No way could I give credit to the apologists on this one.  

Hillary's comment came from a dark place, has no excuse, was never apologized for and then the offense it caused was used to smear Obama's people.

If there's such a thing as a Journalistic Integrity Award, one should go to Joan Walsh!

I said it before and I'll say it again:  Nothing more than a very poorly chosen analogy.

I can agree with you that I don't think Hillary Clinton was advocating the assassination of Barack Obama. But the outrage was mostly about something else, as Olbermann commented. She knew what she was saying, as she had said it before. She should not have brought up the assassination of RFK, regardless of what she was using it for.

It was inappropriate to mention assassination, considering the unspoken fear that the Obama family must be feeling constantly during this campaign.

And worst of all was the fact that she couldn't bring herself to apologize to Obama or his family for bringing it up.

That a senator and presidential candidate would even bring up the assasination of a presidential candidate in the primaries, then apologizes in a way that basically blames the offended for being offending then turns around and uses the gaffe as a way to attack their opponent.

Agreed.  

Hillary was NOT making an "anything can happen" argument, she was just making a flawed reference to campaigns running through June.

Obviously she didn't mean it how some took it.  Obviously.  But that doesn't mean it was a smart thing to say because the power of a word like "assassinated" makes it the focal point, whether intended or not.

Also, the guy who was debating Joan Walsh, with his mention of "code language"...WAAAAAAY over the top with that.

Hillary's use of the RFK assassination, not once, but twice (once in March) was politically stupid. You just don't go there, no matter who you are, during a Presidential election. Not to mention that she was wrong historically. Kennedy was only in the race for about 6 weeks when he was assassinated and Bill had wrapped up the nomination pretty much by April. Not to mention leaving out that California used to be in June and the process didn't start before the Christmas decorations were down, which is at best misleading.

I don't know whether I ascribe some evil intent to Hillary's statement or just stupidity, but it was one or the other.

In addition, what is wrong with just plain saying, "I'm sorry." She still has not apologized to Sen. Obama or his family for her remarks, and she should, and not with some lame, "if I caused offense". She should admit that she is sorry to Sen. Obama and to his wife and kids for using the topic of assassination within her Presidential campaign. This strikes me as a further indication of a problem with admitting to mistakes.

Obama supporter here.  I think it was a poor choice of words by Clinton, a political gaffe.  It was exactly the kind of thing that the media and political opponents like to play up and make more of than deserves.

The most important point Joan Walsh made is how she found out about HRC's Argus comments -- directly by email from the Obama campaign.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton mass e-mailed reporters a link to a story from the N.Y. Post, which made an outrageous lie that Hillary made "an odd comparison between the dead candidate and Barack Obama."  Senator Clinton never made that comparison. And Obama's spokesperson was circulating this lie directly to journalists, one of whom was Joan Walsh.

Her candidacy is no longer serious and she no longer has a chance to secure the nomination by standard means. The only way she gets the nomination is if lightening strikes.  So she can't wander around talking about one form of lightening as her words will be subject to scrutiny through the tiny lens of that .00001% chance of her getting the nomination.

I say again she should have suspended her campaign when IN & NC voted. She would have been in a much better position than she is today.

and chose her words poorly, kind of like a certain Senator from IL chose his words poorly in San Fran.)

She is probably exhausted and sleep deprived.  From my human behavior class, I know that being sleep deprived can affect performance when the task is prolonged like an interview with an editorial board or a fundraiser.

Both our candidates need to get a weeks worth of sleep.

What bothers me more about the comments, which is mostly lost in the fray, is that even the intended argument, about long primaries, is specious, and not validated by either of the examples she used.  We all know by now that Bill's run ended effectively in April (and started later) and that RFK had been campaigning for a far shorter time than Hillary, so the comparisons don't work.  There are other comparisons that DO work.

So, why mention RFK, on multiple occasions.  Well, he was a charismatic candidate, like someone else currently in the race.  And, there is that little word that can be thrown in there, assassination.

I don't think she's suggesting that he should be, or wants him to be killed.  But it was a ridiculous analogy that is not only tasteless, but fails even on a factual level.

