Hillary Rodham Clinton and the (Real) Assassination Talk
May 25, 2008 by womensspace
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MAY 4–A Louisiana college student has been charged with threatening the life of Hillary Clinton, whom the man said he would kill when she visited Baton Rouge. Richard Wargo, a 19-year-old Louisiana State University freshman, was arrested yesterday after he allegedly told a fellow student that he wanted to commit an act of terrorism and wanted to know if the classmate was interested in participating. The planned terror act, Wargo told the other student last month, would be a “national event” and mentioned Clinton’s name when asked if it was politically motivated, according to the below search warrant. Clinton is scheduled to speak tomorrow in Baton Rouge in connection with the National Conference of Black Mayors gathering. When Wargo’s classmate told him that an attack on Clinton would make her even more popular, he responded, according to the warrant, “True, but have you ever heard of a dead president?” Wargo, a physics major, was arrested after his classmate yesterday contacted university police and reported his statements. During a search last night of Wargo’s dormitory room, investigators seized a laptop computer, cell phone, and several containers of marijuana, according to an inventory sheet. Charged with terrorizing and an arson rap, Wago is being held on $1 million bond at the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office, where the mug shot at right was taken. (3 pages)
Link to Smoking Gun
My earlier post about this
Posted in 2008 Presidential Election, Erasure of Feminist History, Erasure of Feminist Leaders, Erasure of Women's Lives, Feminism, Heroes, Male Terrorism, Sisterhood, War on Women | 7 Comments
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While I appreciate the overdue and needed nod to an assassination attempt against Clinton, I think the word “real” in the title is problematic.
There were enough credible threats against Obama that he had Secret Service protection far earlier (without already having it for other reasons) than any other presidential candidate.
Playing Oppression Olympics on the assassination issue is playing right into Republican hands. Frankly, “the powers that be” would like them both to go away, and aren’t picky in either case as to whether or not that involves death.
Odanu, I was focusing in this post narrowly on the media’s absurd and ugly response to Clinton’s mention of RFK’s assassination in light of the media’s having all but ignored a a threat “real” enough that it resulted in an arrest and very serious charges.
To me, your saying that Obama had secret service protection “far earlier” is to invoke the “Oppression Olympics”, and it completely misses the point that I have been making.
Clinton’s comment had nothing to do with Obama, that was media nonsense (destructive and irresponsible as all heck, but still nonsense). There were no “Olympics” to play there and certainly there are none that I care to play now, in the past, today, in the future. Clinton’s comments were deliberately, consciously, hatefully spun in a way that erases her own experience *of* this particular assassination attempt. Her comment had zero to do with Obama and mine has zero to do with Obama. Mine have to do with a death threat to a woman presidential candidate that a whole lot of people seem to want to skip over quickly, blow off, brush off. No. Not here. I will not do that.
“To me, your saying that Obama had secret service protection “far earlier” is to invoke the “Oppression Olympics”…”
To me, too. There was no comparison being made in the blog post.
I still see the word “real” as implying that there is no credible threat of assassination against Obama, when clearly there is. One of the specters of privilege is that we are often blind to things that are obvious to those who are not privileged, and I have watched both sides in this debate be blind to the bullshit dished out to the other side.
Soon after Hillary’s speech, which may or may not have been a deliberate raising of the specter of assassination (personally, I think it was a mountains from molehills issue), a Fox News “analyst” said clearly and openly (after — probably deliberately — conflating Obama and Osama), that “both of them” (Obama and Osama) should be assassinated. The response of the other analyst? “Tell us what you really think”. Har Har Har.
Nope. No one wants that N****r dead. And, of course, no one (except for well armed and deeply prejudiced “hard working Americans, white Americans”) listens to Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage or any of the other shock jocks when they spew their eliminationist shit.
No one is saying that Clinton’s coverage has been anything close to fair. But focusing on “zinging” Obama instead of trying to figure out how to stop the Republicans from using dirty politics (like pitting two historic, excellent Democratic candidates against each other in a vicious match of minutiae) to steal a third Presidential election in a row.
