I hesitate to stir the waters, but since the same can't be said of the Clintons over the Memorial Day weekend, I'm gonna stir anyway.
Several of the calmer heads on KOS and the blogosphere (specifically Atrios) have noted that Senator Clinton's comments on Friday about primary races extending into June were troubling not purely because of the JFK reference, but also because of the level of pure BS.
Today in the NYT, the Grey Lady lays waste to the claims Hillary made on Friday and Bill continued/amplified over the weekend.
In a very straightforward but still very scathing fact-checking piece in the NYT today, we get perhaps the closest the NYT ever gets to yelling "liar, liar, pantsuit on fire!!!":
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.
And for the former President's whining over the weekend that he had never seen a candidate "disrespected" as much and never saw such horrible efforts at pushing the superdelegates to make a decision....well, I guess he forgot about his team's efforts in 1992:
"Senator Obama’s supporters in the media began calling on Senator Clinton to drop out as early as February," Mr. Wolfson said. "This is one of the closest nominating contests in American history, and the constant calls for Senator Clinton to quit are unwarranted and inappropriate."
Yet the Clinton campaign in 1992 used some of the same tactics that Mrs. Clinton and her supporters now decry, like declaring the nomination secure early and encouraging party leaders and the news media to climb on board.
........
Mr. Clinton soon made a victorious visit to Capitol Hill, where he began trying to rally to his side the party leaders with automatic convention seats known as superdelegates.
And party members reported an effort by Clinton allies and ranking party officials to pressure uncommitted superdelegates to line up behind Mr. Clinton, a strategy he decried this past weekend when he accused "them" of bullying superdelegates early to choose sides between Mr. Obama and his wife.
For those of us who stood up and defended the Clinton during all the scandals (and non-scandals) of his presidency, seeing them in this bullshit-pedaling light has been an eye-opening experience. As I ask myself specifically about the former President, "Was he this full of shit when he was on the same team as me?".....I hate to admit the answer is yes.
So please forgive me while I go call my few Republican friends and apologize for defending Bill Clinton for his lies.