So, it was a loser gaffe.  Clinton had no problem printing up "I'm not bitter!" stickers when it suited her, but when the shoe is on the other foot ..."I'm a Victim!"

I'm sorry to add to the partisan bickering here.  I am.  I do want to be a better person.  But until this fight is over, I'm going to call bullshit when I see it.

I don't know if they will publish it, but here it is:
----

In your May 28th editorial ("Hillary Clinton's unwise remarks keep undermining her"), you asked how Hillary could make such undisciplined comments.

On the point of her invoking Bobby Kenndy's assassination, 'undisciplined' was too generous a description to offer. It should be noted that she's been using this argument for at least two months.  In an interview for the March 6th edition of  Time magazine, she invoked the memory of RFK's assassination almost verbatim.

This wasn't a simple misspeaking gaffe, but rather, a calculated decision to use such a painful memory for a  campaign talking point.  

Adding insult to injury has been her unwillingness to repudiate the use of this talking point, offering instead to give a  'I regret if you were offended' non-apology.  Then, playing the victim, in a Sunday op-ed she stated that she was "deeply dismayed and disturbed" over how people construed her comment.  

Deeply dismayed and disturbed is what many of us feel.  We live a country where even grade-school children know you don't bring up 'assassination' in politics. For Hillary to do so in the context of  her political campaign, and then not understand why voters are upset, raises questions of her character.

Whatever it was, it's over. Also over is the ridiculous meme that Obama's uncle/great uncle/grandfather liberated Auchwitz/Buchenwald. The media, and by extention, the blogsphere has too much time on it's hands and never talks about issues of substance. Today, that's all changed because Scott McClellan wrote a book. The book proves that Bush & his administration were and continue to be a bunch of lying douchebags.

This may not be news to us, but some in the MSM are actually surprised to learn what everyone should have known for the last five years. Charlie Gibson's performance on the Today show was a disgrace. And he's the newscaster with gravitas! Neophyte and supposed lightweight Katie Couric is the only sentient being of the three national anchors.

As John Harris of Politico gleefully admitted this weekend, the media loves to play up insignificant gotcha stories over boring, issue oriented stories that affect the lives of all of us. I refer you to 9/11/2001, the day that the 6 month orgy of non-stop speculative and inane Gary Condit stories ended. There was a bigger story with better "art" that day.

When will the MSM, and when will WE, dicuess the issues that matter instead of the petty detrius of the swamp we all seem to be living in.

i think if McCain had said these same words, every single one of us would have come down hard on these words.

I can't say I agree with anyone who believes this is an honest mistake.

I don't believe Clinton's interpretation ultimately stands up under close scrutiny.  

Hillary is very smart and always strategic about what she says and how she says it.  So, if her statement was only to point out that democratic primaries in the past went into June, then please answer me this question: Why didn't she mention that RFK campaigned in June?  Why didn't she mention that RFK won the California primary in June?  

Instead, why mention an event that had nothing to do with any conscious choice that RFK made regarding his campaign?  If you think about it, the statement was not just about RFK, but also about Sirhan Sirhan, the person who killed JFK.  To say that RFK was assassinated in June is another way of saying that Sirhan Sirhan assassinated RFK in June.  

Understand my point.  Hillary could have made the point she wanted to make without ever having to mention the assassination.  She actually didn't even need to mention RFK, let alone his assassination.  She could have just said, "Democratic candidates campaigned through June in 1968."  

Yet, she chose to bring up the assassination, when it was completely irrelevant and unnecessary to make her point.  So, then, the one million dollar question is: why did she bring it up?  And we can't chalk this one up just to fatigue or carelessness, since she brought up RFK's assassination in March to answer the same question she was asked in South Dakota - why are you staying in the race even though you have little chance of winning?  

So, I ask again, if the assassination was 100% irrelevant to her point about campaigns running into June, why did she bring it up?

Here yeah go CG..
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So if I understand correctly Obama's official campaign staff is emailing the KO's "special" comments around to supporters?  After publically stating they didn't think she meant anything by her comments?