History Forum / General / British History / May 2008

Hi,

One association that Obama will not be a member of, and thus not
president: Yale's society (SAB)

Naive? He didn't get suckered by a bunch of neocons who put Israeli
interests ahead of US intrests.

He also wasn't the one who ignored warnings of an imminent attack, before
9/11.

As for McCain, he's turning into as big a liar as Bush and his handlers.

Did you know that he told a group of people that he did not vote for Bush in
2000, and then later reversed himself?

He used to criticise xian fundies as being divisive - now he's kissing up to
them for votes.

McCain has lost himself and he's going to lose ther coming election.

Yes, he is naive when he promised an unshakable commitment to Israel.
It seems no one learned the lessons from the Vietnam war. Leave them
alone and they will leave America alone.
A few years ago, there was a man who got his arm stuck below a boulder
in a hiking trip, there were no one around to help. After several day
of hunger, he cut off his arm to free himself and sought help. Without
cutting the arm, he would have died by hunger and dehydration.
The war in the Middle East is the same. The U.S. is bleeding with high
cost of war, energy, and health care. Oil price will reach $200 a
barrel or higher and gasoline will drain the budget of all middle
income Americans. Fuel for military operation will reach $500 billion
a year while people at home will go on riot because of hunger.
Eventually with plenty of U.S. dollars, China will be able to buy most
America assets and replace the U.S. government and congress with their
own puppets.
It is time for the U.S. to cut off a limb and set itself free from the
Israel boulder.

Clinton regrets RFK assassination remark By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press
Writer

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton quickly apologized Friday
after citing the June 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in defending
her decision to keep running for the Democratic presidential nomination
despite increasingly long odds.

"I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation
and in particular the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly
had no intention of that whatsoever," the former first lady said.

The episode occurred as Clinton campaigned in advance of the June 3 South
Dakota primary.

Responding to a question from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial board
about calls for her to drop out of the race, she said: "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. You know I just, I don't understand it," she said,
dismissing the idea of abandoning the race.

Clinton said she didn't understand why, given this history, some Democrats
were calling for her to quit.

Her remark about an assassination during a primary campaign drew a quick
response from aides to Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama.

"Senator Clinton's statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was
unfortunate and has no place in this campaign," said Obama spokesman Bill
Burton.

Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said the senator was only referring to her
husband and Kennedy "as historical examples of the nominating process going
well into the summer and any reading into it beyond that would be inaccurate
and outrageous."

She has said much the same thing before. In a March interview with Time
magazine, she said: "Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all
remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in
L.A. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June, also in
California. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly
unusual."

Within a couple hours of the South Dakota remarks drawing attention, Clinton
decided to make a personal apology.

"I was discussing the Democratic primary history and in the course of that
discussion mentioned the campaigns of both my husband and Senator (Robert)
Kennedy waged in California in June in 1992 and 1968 and I was referencing
those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go
into June. That's a historic fact," she said.

"The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator
Kennedy," she added, referring to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's recent diagnosis
of a brain tumor. "I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for
our entire nation and in particular the Kennedy family was in any way
offensive. I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever.

"My view is that we have to look to the past to our leaders who have
inspired us, give us a lot to live up to, and I'm honored to hold Senator
Kennedy's seat in the United States Senate from the state of New York and
have the highest regard for the Kennedy family," she said.

A close Obama ally in the Senate, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, said he
accepted her explanation.

"I know Hillary Clinton, and the last thing in the world she'd ever want is
to wish misfortune on anybody. She and Barack are friends," Durbin said. "It
was ... a careless remark and we'll leave it at that."

In the same editorial board meeting, Clinton said "it is unprecedented in
history" for political activists to urge a candidate to withdraw when his or
her chances of winning the nomination appear remote. In fact, such events
have happened several times.

Three months ago, Republican hopeful Mike Huckabee angered Sen. John McCain
by lingering in the GOP race after McCain's nomination seemed all but
assured. "Of course I would like for him to withdraw today," McCain said at
the time. A McCain campaign memo, which was leaked to the media, said the
campaign was being forced to spend money in upcoming primary states merely
to avoid being embarrassed by the underfunded Huckabee.

Clinton also said her campaign has had no discussions with Obama's aides
about her possibly becoming his vice presidential pick.

"It is flatly untrue and it is not anything I'm entertaining. It is nothing
I have planned and it is nothing I am prepared to engage in. I am still
vigorously campaigning."

The Obama campaign also dismissed reports that there were talks going on
between the two campaigns about putting Clinton on the ticket.

Obama has an almost 200-delegate lead over Clinton and is just 56 delegates
short of the number needed to clinch the nomination, making Clinton's goal
of catching him more difficult by the day. The primaries end June 3.

Clinton spent the day campaigning in South Dakota, which holds one of two
June 3 primaries. At stake are 15 delegates.

Recent reports suggested she may be discussing ways to end her campaign by
being offered the vice presidential slot underneath Obama, but she rejected
that and said she suspected the talk was coming from Obama aides.

"I would look to the camp of my opponent for the source of these stories,"
she said. "People have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa."

Two of those recent reports, however, were attributed by CNN and The New
York Times to supporters of Clinton.

Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a staunch Clinton supporter,
said Friday that she believes that if Obama becomes the nominee he should
select Clinton as his running mate.

"I think as this race has emerged each one of them has garnered a different
constituency and different states, and therefore when you put the two of
them together it forms, I believe, the strongest ticket," she told The
Associated Press in a phone interview.

"Women feel very strongly about Hillary and African-Americans feel very
strongly about Barack, and the election results show that, and the young
versus old, the higher educated versus the working person. ... All these
things are sort of separated out into one or the other so there is a logic
in combining the two constituencies."

___

Associated Press writer Erica Werner, Charles Babington and Laurie Kellman
in Washington contributed to this report.