Pennsylvania TownHall -- Where the Voice of Pennsylvania is Heard!

Reflections

Hillary Bombshell a Dud

by Ralph R. Reiland,
Professor of Free Enterprise

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called it "yet another fake Clinton scandal."

He was referring to the orchestrated hysteria regarding Hillary Clinton's meeting with the editorial board of Argus Leader in Sioux Falls during which she said that nomination contests sometimes continue into June, citing her husband's 1992 campaign and Robert Kennedy's 1968 campaign as examples.
Mrs. Clinton's comments were labeled as "insane" by Eugene Robinson, associate editor and twice-weekly columnist for The Washington Post and an award-winning member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Hillary's words were "beyond the pale," said Rep. James Clyburn, D-South Carolina. In triple-sized bold letters, the New York Post's front-page headline screamed: "SHE SAID WHAT? Hill links prez race with RFK assassination."

Here's exactly what was said during that editorial meeting, regarding Clinton's refusal to quit the presidential race: "People have been trying to push me out ever since Iowa," she said. Asked "Why?" by a member of the editorial board, Clinton said, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't. I find it curious because it is unprecedented in history. I don't understand it and, you know, between my opponent and his camp and some in the media there has been this urgency to end this and, you know, historically that makes no sense, so I find it a bit of a mystery."

Asked "You don't buy the party unity argument," Clinton responded, "I don't, because, again, I've been around long enough. 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."

The New York Post followed up the "SHE SAID WHAT?" front page with "Kennedys: RFK remark 'last nail' in Hill's coffin." In fact, Robert Kennedy Jr., came out in support of Mrs. Clinton during the controversy.

"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," he said. "I understand how highly charged the atmosphere is, but I think it is a mistake for people to take offense."

The Obama camp, predictably, took immediate offense, announcing that "Senator Clinton's statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign."

In his Washington Post column, "Clinton's Grim Scenario," Robinson painted Hillary as becoming unglued. "A woman uniformly described by her close friends as genuine, principled and sane has been reduced to citing the timing of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination as a reason to stay in the race -- an argument that is ungenuine, unprincipled and insane."

Continued Robinson, "The point isn't whether you take Clinton at her word that she didn't actually mean to suggest that someone -- guess who? -- might be assassinated. The point is: Whoa, where did that come from?"

Whoa, to avoid being accused of secretly wishing for Obama's assassination, how would Robinson want Mrs. Clinton to refer to Kennedy's 1968 campaign in June in California? Perhaps with these words: "We all remember Bobby Kennedy's victory in the June primary in California." Except what we all remember most is the assassination, not the votes or Kennedy's victory speech.

"So Clinton's disturbing remark wasn't wishful thinking -- as far as I know (to quote Clinton herself, when asked earlier this year about false rumors that her opponent Barack Obama is a Muslim)," wrote Robinson. "Clearly, it wasn't logical thinking. It can only have been magical thinking, albeit not the happy-magic kind."

In other words, she's the bad witch.

Tossing in the charge that Hillary is "the first major-party presidential candidate in memory to tout her appeal to white voters," Robinson suggested that Mrs. Clinton is having an "inner meltdown."

She's nuts and racist, in short, according to Robinson -- and obscene. "What Clinton's evocation of RFK suggests isn't that she had some tactical reason for speaking the unspeakable but that she and her closest advisers can't stop running and rerunning through their minds the most far-fetched scenarios, no matter how absurd or even obscene."

"Unspeakable"? All she was saying is that primary races in the past have gone into the summer.

Here's a question for the Hillary-hating liberals: How does the continuing demonization of Hillary Clinton help Obama in winning over her supporters in November?

-------------------------------
Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.
Ralph R. Reiland
E-mail: rrreiland@aol.com

"Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon Professor of Free Enterprise at Robert Morris University, the owner Amel's Restaurant, and a columnist with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review."