Urban Thought Collective

So, Senator Hillary Clinton brought up the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy while explaining her decision to stay in the race against presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama. “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 the race. Please….hanging around in case Obama is killed? What type of sick person thinks like that?

Clinton continues to bring the business of politics to a new low with each day of her campaign. She has lied to the public, gone negative beyond belief, and said totally outrageous things. She has now shamefully insulted the Kennedy and Obama families respectively.

What’s even more troubling for me is that Clinton said almost precisely the same thing in an interview with Time magazine in March: “Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A.”

Those comments were not a slip of the tongue. Referencing the RFK assassination is all part of the Clinton game plan. Her campaign has become dependent on fear-mongering and desperation. At this point, she is clutching at straws.

It is clear that this is now all about Hillary and not the welfare of our nation.

Clinton’s comments come a week after Mike Huckabees’s tasteless and bizarre joke at the National Rifle Association Convention, suggesting that Obama could possibly be shot.

Obama has received death threats from the outset of his historic campaign, making it necessary for him to obtain secret service protection in May 2007, an earlier stage than any other serious presidential candidate. It’s not out the realm of possibility for some deranged individual or group to take Clinton’s words as a signal to harm Obama.

Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Black Panther leaders Lil’ Bobby Hutton, Matt Clark, Bunchy Carter and Fred Hampton are just some of the black social and political activists whose lives were ended due to brutal assassinations. For the black community, the assassination of our leaders is a real fear that unfortunately we have to live with each time a leader arises who strikes fear in the dominant culture.

This latest comment by Clinton demonstrates that its time for the leadership of the Democratic Party and the uncommitted superdelegates to step in and tell Clinton its time to stand down and get out of the race. With each day that she continues her madness, she taints an already tarnished Clinton legacy and advances the theory that she is waiting it out for something tragic to occur.

Again I ask, what type of sick person speaks like that? Certainly not our next Commander-in-Chief.

Najee Ali is Executive Director of Project Islamic H.O.P.E, a national civil rights organization that advocates for the human rights of oppressed people regardless of race, gender or religion. He was selected by Wave Newspapers and Our Weekly Newspaper as one of the 25 most influential black leaders in Los Angeles. More information is available at: www.islamichope.org.