Absolutely no one here has commented on John Aravosis calling Clinton a “piece of shit.” There’s a guy who gets hundreds of thousands of readers, who has a law degree, who worked as a Congressional staffer and at the World Bank. That’s just fucking nuts. She’s gotten nearly half the popular vote, she’s not that far behind in delegates, and it’s not at all surprising that she wants to remain in the race because she clearly has a lot of support and she clearly thinks she would make the better president.

As it happens I think her argument is bogus, primarily, as it were, because of the early start to the primaries this year as opposed to years past, and because there doesn’t seem to be any way she can win in a fashion that won’t alienate too many potential Democratic voters.

I don’t dispute Zinya’s assessment of the 1968 primary or that Clinton’s use of it as illustrative is just self-serving bullshit. That’s true of Clinton’s other examples of extended contests as well. What I don’t think is that Clinton is wishing, consciously or otherwise, for Obama’s death.

You’re saying that on the one hand, she’s so calculating that she couldn’t possibly have meant anything else, and on the other, so stupid that she doesn’t realize that his assassination would doom her. Maybe her mind really does contain those multitudes, but I’m not seeing it.

Things not to talk about: the way Americans went psycho after 911, the utter futility of the drug war, socialized medicine, whatever. You know as well as I do that there is an unlimited number of subjects that are toxic for politicians and that get the rest of us hissed at.

Is anyone debating the issue of Obama’s assassination? I’m not sure what you mean. Pros and cons? If so, I missed it. Did Clinton raise the specter of it? I could swear it crossed my mind long before she mentioned Bobby Kennedy; it certainly occurred to the Treasury department, since they assigned a bunch of Secret Service agents to him considerably earlier than is the norm. Did she use Kennedy’s assassination as a reason to stay in the race? Not so far as I can tell, and I’ve read every reference she made to it.

At any rate, there are a whole bunch of reasons not to like Clinton (many of which apply to Obama as well) and for me this affair isn’t even among the top ten.

And “off the cuff” is cutting her too much slack, because it surely wasn’t ever off the cuff. The first time was in an interview with the managing editor of Time magazine. You think she didn’t rehearse for that important interview, didn’t drill with her advisers on how to answer the “why don’t you quit?” question?

Twice on May 7 alone – in Washington and West Virginia – she backed off a bit, referencing it but avoiding the “a” word, instead using “tragically” the first time and the second time “I remember very well what happened in the California primary.” Those comments were also calculated, this time to avoid using the word while inarguably conveying the message.

She chooses her words very carefully. There was no uproar after the first time, and after twice more successfully reminding people of the assassination but without saying the word, she felt emboldened enough to try it again. This time she got caught.

It’s way beyond tempest and teapot in the minds of millions of people who aren’t posting on blogs, and just because you disagree doesn’t mean that even a substantial proportion of those people are hysterics. You’re labeling reactions by what you read on the blogs and applying that to Obama supporters in general when you have no way of supporting that claim. There could be many people – they could outnumber your “hysterics” 10 to 1, 100 to 1 – who are deeply affected by Clinton’s remarks without being Obama supporters. So your headline alone is off the mark.

Your remark that assassination is added “to the long list of shit we’re not supposed to talk about” is off the mark, too. It raises three questions:
* What else is on that long list?
* When in the history of American presidential campaigns has one candidate raised the specter of the possible assassination of the other candidate?
* And do you think the possibility of assassination is a valid and useful issue to debate in a presidential campaign?

Because when you describe assassination as being “added to the long list of shit we’re not supposed to talk about,” that’s what you seem to be saying.

Clinton can talk about the accomplishments of Lincoln, the Kennedys and King without using their assassinations as a reason for her to stay in the race. But how much has she really done that? Not much, probably not as many times as she’s talked about Bobby Kennedy’s assassination.

But I don’t think it was calculated. I expect that had she made the point in a speech rather than an off-the-cuff environment, she would both include other examples and not mention the assassination. Still strikes me as tempest and teapot.