The media have gone insane
(Note: Further down in this entry, the discussion touches on the supposed racial subtext of Hillary’s supposed unspeakable statement.)
This entire hysterical storm of attacks on Hillary Clinton is all about one word. If she had made the exact same statement but simply used the phrase “beat McCarthy” instead of “was assassinated,” there would have been no problem. Here I make the substitution:
“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 beat Eugene McCarthy [was assassinated] in June in California. I don’t understand it.”
Since when do we crucify a politician over a single, inappropriate word, in what otherwise is an entirely appropriate comment? America really seems to be losing its mind.
An example is a column in today’s New York Daily News by Michael Goodwin, a columnist I’ve previously praised. Over and over Goodwin attributes vile, depraved, criminal intentions to Hillary for which there is no evidence. I’ve copied it below, with the most extreme phrases bolded.
Hillary Clinton’s colossal blunder simply the last straw
SICK. Disgusting. And yet revealing. Hillary Clinton is staying in the race in the event some nut kills Barack Obama.
It could happen, but what definitely has happened is that Clinton has killed her own chances of being vice president. She doesn’t deserve to be elected dog catcher anywhere now.
Her shocking comment to a South Dakota newspaper might qualify as the dumbest thing ever said in American politics.
Her lame explanation that she brought up the 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy because his brother Ted’s illness was on her mind doesn’t cut it. Not even close.
We have seen an X-ray of a very dark soul. One consumed by raw ambition to where the possible assassination of an opponent is something to ponder in a strategic way. Otherwise, why is murder on her mind?
It’s like Tanya Harding’s kneecapping has come to politics. Only the senator from New York has more lethal fantasies than that nutty skater.
We could have seen it coming, if only we had realized Clinton’s thinking could be so cold. She has grown increasingly wild in her imagery lately, invoking everything from slavery to the political killings in Zimbabwe in making her argument for the Florida and Michigan delegations. She claimed to be the victim of sexism, despite winning the votes of white men.
But none of it was moving the nomination needle, with Obama, despite recent dents, still on course to be the victor.
So she kept digging deeper, looking for the magic button. Instead, she pushed the eject button, lifting herself right out of consideration.
Giving voice to such a vile thought is all the more horrible because fears Obama would be killed have been an undercurrent to his astonishing rise. Republican Mike Huckabee made a stupid joke about it recently. Many black Americans have talked of it, reflecting their assumption that racists would never tolerate a black President and that Obama would be taken from them.
Clinton has now fed that fear. She needs a very long vacation. And we need one from her.
Say good night, Hillary. And go away.
Here is an e-mail I sent to Mr. Goodwin:
I’ve mentioned before that I’ve found you to be a thoughtful, sensible columnist. But your column today on Hillary’s supposed killer gaffe is overwrought. It’s clear all she meant was that primary contests used to extend to June. Yes, it was clueless of her to use the historical marker of the RFK assassination, but that’s all it was to her, a historical marker of June 1968, as Robert Kennedy Jr. himself has said in her defense, and as quoted in your own paper today. Yes, she can be fairly criticized for the inappropiate comment, but to say that she deserves to be expelled from American politics because of it, is an extreme and baseless position.
By the way, do you regard Obama’s following for 20 years an extremist anti-white racist and America-hater to be absolutely disqualifying of Obama, as you regard Hillary’s mere referencing in passing the RFK assassination as absolutely disqualifying of Hillary? I haven’t seen that in your column.
Also, I’ve just realized another angle on this liberal (and “conservative”) madness about Hillary. Since there’s been this unspoken worry all along that Obama might be assassinated by a white who didn’t want there to be a black president, and since, according to her accusers, Hiillary was inviting an Obama assassination, Hillary was therefore expressing the wish not just for the murder of her opponent, but for the
racist murder of her opponent.
- end of initial entry -
Adela G. writes:
The media have indeed gone insane.
I have liked Michael Goodwin ever since I first saw him as part of Lou Dobb’s panel of guest commentators. He always seemed so sensible and moderate in his views.
But when I read his article you linked, I did not recognize the distortions and smears as resembling anything I’ve heard him say on CNN.
Goodwin writes: “We have seen an X-ray of a very dark soul. One consumed by raw ambition to where the possible assassination of an opponent is something to ponder in a strategic way. Otherwise, why is murder on her mind?”
Who died and made him God? How the heck does he know what’s on her mind? I didn’t find her explanation of having Ted Kennedy on her mind lately to be “lame”—it was just announced that he has cancer. Even those of us who would prefer not to have to acknowledge his existence have spared a thought or two for him lately.
