don't, the assassination doesn't remind us of June, so why claim falsely that "We all remember"? She does that to make it seem like the assassination is helping her establish the date— the only possible reason to mention it.

Even stranger, why bring up that race at all? The example is flat wrong. That year the season didn't start until March, so Bobby's run was short, and only 13 states had primaries, so the race couldn't be settled until the convention.

To top that, there were two true examples from more recent years. Gary Hart and Ted Kennedy fought until the convention. The only reason to reach back 40 years to the assassination for a false example is to bring up Obama's vulnerability. more >>

The fake apology. "I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family ..." So if it bothers us to remember Bobby's assassination, then she regrets her remark.

But as she knows, that's not what bothers us. She ignores our real concern: the risk of another assassination—the one that would give her the nomination.

Instead she used her "apology" only to advertise her connection to the Kennedys: "I'm honored to hold Senator [Bobby] Kennedy's seat in the United States Senate." That's how she ended her "apology"—reminding us Bobby got killed, and in the end, she got his seat.

The country spent two days reminding her that raising the possibility of your opponent's assassination, even indirectly, to explain why you're still running, is offensive. Then she wrote an Op-Ed for the NY Daily News and again made no mention of anyone's concern about her opponent's assassination.

So Why Talk of Assassination? Why take the risk of raising such an explosive issue four times, especially when her point could be far better made without it.

If Obama were assassinated, she would win without staying in. So that's not it. At least three reasons make sense. She may be trying to:

- Give her supporters hope—that Obama will be assassinated, or

- Discourage super-delegates from voting for someone who might not last, or

- Give crazy people ideas—people like Kennedy's assassin Sirhan Sirhan.

Let's hope it's only the first two. They're bad enough.

If the Democratic Party thinks it can lead this country, its leaders had better show they are tough enough to put an end such evil politicking.                      Free

Notice that each time she brings it up it's along with Bill's nomination. This is a scripted remark using carefully chosen (though deceptive) examples. The 3 prior uses:

On March 6, she told Time magazine: “Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. NY Times

At a fundraiser in Washington, DC, earlier in May, she said, "my husband did not get the nomination until June of 1992. I remember tragically when Senator Kennedy won California near the end of that process."

And in Shepherdstown, WV, in May, she said, "I remember in June 1992, that’s when Bill really wrapped up the nomination, middle of June after the CA primary. I remember what happened in the California primary in 1968 as Senator Kennedy won that primary." Twice in May.

Clinton's June examples were chosen to (1) identify herself with Bill's success, and (2) to remind us of Obama's vulnerabilities. She skipped over two valid examples (Gary Hart and Ted Kennedy) and picked two that don't make sense for her point about June.

Clinton has argued that it is traditional to stay in the race into June.

The first deception about June: "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right?

Wrong. Sen. Tom Harkin, then-Sen. Bob Kerrey, and the late Sen. Paul Tsongas, all did the math and dropped out in March. Then Jerry Brown, jumped in, but Bill crush him in the NY primary and he dropped out in early April. So that race—which Clinton knows perfectly—proves just the opposite of what she claims. Bill's opponents did what Hillary should do. They did the math, dropped out, and let the party unify, by early April.

Second deception. In March she said, "Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A." Wrong again. The primary that year was New Hampshire on March 12. Kennedy was assassinated less then three months later. But back then only 13 states held primaries, so the race could not end even with the last primary, because it was only decided by party bosses at the convention. That year Hubert Humphrey was nominated after winning zero primaries.

So Bobby's assassination, even if we remembered it was in June, would only mislead us. And concern over the possibility of Obama being assassinated has been in the press so frequently that Hillary is certainly keenly aware of it. 59 percent of Americans said they were worried about it, and this is especially true for people of Hillary's age. Why bring up such a topic for such a bogus reason? Only because there is not legitimate reason and she wanted to inject the possibility of Obama's assassination into the news.