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Hillary Clinton and the non-apology.

I called bullshit on HC's "apology" yesterday, but let's look at it more closely:

Language Log has the in-depth analysis of the transcript:

The apologizer's goal is to cite the narrowest possible range of offended people and reasons for offense. Thus it's not an accident that Senator Clinton mentioned the feelings of the Kennedy family and others about mentioning RFK's assassination, but not the feelings of those who were shocked by the implication that she should stay in the race in case her opponent is killed.

Read the whole thing.

You know, if she'd come right out and said I'm staying in the race because Barack Obama might be assassinated, it would have been ? in addition to outrageous ? nonsensical. If she dropped out, and he was then killed, the party would have to turn to someone, and it would obviously be her. How is staying in the race a special way to preserve her claim on the nomination in case of his death?

So, then, does this mean that we should believe her assertion that she wasn't really saying I'm staying in the race because Barack Obama might be assassinated? But her point about how late the nomination was decided in 1968 doesn't make much sense either. In that year, the first primary ? New Hampshire ? was on March 12th. This year, the New Hampshire primary was January 8th and the Iowa caucus was January 3rd. So the process got under way more than 2 months earlier.

In conclusion, I would like to apologize to Andrew Sullivan. On Thursday, I took him to task for calling Hillary Clinton a sociopath.

Full post as published by Althouse on May 24, 2008 (boomark / email).