The “dark soul” we’ve seen can be described more accurately as the soullessness of the left, which seized with raw ambition upon Clinton’s innocuous misstatement as a means of character assassination. Otherwise, why dwell on something so terrible, if not to make the most politically expedient use out of it?
Adela G. writes:
You write: “…Hillary was therefore expressing the wish not just for the murder of her opponent, but for the racist murder of her opponent.”
Bingo! It’s the “R” word that did her in. That’s the real reason behind all the venom and hostility from the left. The left would probably have gathered together a few shreds of approval for her if she’d been caught on tape wishing McCain would come under fire.
After all, the left is known for wishful thinking and good-humored joking about the demise of conservatives, as The Gateway Pundit mentions in his entry, “Suddenly Olbermann Finds Dead Politician Jokes Aren’t Funny”
(I couldn’t get a more specific link to post on Gateway Pundit’s site. The Olbermann item is about 1/4 down the page.)
Terry Morris writes:
“We have seen an X-ray of a very dark soul.”
Indeed we have. Anyone who reads into Hillary’s statement that she’s wishing upon Barack Obama a racist induced assassination needs to have an X-ray done on his own dark soul. And here it is. Will Goodwin hold it to the light?
“Giving voice to such a vile thought is all the more horrible because fears Obama would be killed have been an undercurrent to his astonishing rise.”
Then why is Goodwin giving voice to that vile thought, which Hillary did not do?
Mark K. writes:
Adela G. writes: “Bingo! It’s the ‘R’ word that did her in.”
Isn’t it amazing that in a post-racial America, with a post-racial candidate in a set of post-racial primaries, almost every single political utterance is laced with racial implication! And in every single state primary, a count is taken by the media to indicate voting by racial preference and grouping. All of this makes it a lie that race has no significance. It is there in every moment of political time.
The question is how long will America endure the constant weighing in and the unendurable weight of this element? It is tiresome and it is counterproductive. Why are we bound by our obsessive concern about this group of people who intellectually and economically speaking are by and large meaningless to our national existence and productivity? A group whose primary and almost only significance in American life is that they are behind the rest of us, which is supposed to be our fault? An accident of history that we are stuck with indefinitely? The black race and culture mean little to me and have meant little to me in my intellectual and spiritual formation! And yet they intrude on our political discourse and cultural conversations time and time again. This is indeed tiresome!! This whole cacophony of racial statements and supposed racial statements and subtexts has become one large noise and it grates on the ear.
Adela G. writes:
From the AP:
On Saturday while campaigning in Puerto Rico, Obama seemed to inclinded[sic] to excuse Clinton’s remark as a simple misstep.
”I have learned that when you are campaigning for as many months as Senator Clinton and I have been campaigning, sometimes you get careless in terms of the statements that you make and I think that is what happened here. Senator Clinton says that she did not intend any offense by it and I will take her at her word on that,” Obama told Radio Isla Puerto Rico.
Reading this, I couldn’t help but remember how Hillary was criticized for her lukewarm response to rumors of Obama being Muslim, saying that that he wasn’t…so far as she knew.
He could just as easily have said this right after she issued her (admittedly somewhat luekwarm) apology yesterday. Instead, he cunningly chose to let the wound fester for a day.
Terry Morris writes:
There’s something very perverted, very disturbing; something very cowardly about what Goodwin and others in the media are doing to Hillary in this case. Since her mere mention of the Robert Kennedy assassination obviously amounted to no more than, as you say, a historical marker, then the “perverted” thinking, and the “giving voice” to that thinking, which they attribute to her “dark soul,” originates in themselves. They’re cowards because they use (or rather misuse) her statement as a springboard for giving voice to their own thoughts, which relieves them of having to take any responsibility for having had and entertained them independently of anyone else.
Adela G. writes:
Mark K writes: “The black race and culture mean little to me and have meant little to me in my intellectual and spiritual formation! And yet they intrude on our political discourse and cultural conversations time and time again. This is indeed tiresome!! This whole cacophony of racial statements and supposed racial statements and subtexts has become one large noise and it grates on the ear.”
My own feelings exactly and I thank Mark for expressing so well the frustration I feel at our country’s constant and unnecessary emphasis on blacks.
The latest incredible irritation is Newsweek’s “Racial Resentment Index,” which measures only white Americans’ resentment toward African-Americans. This survey is so weighted toward finding white resentment where none can reasonably be shown to exist that it would be laughable, if so many didn’t subscribe to the same moral and political blindness on which it’s based.