Any rhetoric that encourages one nominee’s supporters to say about the other nominee (”I’d vote for Barr, or McCain, or Green, or Flying Spaghetti Monster, ANYONE but that so-and-so”) is a step toward handing the election to McCain and his handlers, and thus hastening the US’s slide toward irrelevancy and permanent second-class nation and police state. I guess I’m just sick of the Republican branded and encouraged blindness that is turning people who should know better into parrots repeating the Republican party line.
It is just as much a problem for a democrat to say “Hillary is a castrating bitch and I won’t vote for her” (or the many politically correct variants thereof) as to say “Obama is a *trifling* n****r who speaks well” (or the politically correct variants thereof). Both accusations are both untrue and inherently prejudicial.
It has amazed and horrified me to see both feminists and anti-racists quick to draw attention to slights against their own candidate, while minimizing and pooh-poohing slights against the other. Meanwhile McCain commits egregious campaign errors which should totally disqualify him from serious consideration — without comment.
Yeah, I have a dog in this fight. I do prefer Obama. My choice is based largely on his community activism background and the consensus building methodology that springs from that background. I identify with that and would appreciate that sort of decision making process, even if greatly diluted, brought to the highest office in the US. Hillary’s method of decision making seems to be a lot more “top-down” and “I decide, you implement”, which is not a bad style, but not my preferred style. That said, I would be proud to see either one of them in the Oval Office, and I will cast my ballot for one or the other of them.
This long primary season, with all its nastiness, has me sick and tired of the whole thing… and I’m a political junkie. How many people who are not political junkies have stopped watching because they see the trainwreck (a stolen election bought on the back of not-so-subtle manipulation of the electorate’s basest prejudices) and can’t bear to look.
Rant over. Sorry for borrowing your space to post it. I know you’re running, too, but though you have my support, I have to put my vote where it has the best chance to block McSame from ever, ever, ever having his finger on the button. And that will either be Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton. (but I still love you, even when we disagree) :-}
The winks (except the very last one) were a formatting error.
Odanu, my use of the word “real” was in reference to the suggestion that Hillary Clinton was talking about Obama in her comments about RFK’s assassination (which is in my mind just absurd). That’s “made-up” (i.e., not “real”) assassination talk vs. a real assassination attempt.
But, I’m not up to saying any more than that. I’m so done talking about this stuff. At some point, the eyes glaze over, the mind wanders, it seems pointless.
Sorry about the overzealousness of WordPress so far as smilies. Geez!
Sometimes blogs and the weird aspects of this campaign just defy common sense.
For those of you who don’t actually remember history, it would be quite logical for Hillary Clinton to think about the seriousness of RFK’s assassination, and how close and far in time it would be for both her personally and Obama. I have never had much love for the Kennedy family, the men were creepy sexists, they were ruthless, and to quote a memorable bumper sticker alluding to Ted Kennedy “No one drowned at Watergate.”
Be that as it may, for someone Hillary Clinton’s age, the anniversary of Robert Kennedy’s assassination is deeply meaningful, given the incredible woman hating abuse that regularly comes Clinton’s way. All candidates that are not white straight or male do have more to worry about.
I don’t think Hillary was thinking of Obama at all, I think she was inwardly thinking about her own memories of RFK, and about what happened later to both her and her husband.
Since we don’t often choose the simplest answers to things, we miss the point of what one woman’s candidacy with a major party for the very first time actually means.
I think any death threat is very serious. As a lesbian, I’ve dealt with our institutions and people threatened constantly by right wing groups. My church in San Francisco was fire bombed in the night, and death threat letters were in the mail boxes of people I personally knew. All of this isn’t going to make the nightly news very often and you certainly don’t know about the number of gay pastors of MCC churches killed violently, the number of our churches burned to the ground, and the horrors of what the christian right wing churches do to their gay or lesbian members.
Any minority group that danes to assert itself will face incredible hatred, and this will be in the form of death threats, fire bombs and out right murder.
I know it’s fashionable for the Xers to skip along merrily and write off the early feminists. Hillary Clinton’s every word is supposedly imbued with sinister meaning, but again, I believe she is simply remembering her own past. We don’t allow candidates that kind of complexity, and we make them into the cardboard fakes they eventually become. The settlers are always more self-rightous these days than the pioneers who break new ground.
It is fashionable to see Hillary Clinton’s campaign as never perfect, and hard for younger women to get it. It’s just the way patriarchy is.