I forgive Hillary for her poor judgment

After watching Keith's Special Comment last night, I realized that I can forgive Hillary for making her assassination comment (that is, if it is even my place to forgive). I can see why so many of us are over-the-top pissed with her for making such a statement, particularly with Ted Kennedy's present condition and on the eve of the 40th anniversary of this tragedy. However, even though I think Hillary is a calculating, political hack, I think her non-apology was sincere in her lack of appreciation of the profound disgust people have with her saying it. I think she knew better than to say something so crass, but was too tired to realize it.

What if she was actually referring to this event on a purely intellectual, factual basis? I agree, just as Keith said, she could have opted to be more vague in the various reasons Obama could leave the race by June. I agree, just as Keith said, even if something did force Obama out of the race, she could reenter without this prolonged drama. However, this campaign has been going on for ages, she has tons and tons of thoughts swirling in her mind, she must be exhausted, she stated something of fact while, I believe, she was running on fumes. Haven't any of us said something without appreciating the various implications while extremely tired? Even her pathetic "apology" can be explained by her myopic understanding of how her statement should have been taken. And yes, her advisors are lame. And yes, she has given us enough reason to believe that she wants the nomination enough to wish Obama dead. But I am not buying it.

Although I cannot be positive of my theory, I can be positive that many, if not most, of you will dismiss the idea that Hillary Clinton, the master of calculation, could have just had a bad day and sincerely misspoke. Nevertheless, I am not going to join the bandwagon, since I have been guilty of not only the same stupidity, but also of taking a bit longer to truly understand the actual level of my stupidity.

I also have to disagree with Keith on another matter. You know all of those things he said we have forgiven her for? Well, I don't forgive her for any of them. I find her more culpable in those instances than in this one. McCain better than Obama? No apology for the Iraq war vote? Voting for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment? Sniper fire in Bosnia? LBJ more relevant to civil rights than MLK? These are the transgressions that I take greater offense to and that have solidified my support for Obama. However, if you insist on taking her to task for her "assassination" comment, I will far from stand in your way. But I won't join you on this one either.

I'm sure both candidates are exhausted and I know I've stuck my foot in my mouth on occassion and thankfully I'm not being filmed constantly. However, I am concerned that she in general doesn't seem able to say I made a mistake and that reminds me too much of Bush.

And if you say it over and over, is it still misspeaking?

She's "misspoken" 5 times - on the SAME thing.

Is there ANY number at which it's no longer "misspeaking"?

Be serious, people.

get over yourself. K?

It cannot be explained by just being tired.
It is on her mind, having mentioned it a few times.

It could be on her mind because she is worried about it - or because she hopes it would happen.
If the first, then her concern about it should have prevented her from mentioning it in public.

realized what she said. Sort of when you post something really stupid, and have second thoughts just as you push the send key. I have no doubt if, given the chance, she would take back the entire statement. To her, the mistake was not in having the thought, but verbalizing it.

Because I don't recall being struck that way by it.

before they either go to bed, take a Vitamin B shot, or just shut their mouth? The 'tired' explanation is exactly that, tired.

"...We have forgiven you your insistence that there have been widespread calls for you to end your campaign, when such calls 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 of some primary states as counting and some as not.

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 your own expense, and the Democratic ticket's expense.

But Senator, we cannot forgive you this.

... 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."

We have even forgiven you repeatedly praising Senator McCain at Senator Obama's expense, and your own expense, and the Democratic ticket's expense.

she should take a nap.

Seriously, what good does it do her to work past the point where she gets loopy?
The last time (that we know of) that she was sleep-deprived, she thought snipers were firing at her.

Now she justifies staying in a race that she has virtually no chance of winning and is $20million in debt, because her husband was still campaigning in June and RFK was assasinated in June.

um, okay. Take a nap, Hillary.

But I'm not going off on the deep end, take her comments out of context and accuse her of wishing murder, just because KO says so. I can think for myself.

I like Keith but I don't always agree with him and this is one of those times.

you try so hard to demonize those critiquing Hillary and to defend the reprehensible, you end up lying.

I supported and defended the Clinton's most of my adult life. This has been the cherry on the sundae of the most disgusting low brow politics I can imagine. There were plenty of other examples that could have been used instead of RFK. It may have been a gaffe but it was not a harmless gaffe. Are we supposed to give poor Hillary a pass? I agree with Keith, she has been playing the victim quite a bit lately and there is nothing more offensive to this feminist than seeing that kind of behavior. I would have not had a problem forgiving her if she honestly apologized and expressed her horror at what she said but we all know Hillary is not capable of such a thing. Although I am quite clearly an Obama supporter, anyone who wants to write me off as a Hillary hater is a fucking child-but there seem to be a lot of them around here. We as democrats have a lot to be angry about right now. Mostly because of how much benefit the Republicans are getting from all of the bullshit that has been going on that Hillary's ego has been the cause of.

I appreciate so much the people who have welcomed me here. :)