Barack Obama news : Hillary Clinton is her own worst enemy

Context, as in "you've taken my words out of context," is the last refuge of a politician caught with foot in mouth. That's where Hillary Clinton is today, alternately explaining and apologizing. But with both feet in her mouth, she doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Gravity is the toughest opponent of all, even for a Clinton hellbent on a comeback.

Of course the meaning of words can be distorted if they are lifted from their surroundings. The problem for Clinton is that her reference to the assassination to Robert F. Kennedy is just as outlandish when everything she said before and after is taken into account.

There is no question she was citing the RFK murder of 40 years ago in the spirit of "anything can happen" and thus as a reason she should stay in the race against Barack Obama.

Which means she was thinking of murder as a momentum changer. Not a pretty thought in any context.

But the full context works against Clinton for a larger reason, too. The assassination remark is the latest evidence that her increasingly erratic campaign suffers from a severe case of split personality disorder.

One day it's a focused machine, gobbling up votes in numbers big enough to stave off Obama's nomination triumph. The next day the same machine spews out gaffes and B.S. as though it's been sabotaged.

Dr. Jekyll, meet Mr. Hyde.

Consider the last three months. Fresh off big popular vote wins in Ohio and Texas in March, she shot herself in the foot with a tall tale about coming under sniper fire during her trip to Bosnia as First Lady. Only when she became the subject of ridicule, with a videotape showing her smiling and accepting flowers from a child in Bosnia, did she confess to being wrong.

In April, her top strategist, Mark Penn, was caught working both sides of a key issue in the upcoming Pennsylvania primary. Among Penn's private clients was the government of Colombia, which was pushing for approval of a free-trade agreement at the same time Clinton was denouncing the idea. When Clinton fired him, he was her second campaign honcho to get dumped.

May brought more of the same, even before the RFK reference. The day after disappointing results in Indiana and North Carolina, she trotted out the race card, saying "Senator Obama's support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again." She went on to landslide wins in West Virginia and Kentucky by tapping that very demographic.

The headline-grabbing blunders stopped her from scoring big gains against Obama, even though he was wounded by the Jeremiah Wright issue, his "bitter" comments about small-town values and growing concerns about his kumbaya foreign policy overtures. The delegate deficit is a hurdle for her, but she had a potent argument about his vulnerability in the general election.

Instead of cashing in, Clinton repeatedly stepped on her own story. And with finger-wagging Bubba piping up with frequent off-message zingers, the prospect of the restoration of the Clinton presidency has been a political wash at best.

She's now so toxic she's probably doomed any hope of being named Obama's running mate. He didn't want her to start with; now he won't have to take her.

This one matters most because the notion of Obama being assassinated has been much discussed. He is the first black candidate with a real chance to be President, and, not incidentally, received the endorsement of Ted and Caroline Kennedy, making him the symbolic heir to the Camelot legend that was twice felled by assassin bullets. She couldn't have picked a worse point.

Still, myths aside, Obama is looking weak. In addition to Clinton's pounding him in key states, President Bush and Republican nominee John McCain have taken turns using Obama as a piñata. His yes-we-can crusade has been reduced to explaining why he wants to meet personally with the leader of Iran, whose militias are killing American troops in Iraq and who pledges to wipe Israel off the map.

Obama's views on the Mideast are so muddled the appeasement label is starting to stick, but Clinton is in no position to benefit. That's the impact, full and final, of her mentioning murder in a political context.

HILLARY EXPOSED

Hillary Clinton has a solu tion to her Tuzla problem - let's talk about Rev. Je remiah Wright some more.
On the day after the CBS News aired video making a hash of Sen. Clinton's claim to have landed "under sniper fire" in Tuzla, Bosnia in 1996, she raised for the first time the issue of Barack Obama's relationship to Rev. Wright.
In this, she followed a Clinton family pattern so well-established it's almost boring: Misrepresent the truth as convenient - then, when caught, go on the offensive.
This method served the Clintons well during eight years in the White House, when Democrats exalted them for winning by any means fair or foul. But now that the Clintons' dark arts of spin and remorseless ambition are being turned on their fellow partisans, Democrats seem stunned - like the tiger handler who can't believe his big cat turned on him.
Dante couldn't have devised a more appropriate ring of hell as punishment for the party than spending a few more months with the Clintons in a dispiriting slog of a nomination battle.
Even though Tuzla has been plastered on TV news the last few days, it's unclear how much the fracas will damage Hillary. Those voters who don't already think she's untrustworthy are either blinkered partisans or haven't been paying attention (since roughly 1992). In a Gallup poll this month, 53 percent thought Hillary wasn't honest and trustworthy, while Obama and John McCain were rated trustworthy by more than 2-1 margins.
Since Hillary isn't running a character campaign, yet another nick on her credibility isn't very telling.
But Tuzla does hurt - by exposing her Walter Mitty life as a first lady who, in largely ceremonial trips abroad, apparently imagined herself engaged in high-stakes diplomacy.
On her trips, everyone else saw a feminist icon and international celebrity cheering the troops, greeting children, and meeting with local women - while she thought she was the Clinton administration's secret Kissinger.
Or that's how she's portrays herself now - out of sheer necessity: Clinton needs something to back up her famous "3 a.m." ad hitting Obama for his lack of national security credentials.
What she could legitimately argue is that she was at the center of power for two terms and knows what the pressure is like in a way Obama can't. Anyone reading between the lines would know her proverbial 3 a.m. calls had to do with the fallout from her husband's perjurous denials of his dalliance with a White House intern.
She needed something more - hence her laughable exaggerations about helping bring peace to North Ireland, negotiating a way way out of Kosovo for refugees and running under sniper fire in Tuzla.
Those claims could all be rebutted in print, and had been. But it took video of her - with no helmet or flak jacket - smiling and greeting a 8-year-old girl on the tarmac to destroy her story in an instant.
The CBS footage is the blue dress of the Hillary campaign, the lock-down evidence that can't be spun away.
Hillary's camp claims she misspoke. This abuses the term. Misspeaking is mixing something up - not manufacturing a new memory.
Of course, memory plays tricks on everyone. (Not for nothing do the Russians say, "No one lies like an eyewitness.") But being anywhere near hostile fire as a civilian is a terrifying (and sometimes perversely exhilarating) experience that gets etched into memory. There's no forgetting it or making it up.

