Is anyone surprised by the allegations against George W. Bush in
Scott McLellan's new book?
I hope not.
Yes, I am an equal opportunity free speech defender. (Except of course when it comes to hate speech, which is another matter all together.)
I'm sorry but I think the uproar over Hillary Clinton's Bobby Kennedy remark is yet another instance of the media whipping themselves into a frenzy over something that should be nothing more than a passing matter. I have been disgusted with the political process in this country since a well-aided and -abetted George W. Bush stole the election in 2000. Now I've come to realize that the media are at least half of what's wrong with our political picture. The media have an appalling tendency to make their own reactions to the stories they cover into self-perpetuating masturbatory news events. In this way, the "endless loop" effect becomes a distracting force for the American public, who are increasingly challenged to engage in meaningful, productive dialogue when it comes to politics. This is an unfortunate set of circumstances to say the least.
As for Hillary, yes it is a painful, tragic, unfortunate, traumatic memory that she evoked by bringing up Bobby Kennedy's assassination, and yes the matter is even worse in light of Ted Kennedy's recent diagnosis. But the very obvious point she was making was simply that when he was assassinated in June of 1968, RFK was (still) campaigning for the Democratic nomination; in other words, the current Hillary-Obama face-off does not represent the first time that the Democratic nomination has been contested into the month of June.
Facing overwhelming sentiment that she should throw in the towel and give the Democrats as much time as possible to unify behind Obama as their nominee - an eventuality that all but Clinton herself seem to have accepted is a foregone conclusion - it is perfectly understandable that she would be grasping at straws right about now.
And granted, she did grasp at an unfortunate one, but let's face it: there was no offense intended, and none, really, should be taken.