From page 17:
APPENDIX
The Racial Resentment Index is an additive index based on response to 10 specific questions measuring whites’ attitudes towards African-Americans, social welfare programs, and the civil rights movement. The following questions were used to create the index:
Disapprove of racial preferences (Q17=2)
Less qualified people hired often (Q18=1)
Whites lose out (Q19=2,4)
Gone too far pushing rights (Q20a=1)
Poor too dependent on government (Q20b=1)
Blacks responsible for own condition (Q21=2)
Disapprove of interracial marriage (Q22=2)
Few things in common with blacks (Q23=3)
Would mind if black person moved close (Q24=1)
Would be upset if daughter dated black (Q25=2,3)
The range of possible scores is 0-10.
Racial Resentment Index Score
High (5-10)
Medium ( 3-4)
Low (0-2 )
Total Not High (Medium or Low) (0-4)
Mark K. continues:
As a side note, I remember my education and subsequent reading. Augustine, Plato, Aristotle, great historians, theater from the Greeks to Shakespeare, great economists and technologists, scientists from Galileo, Newton through to Einstein. Nothing about race that was and is spiritually important to me. And yet what weighs in on our consciousness day in and day out (especially through the media)? Some form of race. As if everything in my life should now revolve around some form of atonement for the racial situation. As if nothing in Western culture and American history is significant until atonement is made. Frustrating that everythiong is now nuanced that way.
Greco writes:
I see what you’re saying about the media going bananas with this thing. But your rephrasing of Hillary Clinton’s remark proves the opposite of what you’re trying to say. In the context of what she was saying, it makes no sense to say “We all remember Bobby Kennedy beat Eugene McCarthy in June in California” … because what impact did Kennedy beating McCarthy ultimately have on the nomination? None.
Hillary’s point was that the game can change in June. The game-changer in June of 1968 wasn’t Kennedy beating McCarthy … the game-changer was Kennedy being assassinated. You have to admit that was a tasteless thing to say.
LA replies:
I don’t agree. Her point was not that the contest can change in June. Her point was that contests in the past sometimes continued to and were not resolved until June. Her first example of this point was her husband’s 1992 candidacy, and her second example was the RFK-McCarthy contest.
I have already stated repeatedly that it was at best a tone-deaf, clueless, inappropriate comment and that it would have been entirely fair of the media to criticize her for it. Do I need to say it again?
Josh F. writes:
Although Hillary’s latest gaffe may have been nothing more than a historical reference, we also understand that this woman has made a career of feeding blacks some of the worst stereotypes about whites that one could imagine. Her last two gaffes had the subtext of “white racism” denying Obama the general election (either by ballot box or rifle barrel) even as this “white racism” was fighting to nominate her! She is in many ways setting up the winning strategy for Obama by playing on those more conservative Democrats’ white guilt and subtly displaying her long time animus towards white males in the process. The liberals have convinced us she is tearing down Obama when she is really saying atrocious things about middle class white Americans. Long after we have forgotten about Hillary mentioning “assassination,” we will instead be constantly reminded of the outright courage Obama is displaying in the face of such white racism and American oppression.
Larry G. writes:
That’s quite an example of media hysteria. Sounds like Keith Olberman. There’s enough projection there to fill an IMAX movie screen.
The worst media commentary is coming from people who seem to be invested in Obama. Their attitude is striking, like “How dare you interfere in our plans. We are in control. We have selected a candidate. You will have no role unless we decide you will have a role.” Electing Obama fulfills some destiny for them; it’s a chance to see America finally taken away from whites, and wash way their own white guilt and self hatred.
Before I read the article, I didn’t know that Hillary had mentioned Ted Kennedy’s sudden illness as one factor that brought June 1968 to her mind, but I was thinking exactly the same thing. That was also the last time I remember there being comparable excitement about Democratic candidates running close races. She also graduated college around that time, I believe, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the events of that summer were on her mind frequently.
If the media wasn’t totally in the tank for Obama, they might consider that Hillary has as much reason to fear an assassination attempt as Obama. Our assassins tend to be lone nuts, and a mental case like that could just as easily hate Hillary and love Obama as the other way around. Maybe that’s another reason it keeps coming to her mind.
Mark K asks, “Why are we bound by our obsessive concern about this group of people who intellectually and economically speaking are by and large meaningless to our national existence and productivity?” Because CEO’s of Fortune 500 corporations don’t riot, loot, and burn down cities when they get mad.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 24, 2008 03:37 PM | Send