Friday, May 23, 2008

Manchurian Candidate redux?

Wow.
If you read my earlier post on the subject, I was willing to offer a historic exit strategy to the Clinton campaign based on her ground-breaking run for the White House.
I had suggested she turn the moment into a clarion call for those women behind her who would dare to follow her path to electability. Lay the campaign gently down with class, grace and intelligence.
Today, she turned history on its ear. And ripped that ear off in a fashion worse than Mike Tyson did to Evander Holyfield.
In the same week Sen. Edward Kennedy was diagnosed with a brain tumor, the same week one newspaper illustrated Sen. Obama in the crosshairs of a rifle, Sen. Clinton evoked the image of the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy in a meager attempt to justify her continuing vault-over-reason campaign.
While commentator Keith Olbermann, among others, drew a line from the inference of an assassination from her mouth to Sen. Obama, I see a different line that should make white folks, even the hard-working ones, seethe.
In the dark recesses of her mind, is she counting on the possibility that some white person will attempt to take out her rival? Does she think whites are so base as to automatically resort to violence between now and January? Does she think so little of the people she claims to be a part of that she believes someone weak enough to cast a death threat will be crazy enough to carry it out?
With the exception of the two Puerto Rican nationals who tried to kill Pres. Harry S Truman in 1950 and the Palestinian convicted for killing RFK, all successful and would-be assassins have been white. And two were women. But in this election, Sen. Obama has been lifted almost to the ring of candidacy by white voters. They supported them even when blacks looked askance at his racial intent.
Were I a white American, I would be most offended that Sen. Clinton would assume that history would have to repeat itself as it did in June 1968.
Is this some sort of Manchurian Candidate-type chant to change the direction of inevitability? Does she agree with Mike Huckabee that violence gets a vote on deciding who the next president will be? Even women who have "drank her Kool-Aid" are now wondering if there was more than sugar in the mix.
The worst part of this is she never apologized. She "regretted" but never apologized. That's like "if I offended anyone, I apologize" as if the fact you have to say it doesn't mean you must have offended somebody.
Even if she blames it on fatigue, the President of the United States will be more fatigued than enduring a campaign. Do we want someone as a world leader to fall off the tact wagon so easily?
To borrow from Al Gore, "it's time for you to go," Hillary. And sleep well because your days are about to get longer...

No comments: