I've been losing interest in the campaign, so I'm way late on this, but isn't it obvious that the berserk over-reaction by Obama supporters to Hillary mentioning that Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968 is in part a projection of their own dark fascination with the idea of Obama being martyred before the Chicago pol can disappoint their messianic hopes?
As I wrote in February:
For several weeks, I've been noticing that a lot of Obama supporters seem to fantasize about their man being assassinated. The creepy NYT article, "In Painful Past, Hushed Worry About Obama," only confirms this hunch. To be crass, I think a lot of Obamaniacs are fondling this fantasy, unable to keep themselves from noticing that a slain Obama would provide them with an iconic image of great usefulness. The best thing that ever happened to the left in the U.S. in the second half of the 20th Century was that John F. Kennedy was assassinated (by a far leftist, of course, but for complicated reasons everybody who was anybody acted like the opposite was true).
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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Clinton's comparison was accurate in many ways. Both RFK and Obama are empty-vessel liberals surrounded by the momentum of good intentions. Having said that, I'm a Obama supporter given the likely presidential candidates. The quality of the supporters and advisors in often more important then the candidate, and McCain's are all wingnuts.
Those of us on the right should remember Kennedy: at best a middling president, who was turned into a hero by assassination.
People can project all their hopes and dreams onto a dead man, and he will never do anything to disappoint them.
The death of candidate or President Obama would be a disaster.
Why does Sailer continue to pretend
1) Oswald shot JFK
2) Oswald was a leftist
Each time he does this, we laugh at him.
And then go back and re-ponder every time he's said something that seemed to make actual sense.
McCain would be marginally better than Obama, because he'd be less likely to expand our current entitlements, but this is a pathetic choice for our country. I am right-of-center politically, but I would rather have an intelligent, competent left-of-center leader like Australia's current PM than either of our two candidates. Heck, I'd take Brazil's 4th grade educated president over our current candidates. At least he was smart enough to allow oil exploration offshore.
- Fred
One interesting possibility: Obama is a smoker, probably a heavy smoker, and since smokers start their habit in their teens or earlier, he has been pouring smoke into his lungs and nicotine into his bloodstream for about 30 years (which like many smokers has improved his speaking voice).
What would happen if during his presidency self-induced consequences of such actions occured?
His father died of substance abuse, after all.
Unless you're a Muslim (which I'm assuming Obama is not) its hard to be martyr to your own unnecessary actions.
And even if hopefully the worst doesn't happen, what will happen when he starts getting even smoker's cough?
Isn't it rather difficult to assassinate presidents and presidential candidates these days?
The tally:
FDR - one attempt
Truman - one attempt
Eisenhower - no attempts
Kennedy - one attempt
Johnson - no attempts
Nixon - two attempts
Ford - two attempts
Carter - one attempt
Reagan - one attempt
Bush I - one attempt
Clinton - one attempt
Bush II - one attempt
12 attempts on the last twelve Presidents. That is to say there are lots of federal agencies that have no real purpose but the Secret Service isn't one of them.
Notes: The FDR attempt killed the Chicago mayor. Truman was the target of an Puerto Rican hit team. Most assasins use pistols. Kennedy was unlucky enough to be the target of a rifleman. Carter's assasain was released for lack of evidence. The car bomb attempt on Bush I was just after he had left office. Francesco Duran tried to shoot Clinton (29 shots). Bush II was the target of a hand grenade.
Yeah. I've noticed a similar thing. Che is the one on everyone's shirts - not Fidel. And there's a lot more "Trotskists" running around and protest rallies than "Stalinists" (or "Breshnevists", for that matter).
Idealists want the guy who died young, and would have made everything perfect, and who would have finally "done socialism right, you know - really done it, for the good of The People". They like the young martyr a whole lot better than the guy who actually did get power, and turned out to be the same old grouchy boring repressive authoritarian leader, squashing dissent and busy with agricultural policy, as the guy he replaced.
I, too, have noticed a lot of my Obama-loving acquaintances worrying gravely over his safety in the face of the VRWC. I don't see it, myself. Even if he tries to ban guns the main response will be grumbling, even from the cold-dead-hands set. He's gotten away with everything else - his plan to turn American into a theocracy with himself as God's instrument, his referring to a six-on-one racial hate crime as "a fight", his slurs against his grandmother. His wife will continue to be a lightning rod for criticism. As his socialist policies mount, the two halves of his coalition will continue to get respectively angrier and guiltier, and the combination will grease the track will take as we slide into post-civilization and obscurity.
Spot on, ian. Castro vs. Guevara, Stalin vs. Trotsky, Nehru vs. Gandhi, Johnson vs. Kennedy, E. McCarthy vs. R. Kennedy, etc.
It would be interesting to redo history and prevent the assassination of Malcolm X or Martin Luther King (not both), and watch the survivor's views on integration vs. nationalism go down as a historical footnote.
isn't it obvious that the berserk over-reaction by Obama supporters to Hillary mentioning that Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968 is in part a projection of their own dark fascination with the idea of Obama being martyred before the Chicago pol can disappoint their messianic hopes?
No, not really. If anything there's been an underreaction. No presidential candidate has ever publicly discussed the possible assassination of his opponent.
said anything remotely like what Hillary did (as far as I know).
MLK was the ultimate example of how an assassination is fantastic PR.
No, not really. If anything there's been an underreaction. No presidential candidate has ever publicly discussed the possible assassination of his opponent.
Clinton didn't discuss the possible assassination of her opponent, either.
Unassassinator said...
> Spot on, ian.
Danke schoen!
rast_22 said ...
> No, not really. If anything
> there's been an underreaction.
> No presidential candidate has
> ever publicly discussed the
> possible assassination of his
> opponent.
I think that some parts of the nation have gone truly insane with Obama-mania.
What's the one thing we all learned in high school civics class about the RFK assassination? No, not that he was shot by a Muslim - I don't recall that being mentioned. It was that he was shot *right after he tied up the nomination* with his primary victory in California, which happened in mid-June. That classic historical bit of shared knowledge is what Hilary was referencing - she was saying that it isn't over till it's over, don't count her our yet, that we have three more weeks until the equivalent mid-June timeframe.
In young progressive circles, that I've seen, people have projected all sorts of Manichean Beelzebub-ness onto the Clintons, and it really does seem to be a collective mental illness. Geez. They were the heroes of the Left in the nineties, pushing "gays in the military" and universal healthcare, and now all of a sudden they are Dick Nixon, Bull Connor, and Jesse James all rolled into one. It seems like to me like clear evidence of the gradual leftward drift of our society, and it seems like a feverish hallucination. Just simmer *down*, y'all progressives ...
"What's the one thing we all learned in high school civics class about the RFK assassination? No, not that he was shot by a Muslim - I don't recall that being mentioned."
He was shot by a Christian. The kind of Christian that US Christians like to ignore.
How can he be Black Jesus if he isn't crucified?
More useful to the Movement dead or alive?
After all, some say a big economic collapse is coming. Just in time to happen on the black man's watch.
Obama-mania is fueled by the young fools who have been raised by the Internet in sanitary 99% white suburbs. It's Generation Z versus Generation X. Generation X is getting its first taste of being the old reactionary fogeys.
No, not that he was shot by a Muslim - I don't recall that being mentioned.
No, it wasn't mentioned. What *was* mentioned was that Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was a Palestinian Christian (Protestant, IIRC). (He may have converted to Islam in prison, but he was a Christian when he shot RFK.)
"Anonymous said...
Why does Sailer continue to pretend
1) Oswald shot JFK
2) Oswald was a leftist
Each time he does this, we laugh at him."
Because
1) He did
2) He was
And I'm laughing pretty hard at you.
Re: 11-22-63.
SS is Robert-Dallek-Lite in this regard. Dallek, if you recall, actually repeats the party line from about 11-25-63 word-for-word, even going so far as to claim anatomical absurdidties such as Kennedy being shot in the "back of the neck." So why do SS and RD both lie about this event? Because they are AMBITIODISHONEST, to rip of phrase from a peer's description of Kenneth Branagh, who was described at one time as being neither gay nor straight but "ambitiosexual."
"rob said...
Those of us on the right should remember Kennedy: at best a middling president, who was turned into a hero by assassination.
People can project all their hopes and dreams onto a dead man, and he will never do anything to disappoint them."
A more proximate cause for concern is Ted Kennedy. He's a gonner within the year, and already the press and his fellow Congressmen (you know, his pals like John McCain and Orrin Hatch) are lining up to say what a great guy he was. Look for a big push to re-introduce and pass the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill "For Teddy".
Nah, the hysteria was carefully whipped up by the Obama campaign. Hillary was just pointing out that the campaign in 68 continued into June. (BTW, same goes for 1980, when Ted Kennedy took on an incumbent president and fatally weakened him for the general!!)
He's an absolute scumbag. Obama, I mean.
If Michelle starts buying some life insurance,well sir,I'd be a little worried if I was Barry...
" ... isn't it obvious that the berserk over-reaction by Obama supporters to Hillary mentioning that Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968 is in part a projection of their own dark fascination with the idea of Obama being martyred before the Chicago pol can disappoint their messianic hopes?"
I agree.
Dying young and bright with promise forms such a central myth in our culture: James Dean, Marilyn, Princess Diana ...
But also look at the US political leaders who have been assassinated: Lincoln, JF Kennedy, MLK, Bobby Kennedy.
For a man who so insistently fictionalizes himself, it seems almost inevitable that Obama will weave himself into this tragic mythology.
I'm not an Obamanaut - but I hope this doesn't happen.
The best outcome of all would be that he serves one or two terms and that peoples' illusions about him are dispelled by the reality of his performance.
Furthermore, with Teddy's and Caroline's blessing, he has even made himself heir apparent to the Kennedys ...
This will not truly have success, I consider so.
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