Political Foot-In-Mouth Disease Rampant

Now that the presidential candidates have completed their obligatory salute to the American military, whether the wars have been justified or not, it's time to get back to the business of waging war on each other. They also have some major fence-mending to do.

Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, still clinging to the hope that the Democratic nomination is within her reach, continues to dig a hole for herself the size of Long Island. In an interview with the editorial board of the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader newspaper in South Dakota (where she hopes to win another primary), she said the following:

"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".

Clinton is referring, of course, to that night nearly 40 years ago when another New York senator who was running for President was gunned down in a Los Angeles hotel ballroom. She just happened to say it a few days after Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts--the only Kennedy brother who got to live a normal life--was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. To say that the Kennedy family has seen enough tragedy in their lives is an understatement.

This isn't the first time Clinton has brought up RFK's assassination. Time magazine said on its website that Clinton said about the same thing a few months ago in an article they published.

The senator's unfortunate remark also implied that her main rival, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, is an assassination target for the simple fact that he is an African-American running for president. Both have had Secret Service protection since the campaign began. In Clinton's case, she's had it ever since she became First Lady.

Clinton has apologized for what she said, and Obama has accepted. But it does put Robert Kennedy Jr. in a spot. You see, he is RFK's son and a Clinton supporter, which makes him an anomaly in the Kennedy family--most of whom are supporting Obama.

Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican nominee, has been having his own problems with pastors afflicted with bigotry. Or he did until he cut them loose: John Hagee, who once said something about how, in Biblical terms explaining the Holocaust, Hitler was the hunter and people of the Jewish faith were his prey, pushing them to move to Israel. And there's also Rod Parsley, who called Islam a violent religion.

The fact that both of these men of the cloth got less attention for their remarks than the Reverend Jeremiah Wright did implies that the words of two white preachers are more socially acceptable to mainstream voters than those of an African-American preacher. We certainly hope not.

We're not letting Obama off the hook. In an interview seen on ABC's Good Morning America, he told critics of his wife Michelle to "lay off". Excuse me? She became a public figure the moment her husband announced her candidacy, especially since she made those comments at a campaign stop in Milwaukee about finally being proud of America. It's nice to defend your spouse's honor. Based on what we've been able to see, though, Michelle Obama doesn't appear to be a fragile creature that needs to be defended. Just ask Hillary Clinton.

The road to the White House for any candidate is littered with mines of stupid statements, unsavory characters and bad timing. The person who gets through this unscathed is rare, but the value of letting the voters see how you really operate is incalculable.