Hillary Clinton again used “almostspeak,” her own brand of Orwellian language, to compel the worst in America. Like some crazed diablo, she conjures the very worst in American history – and in Americans.
From The Huffington Post:
“Hillary Clinton’s argument for staying in the race took a disturbing turn today. While meeting with the editorial board of South Dakota’s Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, she raised the specter of assassination while discussing why she would stay in the race:
‘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. I don’t understand it.'”
If her intention is not to spark an attempt on Barack Obama’s life, then why mention, over and over and over again, Bobby Kennedy’s assassination in California 40 years ago? And her curt apology to the Kennedys, especially now, when the patriarch of their family has been diagnosed with brain cancer, confirms that she is worse than the worst open racist. After all, with an open racist, at least you get honesty. By dancing around racism and then back-pedaling from her consistently inflammatory remarks when confronted by media, she suggests she can’t really be held accountable for the psychological violence her language induces, that we just all misunderstood her. Again.
I have more respect for the open racist, one willing to take responsibility for their hate, than I now have for Senator Hillary Clinton.
I whole-heartedly disagree with my fellow feminists who still suggest that Hillary’s failure to secure the Democratic nomination is a consequence of misogyny. Hillary isn’t losing because she has ovaries. She has blown this opportunity to become the first woman president of the United States because she continues to do what men in patriarchal societies have always done: Hillary has revealed her own willingness to divide and conquer ordinary Americans in the quest to solidify her personal power.
She is as violent and dangerous in her language as the KKK are with their nooses. She is as much a threat to the American people as White Supremacists are with their basement arsenals of firepower, as menacing as the guns they polish as they wait for a great race war to begin.
This woman is not a victim of social violence. She is a beneficiary of the power social violence concedes to the few, and she has fired words like bullets that have already destroyed the fabric of Hope and Possibility this historic primary was supposed to represent.
How dare she use the word “assassination” against us all. How dare she use the word “hardworking” against us all. How dare she denigrate the term “White people” by treating White Americans like mindless automatons, like Pavlov’s Dog, like her own gang, like the Mafia’s low-level hit-men, like idiots.
How dare she.
At this point, I am willing to state that if she is Super Delegated into the democratic nomination I will leave the Democratic party. This level of violent rhetoric must not go unchallenged. She can not attack an entire group of people, pit Whites against Blacks, and debase the core values of this nation my ancestors built with their free labor for hundreds of years. She can not lodge racialist A-bombs, then apologize for the fallout, and not face consequences.
She certainly can not subtly hint that an assassination should take place so she can get elected.
My belief is that most White Americans know they are being hood-winked and bamboozled when Hillary says she supports them, is with them, will do for them, as she has clearly demonstrated that all she is willing to do is exploit them.
Keith Olbermann gets this. He railed against Hillary on his show.
Stand tall, People. Reject this rhetoric. How can we even begin to teach our little girls to look to Hillary as a role model like Eleanor Roosevelt or Mary McCleod Bethune, when in fact she has revealed herself to be more like a knockoff version of Karl Rove?
Comment(s)
From the New York Times:
Say What? Hillary Clinton Does it Again
By The Editorial Board
We have no idea what, exactly, Hillary Clinton was thinking when she referred to the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in explaining her decision to keep on campaigning when it looks like there is virtually no hope of her winning the Democratic nomination.
(We?ve supported her decision to do so. This is a democracy, after all.)
But she could, at least, have apologized.
Instead, she issued one of those tedious non-apology apologies in which it sounds like the person who is being offended is somehow at fault: ?I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive.?
If?
Is it even possible that Mrs. Clinton thinks someone out there was not offended by her remark, Kennedy relative, Obama relative, or just plain folks?
Mrs. Clinton tried to excuse her inexcusable outburst by saying she was distracted by the shock of the news of Senator Edward Kennedy?s malignant brain tumor. But there was something familiar about what she said, and thanks to Ben Smith of Politico, we remembered what it was. Mrs. Clinton said basically the same thing in an interview with Time on March 6:
?I think people have short memories. Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A.?
What?s next? ?Mistakes were made??
Comment(s)
Hi, Steve –
Thanks for your great question! I think Obama’s choice of Hil for Sec of State legitimizes his role of leader of the party, because he enables the reconciliation that the Democratic leadership and former Hillary Clinton supporters require.
I also think Hillary’s sharp as a tack and this is a great role for her within his administration. I certainly do not think she will be traveling the world, meeting with global leaders, and calling for them to take Obama out. 🙂
Finally, Obama is probably the best qualified president elect we’ve had since FDR. I also think he knows the basic Art of War playbook. He’s pulled in a rival just in her moment of defeat, offered her a can’t resist opportunity, and thus has replaced resentment and malice by planting a subconscious sense of gratitude in her head – just when she was down and out.
Smart. It’s win-win-win.
What do you think?