Nefarious Hillary calls for assassination of Barack Obama?

A new low this week: The media is actually raising the specter that Hillary Clinton might actually “be hoping” for the assassination of Barack Obama. Every paper, site, or station that even showed this clip without immediately and truthfully considering its intent should be ashamed to think themselves journalists. What ever happened to context? Are we so wrapped up in our daily lives, so unable to hear a dissenting opinion, so angry about the state of our country that we can’t stop for a second to consider that nothing means what it means unless understood in context? The hegemony of the sound bite has rendered us subject to a lifetime of game show politics and media consumption.

Let’s take the comment for what it was: Part of a historical consideration on the appropriateness of a primary candidate to stay in the race beyond a certain point. The key idea she was trying to make is that June has been a point at which past candidates have still been in the race. The reference to her husband and then to Bobby Kennedy was part of a study in the month of June, NOT, as some may believe, in sticking around in a race “cause you just never know who might get whacked…wink…wink.”

Look, I ply my trade in the cut-throat world of big New York advertising, and understand the power of words. It was dumb to reference an assassination in an environment that has been unnecessarily charged with racial tones (many spun from the Hillary camp itself), but let’s not believe that Mrs. Clinton is dumb enough to think:

1) She could convince people to support her to stay in the race because the black guy could get whacked.
2) She wouldn’t get called back to the nomination anyway were something terrible to happen to Obama after a Hillary concession.

Sure, her best bet at this point is a cataclysmic event (e.g. the revelation of an Obama love affair with Ayman al-Zawahiri), but please save your brain cells for thoughts larger than the idea that she is hoping for the death of a United States Senator.