Booth...Oswald...Hillary?

Many pundits have written that today's politics seem to be far more vicious and personal now than in the past.  It's perfectly normal to say your political opponent is wrong.  It's something else to say that he is knowingly a traitor to our country and is acting with malice aforethought to ensure its military defeat, as both Democrats and Republicans have said of the other side in the past two years.  It's even worse to entertain the thought that these accusations might, in actual fact, be true.

Recently, we've seen the next step in the politics of personal destruction famously honed to perfection by the Clintons, if not actually pioneered by them.  And once again, it's the Clintons themselves on whom the consequences are backfiring.

The New York Post reported Hillary as saying:

"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 was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

As the impossibility of Hillary actually defeating Barack Obama for the nomination according to the current rules as written becomes clear, and therefore comes into collision with the observed fact that Clintons never admit defeat, we get to see the enriching display of the Irresistible Force meeting the Immovable Object.  Clinton can't win; but Clintons don't lose.  What to do?

Well, you take things one day at a time, naturally, and see what happens.  For that to work, there has to be a rationale for continuing the campaign each day.  If you can't win, why bother?

That's why she has put such effort into seating the delegations from Michigan and Florida, contrary to her earlier promises, to secure her a few more delegates; and why she is hammering on the importance of the popular vote, where there's still a chance she may outscore Obama.  To these strategies she wished to add an appeal to historical precedent: other people have campaigned on into July, why can't I?

And in truth, it's a free country.  As long as she can still write checks that don't bounce and convince people to hold signs with her name on them, she has every right to campaign just as long as she pleases.  If Lyndon LaRouche can run for president eight times, including from prison, then why can't a sitting Senator do the same?

But then there's this gaffe.  Half the blogosphere is accusing Hillary of wishing Obama dead and demanding her head in return for this outrage.

For those who are not Democrats, this situation is hysterical; the hypocrisy and dishonesty of both sides is a sight funnier than anything you see on late-night TV.

For the last twenty years, there have been scores of accusations against the Clintons that they've arranged for the deaths of people who were in their way.  Vince Foster committed a very strange suicide; was it arranged to prevent him from testifying against her in Whitewater?  There've been untimely deaths of Arkansas state troopers that protected Clinton as governor; perhaps they knew too much about his activities in the gubernatorial back seat?  And what of the "bimbo eruptions" that ended in suicide too?  There are books, documentaries, and any number of websites claiming that the Clintons, quite literally, will stop at nothing to seek power.

For all these years, liberals have vehemently consigned such tales to the tinfoil-hat brigade.  Surely nobody could have a repeat conspiracy to commit murder over so many years without it coming out?  It's ridiculous to even think about.  In fact, Hillary made almost exactly the same statement about assassination months ago, and nobody thought anything special of it at the time.

So now they expect us to seriously think that Hillary is plotting the assassination of a presidential nominee?  Set aside any issues of the Clinton's morals - we all know they haven't any.  No doubt this campaign is the most important thing in their lives - Bill has sacrificed his legacy and his status as the "First Black President" in its service.  But they never lose sight of their goal.

It's inconceivable that they would dare think of such a thing - not because it's wrong, but because the risks of being caught are simply too great.  Whenever a murder occurs, the first question the police asks is, who benefits?  If Obama is gunned down, nobody would even have to ask.

No, to argue that Clinton is trying to have Obama assassinated is absurd and for Hillary's enemies on the left to argue it simply makes them look like clowns.  But to try to hang Hillary for wishing him dead is even more bizarre.  Of course she does!

And no doubt the same thing is true of Obama - does anyone imagine him to be so pure as not to have fallen asleep some night dreaming of waking the next morning to the news of Hillary's heart failure?  It's part of the human condition; we've all wished someone dead at one time or another.

For the liberals to even make this argument illustrates that they believe Hillary to be capable of murder.  Just as with complaints of the Clinton's venality, or their lack of decency and restraint in campaigning, or their willingness to use dirty tricks, or any number of concerns that have been previously leveled and ignored, the conservatives can now chuckle, "We've said this for twenty years, and only now you catch on!"