A Slight Delay

Is it just me, or is there something inherently annoying in prefacing an apology by directing it to those you “may have offended”? I hate to be a cynic, but I suppose I ought not to have expected any different from a lawyer. Clinton’s MO during the dust-up over her RFK/Obama remarks has been consistent, if nothing else, with the way she’s run the rest of her campaign: say or do something that would get anyone else run out of town on a rail, then deny as much as possible, all while blaming everyone in sight. Blame anyone–the media, your opponent, American voters–but yourself.

This story has been covered extensively, to put it kindly. If you haven’t already gotten the rundown, this story in the New York Times is as good a place to start as any. And if you’ve had enough of the presumptive (though losing) Democratic nominee–whether for months now, or because this was the last straw–you’ll probably find a kindred spirit in Keith Olbermann, whose May 23 Special Comment should be listened to by anyone who has given Senator Clinton a free pass up to this point.

We’ve been in a more or less constant election cycle since late 2003. We went from being in the run-up to the ‘04 election, to the election itself, to a protracted runup to the ‘06 election, to the run-up to the ‘08 election starting pretty much as soon as the polls closed in November ‘06. I don’t expect that will change; the only thing that will be different, I suspect, is a different opposition party doing the talking.

And there’s been no shortage of talk… the endless rounds of the Sunday talk shows, dozens of commercials (including 3 renditions of the “3am” ad, as of this writing), and 30 or so debates. (more…)