The firestorm over Hillary Clinton’s mention of the RFK’s assassination seems overblown to me — I don’t see any reason to believe she was bringing it up to suggest that Barack Obama would be assassinated. The problem is the misleading comparisons she was making to 1968 and especially 1992, which were debunked in the New York Times yesterday (see also Andrew Sullivan and Atrios [can’t find link] among others):
Speaking to The Argus Leader of Sioux Falls, S.D., she added: “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.”
Critics seized on the comments, with some accusing her of suggesting that she was staying in the race because tragedy might strike Mr. Obama.
In her letter to The News, Mrs. Clinton 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.”
…In her letter to The News, Mrs. Clinton wrote: “I want to set the record straight: I was making the simple point that given our history, the length of this year’s primary contest is nothing unusual.”
The campaigns she cited, however, began much later than this one did, and, in 1992, Mr. Clinton unofficially locked up the nomination in March, when his last serious opponent dropped out.
Today, the Times went even further, devoting a whole “Check Point” article to revisiting what happened in 1992:
The news media’s attention focused on Mrs. Clinton’s invocation of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy after the California primary in June 1968. But she also cited the 1992 contest that ended with Bill Clinton’s nomination.
“My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary,” Mrs. Clinton told the paper’s editorial board, “somewhere in the middle of June.”
But for weeks before that June 2 contest, few doubted that Mr. Clinton would be the party’s nominee, including those involved with the campaign of his remaining challenger, former Gov. Jerry Brown of California.
“Even if it wasn’t technically finished, it was clear to everybody involved that it was over well before June,” Steve McMahon, a media strategist for Mr. Brown in the 1992 race, said Monday in an interview.
The same caveat was even included in the initial Times report on Hillary’s comments, though Terry McAuliffe was quoted making the same point without correction earlier this month. Still, this is a positive development. It’s not enough to simply fact-check a claim once. It needs to be done over and over again.