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how hillary should apologize
msnbc's david schuster (who also voices the muppet bert from sesame street) is using his time on air this afternoon tolecture hillary clinton on how to give an apology. (perhaps clinton should look to schuster's own example from earlier this year, when -- after he suggested thatclinton's campaign was pimping out daughter chelsea -- he needed 192 otherwords before he got to "i'm sorry.")
while most of the country (including theobama campaign) has moved past this unfortunate clinton remark from lastfriday (where she inadvisedly used the assination of rfk as an example of campaigns that have run well into june) schuster and msnbc are still embroiled in an effort to twist clinton's words to mean something much more ominous than she intended.
yes, clinton misspoke. terribly. i don't disagree with that. neither did she. she came out almost immediately and admitted as much. she expressed regret, especially to the kennedy family.
even randell beck, the executive editor of the argus leader -- the person in the room, the person conducting the interview with clinton -- did not read any ulterior motive into clinton's comments. still, the media (mainlymsnbc's keith olbermann and others, like schuster) turned her comment into something completely ridiculous and frightening.
the problem now becomes not that clinton made an egregious error, but that people like schuster continue to not only remind us of it, but remind us of their own sickening interpretation of it.
Comments (11)
You seemto run many ofyourwords together. Is this foreffect?
Hillary did not apologize to Obama, and probably should have.
May 27, 2008 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is Obama's wife speaking...
""I don't lose sleep over it because the realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station,"
Should she apologize to Barry also? Clinton merely spoke of RFK campaigning in June when he was killed. The spousal unit takes it to a whole new level, don't you think?
May 28, 2008 12:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Do you think the "apology" was sufficient:
"I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family, was in any way offensive," Clinton said.
If you think that's an apology then she has.
If you think she doesn't owe anyone one then it was a sufficient non-apology and simply a regret.
May 27, 2008 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
See the post above your first post here. What do you think about Michelle Obama's statement? What was the level of "damage" caused when she hypothesized Obama's death?
May 28, 2008 12:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think Michelle's statement is probably something they've talked about many times in private and has probably apologized to him for thinking/saying it. We are all aware that there is a family or "blood" thingy that exists, example being that I could probably call my sister an asshole but would knock you off your barstool it you said it...see what I mean?
May 28, 2008 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
The media will stop talking about it when everyone else does.
Most of us at TPM have moved on.
Best not to engage Hillary supporters who want to instigate more bile.
May 27, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps that should read "some of us at TPM" because there are some of us who are not looking to beat the dead horse, but rather put this incident along with so many others into the perspective that is so richly deserved.
As many of us begin writing our Clinton campaign obituaries -- if not eulogies (I don't think there will many of those written) -- this episode will be one of the mile posts we'll reference along the way.
Hillary's habit of not apologizing for her mistakes is one of the many things we'll look at when determining what went wrong.
May 27, 2008 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
she has said enough, and any nearly sane person should conclude to do the same thing.
outlandish, lurid interpretations of every word, sentence or pause or inflection do not further much of anything
obama said he saw dead people at a memorial day event, hey, he apparently confused veterans day and memorial day, and some will make him into someone not in tune with these peculiar holidays we have, like valentines day
May 27, 2008 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess in light of this:
with this from you:
I guess you ruled yourself out of that group you call "sane."
May 27, 2008 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
"you seemto run many ofyourwords together"
yeah, not sure why that happened. didn't look that way when i typed it in.
"most of us at TPM have moved on"
i.e. you're behind the times. and yet, this post is about THE NEWS MEDIA still talking about the story (today) not TPM. the reaction to this post was similar on pro-hillary sites: we don't pay attention to that, or we're on to something else.
"do you think the apology was sufficient?"
yep. i do. i think clinton waded into dangerous territory with the comment in the first place. to suggest in any way that it was aimed at, or intended for obama would have (i think) made it worse. and the media would have used THAT to suggest she actually DID mean something ominous.
May 27, 2008 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've thought that same thing and I agree that she can't apologize to Obama even if she wanted to because it would be admitting to false-implications. BUT (there's always a big but isn't there :) I think she should have said she was sorry right from the get-go. I do not take the "I regret" statement to mean anything but that she regrets it because she got caught saying it not that she is sorry that it offended anyone. I'm just a firm believer in putting your big-girl (big-boy) panties on and apologizing when it's needed. And in this case, I think it ruffled enough feathers she should have said "I'm sorry if I offended..." right from the beginning.
May 28, 2008 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
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