By Pamela Gentry, Senior Political Producer

Photograph by Otis P. Motley

Posted May 27, 2008 – This long holiday weekend has kept Sen. Hillary Clinton on the

defensive, explaining away her reference to the June 1968 assignation of Sen. Robert Kennedy as her reason for remaining in the race.   

In other words, something could happen that would force or eliminate her rival Sen. Barack Obama from the race, and if she were to quit, who would the Dems have to carry on?  [But she says this was not her rationale … She says the only reason for her reference was that Kennedy was in the race in June – not that she would be around in the event that something happened to Barack.]

Is she serious? 

But putting all that aside, why is her campaign blaming Obama for the reactions to her comments?  It’s not as if this is the first time she’s alluded to a tragedy befalling Obama. It’s just that this time, when she was speaking to the editorial board of The Argus Leader of Sioux Falls, S.D., that it created media frenzy.

I recall her campaign dropping similar hints to columnist Robert Novak back in December, 2007, and he reported that the Clinton campaign had “scandalous information” that would be harmful to the junior senator and force him from the race.   

Clinton has also made it a practice of using code words, like “working-class” for “poor White folks,” whom she maintains won’t vote for Obama. Even one of her staunch supporters, Rep. Charles Rangel  (D-N.Y.), urged her to stop with the “poor White people” comments. 

And now, even after having eliminated all the other men who sought the Democratic nomination, she and her husband are charging sexism and unfair media coverage as the reason she trails her rival.

But this latest “spin” on the assassination gaffe tops them all: blaming Obama for something she said.

This is what she said: “You know, 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.”

So some folks thought she was back to her coded messages again, and this message sounded like she was implying that her competitor might be harmed. 

If she wasn’t suggesting that, why not come clean and say so?  In a letter she sent to The New York Daily News, she wrote: “I pointed out, as I have before, that both my husband’s primary campaign, and Senator Robert Kennedy’s, had continued into June. Almost immediately, some took my comments entirely out of context and interpreted them to mean something completely different — and completely unthinkable.”

On Sunday, her campaign continued to pounce on the Obama camp rather than offer up an apology.  Howard Wolfson, a Clinton spokesman said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” that “it was unfortunate and unnecessary, and in my opinion, inflammatory, for the Obama campaign to attack Senator Clinton on Friday for these remarks, without obviously knowing the full facts or context.”

But it looks like the Kennedy family isn’t buying it either.  The New York Post reports that the Kennedys are infuriated by Clinton’s remarks.  They quote a family member as saying, “That comment may be the last nail in her campaign’s coffin.”

 Admitting the family’s priority is the health of the ailing senator, the Post reports an insider saying, “I think people really felt that a line was crossed.”

“She no longer has only her husband to blame for the ill-chosen comments coming from her camp,” another family member told the Post. 

Her widely perceived insensitivity couldn’t have come at a worse time, close to the 40th anniversary of Robert Kennedy’s death. 

This isn’t the first time Clinton has created ill will with the Kennedy family. It’s believed the endorsements by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) and daughter of President John Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy of Obama were prompted by Clinton’s earlier comments that the Civil Rights Act was President Lyndon Johnson’s doing.  In essence, it diminished John F. Kennedy’s role as well as that of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Over the weekend, Obama gave the commencement address at Wesleyan University, filling in for the patriarch of the Kennedy family, Ted Kennedy, who was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor earlier in the week.

Obama spoke to the graduates on the lawn of the campus and called for the young graduates to commit to public service, a similar call made by the late John F. Kennedy in his 1961 inaugural address. 

Obama continues to stay above the fray, letting his campaign manger, David Axelrod, respond to Clinton’s chargers.  Axelrod told reporters that the incident is over and that Obama’s campaign in ready to move on. 

On to the primary races in Puerto Rico this coming weekend, then to South Dakota and Montana which, on Tuesday, June 3, will be the last states to vote.

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