s skippy the bush kangaroo: but an assassination joke on top of a malignant brain tumor report, now that's comedy!

skippy the bush kangaroo



Saturday, May 24, 2008

but an assassination joke on top of a malignant brain tumor report, now that's comedy!

q: which is more disgusting for making bad taste remarks about the tragedies befalling the kennedy family, michael savage or hillary clinton?

a: hillary, because as a democrat she should know better.

sure, michael savage played a montage of dead kennedy songs w/schwarzenegger's "it's not a brain tumor" line (from kindergarden cop) on his radio show the day after ted kennedy's terrible diagnosis was announced. but he's a repubbblican, and a screeching head pundit at that. we expect that sort of thing from slime like him.

but what was hillary's excuse?

“my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the california primary somewhere in the middle of june, right?” she said. “we all remember bobby kennedy was assassinated in june in california.”
when mrs. skippy heard that, she asked what the hell hillary was trying to say. "we've got a hit out on him and we're just waiting?" mrs. skippy mused.

indeed, it's hard to read that line and come up with any other interpretation. nytimes:

it was against that backdrop that mrs. clinton’s mentioning the kennedy assassination in the same breath as her own political fate struck some as going too far. representative james e. clyburn of south carolina, an uncommitted superdelegate, said through a spokeswoman that the comments were “beyond the pale.”

the speed at which the remarks were transmitted and reacted to illustrated the new reality candidates are grappling with in this year’s campaign, in which mr. obama’s own remarks about “bitter” small-town voters ricocheted around the internet.

mrs. clinton’s remarks were initially reported online by the new york post, whose reporters were not traveling with the clinton campaign but were instead watching a live video feed of the meeting with newspaper editors. its report quickly jumped to the drudge report, then whipped around the internet and on television, with outraged comments piling up on web sites.

campaign aides were taken aback by the quick reaction to her remarks, but then quickly realized that mrs. clinton had to backpedal. she then spoke to the traveling press corps for the first time in more than a week, at a supermarket here.

“earlier today i was discussing the democratic primary history and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and senator kennedy waged in california in june, in 1992 and 1968,” she said. “and i was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into june. that’s a historic fact.”
even if we took sen. clinton at her word about historical referencing, there would be no feasible reason to mention assassination if she's talking about candidacy races which lasted into june. maybe races that ended in june, but still...

the nypost points out how inappropriate it is to make assassination remarks about the first african american front-runner for a presidential candidacy:

any comments about assassination and the primary contest are especially sensitive because obama is the first african-american to advance so far in the race for the white house and he has faced threats, congressional sources have said.

the rev. al sharpton, who has already expressed anger toward clinton during the race, planned to spend his rally today at his harlem-based national action network addressing "a sense of outrage and dismay at statements made by" the new york senator, according to his office.
and tho sen. clinton has apologized, her remarks have stirred things up to the point where keith olbermann even has a special comment about it:

she actually said those words.

those words, senator?

you actually invoked the nightmare of political assassination.

you actually invoked the specter of an inspirational leader, at the seeming moment of triumph, for himself and a battered nation yearning to breathe free, silenced forever.

you actually used the word "assassination" in the middle of a campaign with a loud undertone of racial hatred - and gender hatred - and political hatred.

you actually used the word "assassination" in a time when there is a fear, unspoken but vivid and terrible, that our again-troubled land and fractured political landscape might target a black man running for president.

or a white man.

or a white woman!

you actually used those words, in this america, senator, while running against an african-american against whom the death threats started the moment he declared his campaign?
we have not been happy with how sen. clinton has conducted her campaign in recent weeks, but this takes the cake.

even if we give her the benefit of every doubt in the world, and assume she had no clue that what she was saying would be taken so intensely as negative, she is still incredibly insensitive to current events, ie, sen. kennedy's recently diagnosed brain tumor, as well as large amounts of racial divisiveness that her campaign has helped to propagate.

it will be interesting to see how she crawls out from under this one.

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posted by skippy at 11:35 AM |

8 Comments:

She has completely lost her mind. She'll never be president now. Not this year, not 2012, not ever...
commented by Blogger Jim Yeager, 12:54 PM PDT  
it's hard to read that line and come up with any other interpretation

Oh, please. You can be as hard on Clinton as you like in general, but this is a ridiculous statement.

Interesting that the media has devoted 10x the attention to this remark as it did to Mike Huckabee's remark which was a thousand times more offensive, a direct reference to someone attempting to shoot Obama.

And the comparison with Michael Savage, whose "stature" (is there an inverse of that word) rests entirely on his tastelessness and offensiveness, is equally absurd. Clinton made a true, if rather (to put it mildly) poorly chosen, statement; Savage was out to offend people, full stop.
commented by Blogger Left I on the News, 1:05 PM PDT  
"it will be interesting to see how she crawls out from under this one."

I seriously doubt that she will. The superdelegate's cell phones are buzzing this weekend.
commented by Anonymous Anonymous, 2:57 PM PDT  
That's why my blog response was to YouTube 'the homecoming queen's got a gun.' She "did it for Johnny."
commented by Blogger Kevin Hayden, 5:06 PM PDT  
Thank you Skippy...you blogged it thank you...
It was the lowest point of this whole thing..really horrible....it made me sick at my stomach...and my teenage son was horrified...and I really did not know what to tell him....

thank you for blogging it and the sooner that this whole process is done, the better...so that somehow we can come back together..
commented by Blogger enigma4ever, 7:40 PM PDT  
@ left i: Huckabee is not the one running just behind the person that's the implied target for death; he's a left behind has-been on the other side.

On the plus side, it's not a bad thing to be compared to Bobby Kennedy, an interpretation that no one seems to be noticing.
commented by Blogger daveawayfromhome, 8:46 PM PDT  
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/05/why-krugman-i-1.html
commented by Anonymous Anonymous, 6:49 PM PDT  
I disagree, Skip.

If you recall, RFK didn't enter the race until well into April (he has just started running when King was assasinated).

Her reference was inartful, but quite accurate. Kennedy was on the verge of grasping the nomination at the last second from McCarthy.
commented by Blogger Carl, 4:37 PM PDT  

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