Report: Superdelegates concerned over Bosnia sniper story : CLINTON TACTICS TURN OFF SOME SUPERDELEGATES

At a time when Sen. Hillary Clinton is increasingly relying on superdelegates to vault her to the Democratic Party's nomination, a handful of undecided and pledged superdelegates are coming forward to say her campaign's tactics in recent weeks are doing more harm than good. The Democratic Party insiders say they believe Clinton's direct attacks against Sen. Barack Obama in recent days are hurting the party and its chances in November, and also say it is showing a calculated, desperate-to-win side of Clinton that they dislike. "In looking at the manner in which the candidates are campaigning, I think it would be best they focused their attention on the presumptive nominee and showed our party which one is better in campaigning against McCain," said Garry Shay, a California superdelegate, who announced his support for Clinton. Unlike some in the party, these superdelegates said they do not believe Clinton should drop out of the race. They said they are committed to the democratic process, and want to allow the states still remaining to cast their ballots. But they acknowledged Obama is the likely nominee and suggested the personal attacks were only hurting the party and its viability. The Clinton campaign has been actively wooing these delegates, believing a plurality represents the strongest, and increasingly the only, way for her to win the nomination. But one undeclared delegate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the recent tactics are turning her and other superdelegates off. "I don't think anybody's saying 'step aside,' but 'stop with the garbage' is what people want to say," the delegate said. "Just chill a little bit." As activists committed to the party, they said, they have been impressed by Obama's ability to bring new Democrats into the fold, and they worry that Clinton is threatening that. "We like the fact that there is a candidate that has won so many states overwhelmingly," the delegate said. "We're feeling her advisors are leading her in a path that diminishes her as well as him." Several said they were angered by comments from James Carville, who called Bill Richardson "Judas" for backing Obama after serving in the Clinton White House. One delegate said Richardson's rationale for supporting Obama, and his implicit frustration at the Clintons' heavy-handed approach to garnering his support, was echoed among superdelegates. Others said they were frustrated by recent reports that Clinton embellished her description of landing in Bosnia as First Lady, and said it suggested she would do anything to win. "I don't remember what movie I saw two weeks ago; I don't necessarily remember what I had for dinner last night," one superdelegate said. "But I would remember having to duck and run from sniper fire." The final straw, though, were Clinton's comments Tuesday, when she said the Rev. Jeremiah Wright "would not have been my pastor." Several superdelegates saw it as a direct, personal attack on Obama. "I think it's very dangerous for any candidate to constantly thrum on what they perceive as sensational criticisms of their opponent," said Debra Kozikowski, an uncommitted superdelegate from Massachusetts. "I would be more likely to respond positively to discussions of issues that effect Americans versus what might be perceived as character flaws." Clinton campaign officials said Clinton's comments were a direct response to a question she received at an editorial board meeting and suggested personal attacks have gone in both directions in the primary race. The party activists said they have been receiving calls from members, a majority of whom want them to support whoever has won the popular vote. Many superdelegates are themselves elected by the Democratic Party and believe most will follow the will of party members for the party's future, and their own viability. And they say they are not buying some of the Clinton campaign's explanations as to why they should support her, whether it is her victories in large states, primary states or those likely to go Democratic in the November election. "Periodically, over the last couple of weeks, you will see a news story or get something from the campaign, and you'll go, 'How stupid do you think I am?" one uncommitted superdelegate said. "All of us watch television all the time, read the newspapers. We all play with the little charts online too. We know it is virtually impossible." One delegate said the Clinton campaign is "using Jeremiah Wright to scare white people." "A full and fair debate about issues and differences and even fights is good," the delegate said. "Mud slinging, personal attacks and lying is never good for any political fight or party. And I see a lot of that coming from one side more than the other." The delegates said there is little the party or its leaders can do to prevent the current back and forth. But some said they were increasingly in touch with Clinton campaign officials to say their support is in jeopardy. "Uncommitted delegates can come out and say, 'If you don't stop this now, we won't vote for you,'" one uncommitted superdelegate said.

CBS Exposes Hillary Clinton Bosnia Trip. - Hillary Clinton Lies About Her Bosnia Trip

Obama's Speech on Race and Politics - Google video link