by Pamela Leavey
There’s a raging firestorm in the blogopshere over Hillary Clinton’s remarks made “Thursday, in a meeting with the editorial board of the the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.” As I noted below, Clinton has expressed regret for the statement.
Robert Kennedy Jr., who endorsed Hillary Clinton months ago, issued the following statement this evening (emphasis mine):
“It is clear from the context that Hillary was invoking a familiar political circumstance in order to support her decision to stay in the race through June. I have heard her make this reference before, also citing her husband’s 1992 race, both of which were hard fought through June. I understand how highly charged the atmosphere is, but I think it is a mistake for people to take offense.”
Kennedy also said in an interview that “his support of Mrs. Clinton has not wavered.” And he added that he felt that “the protracted fight for the Democratic nomination would only last “two more weeks.””
“The candidate’s going to emerge within the next two weeks, and the party will get behind them,” Mr. Kennedy said.
The Clinton campaign also “sent a statement from Randell Beck, the Argus Leader’s Executive Editor, that sought to provide the context for Mrs. Clinton’s remarks”:
The context of the question and answer with Senator Clinton was whether her continued candidacy jeopardized party unity this close to the Democratic convention. Her reference to Mr. Kennedy’s assassination appeared to focus on the timeline of his primary candidacy and not the assassination itself.
I think people really need to get a grip. There’s been some vile insinuations (which I am not going to link to but can be found wading through Memeorandum) made about Clinton’s remarks which were clearly off the cuff, so to say and not inferring at all what people are trying to say they inferred including some once again pulling the racism card out of the hat. It was an unfortunate choice of words, which perhaps could have been clarified better. But, now, as Robert Kennedy, Jr., himself has said, “it is a mistake for people to take offense.” He’s right.
Joe Gandelman has a round up of opinions from the blogosphere. And Todd Beeton on MYDD expresses this sentiment about the brouhaha, which I agree with:
I’m just thinking to myself, wow, is this the point we’ve come to? In some corners of the blogosphere, the anti-Clinton derangement has risen to such a level that it’s gone beyond the shit Republicans were peddling in the 90s? Truly amazing.
It is truly amazing and quite sad.
