Assassination Chatter and the End of Legitimacy

Legitimacy is the most elemental and elusive of political goods; a gift which only a society can give its leaders, and only the same society can take away.

To deprive a politician of legitimacy is long and serious work. A good deal of the process has always taken place behind the scenes before the evidence comes into view.

Thus, from 1994 onward, a language of generalized insult and contempt was used by Republicans about Bill Clinton in order to deprive him of the claim to be recognized as the legitimate holder of the office of president. Newt Gingrich and the Contract-with-America wing of the party were deliberate in the tactics they deployed. They coolly decided to use the word "sick" to characterize the Clintons and their policies. Instructions regarding which words of contempt to use and when to use them, went out in memorandums and were put into practice on pundit shows and talk radio. This story is told by David Brock, an insider who came to regret the part he played, in his memoir Blinded by the Right.

The delegitimation of Bill Clinton led from the sprawling fruitless Whitewater investigation to the Paula Jones suit to the interrogation of Monica Lewinsky to the impeachment of the president. On the whole this is not an episode Americans look back on with pride. When the Supreme Court in May 1997 decided that Paula Jones's lawsuit against a sitting president could go forward, because there was no reason to suppose it would interfere with his performance of his duties, the judges were oddly unanimous in their indifference to the power of legitimacy.

What Bill Clinton felt at the time is barely possible to imagine; the bitter taste the impeachment left with both Clintons, they have taken great pains to conceal.

We have seen a return this year to the politics of delegitimation by the extreme Republican right. Yet what has been most surprising is the complicity, and then the open participation in that process by the Clinton campaign. Race was always going to be an element in this year's election. But the comparison of the front runner Barack Obama to the marginal candidate Jesse Jackson on the pretext that both had won South Carolina was a shocker when people heard it come out of the mouth of Bill Clinton. Again, the talk, by Hillary Clinton and her operatives after Ohio, of "the commander in chief test" which (it was said) she and John McCain had "passed" but Obama mysteriously could not pass, was a second stroke of the same kind. There was no scientific or political content to the statement. Its significance was gestural. It was an effort to delegitimate Obama, and its truth could only be shown by its success or failure.

Hillary Clinton's recent careless-careful mention of the assassination of Robert Kennedy, in answer to a question about why she would stay in the Democratic race when all the numbers are against her, raised the tactics of delegitimation to a pitch as weird as anything the Clintons can have seen in the years 1997-98.

The most disturbing element of her remark was this: that it chose to treat assassination as just one more political possibility, one of the things that happen in our politics, like hecklers, lobbyists, and forced resignations. The slovenly morale and callousness of such a released fantasy is catching. So when, a few days later, the Fox News contributor Liz Trotta was asked her opinion of Senator Clinton's statement, Trotta said: "some are reading [it] as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama...Obama. Well...both if we could!" Liz Trotta laughed as she said that. Later, she apologized, as Senator Clinton also has apologized.

Race comes easily and inevitably into discussions of Barack Obama, and never far from race is the thought of violence. It is there when you hear mentally feeble persons say, "I am afraid of this one; so afraid! something makes me afraid!" And race comes into the discussion when you hear clever people say, "He can never win the white vote; the white working class just aren't ready for him."

An unmeasurable but well-recorded condition for the assassination of John F. Kennedy was the campaign of delegitimation that preceded that terrible event. Anti-Castro Cubans hated Kennedy because he had disappointed them at the Bay of Pigs, and seemed to be a warm friend cooling. Many Southern white people hated him for his indications of solidarity with the cause of civil rights. There are other actors and reactions that might be added; but all shared the belief that Kennedy was not a legitimate leader, that he didn't deserve to be given the chance to go on governing. The hatred was especially virulent in the South. Death threats were in the air and Kennedy had been warned against taking the trip to Texas.

When a democratic society fails to honor the contract by which we elect our leaders in peace, and let them govern in peace, and show our approval or disapproval by keeping them or turning them out of office--when the incantation "He is not one of us" dips so far below sanity that we pretend the rules and decencies aren't in force any more--it is more than one person who is harmed. This loose way of talking and thinking of violence hardens us against real responsibility if the violent thing should happen. We are administering shocks to ourselves in advance so as not to be surprised by the actuality. But such preparations are in their very nature corrupt, and corrupting. And they are not less so when used against any person of dignity and estimation, on the public stage, than when they are leveled against an elected official.

William James wrote of the hope of democracy after the Civil War:

"The deadliest enemies of nations are not their foreign foes; they always dwell within their borders. And from these internal enemies civilization is always in need of being saved. The nation blest above all nations is she in whom the civic genius of the people does the saving day by day, by acts without external picturesqueness; by speaking, writing, voting reasonably; by smiting corruption swiftly; by good temper between parties; by the people knowing true men when they see them, and preferring them as leaders to rabid partisans or empty quacks. Such nations have no need of wars to save them."

The original meaning of the phrase "We shall overcome" is too often forgotten. The words didn't mean: "We--black and white people--will win equal rights for black people." They meant rather: "We--human beings--will overcome our savage impulse to settle our differences by violence. In both domestic and foreign arenas of dispute, we will overcome our endless reliance on short-violent-cuts to success."

The acceptance of political violence, apparent in the recent casual chatter of assassination, shows a despair of overcoming that is as monstrous in its way as the acts of violent men themselves.

Comments

[MaureenSharkey]

The political campaigns never really got dirty until now, with this.

And it came out of the Obama camp.

To deliberatly misconstrue Hillary's reference on time lines in regards to her being pushed to get out of the race---to twist this into her trying to get someone to assasinate Obama, is the dirtiest trick of all.

I now want nothing to do with Obama's camp. This issue has turned me against him. WHere was the "Change" that was supposed to happen?

[Amberlass]

Obviously Obama is not going to be able to unite the nation. If half the people are going to get all upset everytime one of them perceives an insult to Obama - he is never going to get anything done while he is in office. Maybe that's a good thing.

[TRYKER]

It wasn't Obama's camp complaining, it was US!
WE don't like the word assassination being used by a candidate for president.

This playbook attack..."­I have turned against the Obama Camp...thi­s is the last straw...I can't take this anymore...­I will never vote for him....I'm leaving the party...et­c"
Its all getting tiresome..­.by now you've left about 50 times...g'­bye already.

[klynnrn]

It is sad to see our top Dem leaders, the Clintons, stoop to such abhorent levels to win this election! My respect for them held throughout the Presidency until this Primary race started. We have seen unpresidented tactics being used that had historically been Republican territory. The party of the common man has become the party of "do anything to win"! We all know that Bill Clinton had wrapped up the nomination in April & that the RFK run had only begun in March of that year so why use these two examples at all? Because she wanted to remind people that the risk to Obama is high enough that we shouldn't even elect him in the first place. This First-Couple whom where once such an important part of our party have become nothing more than the people that the neocons tried to portray during their years in the White House.

[realpolitic]

Hillary did use many of the tactics of character assassination and race baiting straight from the Republican playbook. The right has migrated to the politics of slime and smear in every election. The news media does not call them on it because they expect it from the right. When the Democrats use such tactics the news media and others quickly protest, saying it is not fair. I think Republicans know that based on their track record they can not win a policy debate, so they must resort to underhanded tactics and they do so with relish.

[TwoCentsIn]

This post reminds us
to follow Obama's lead:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don't give way to hating...

[Then] Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it..
"If," by Rudyard Kipling (excerpt)

[beaupritchard]

I too like this Kipling piece and think it applies.

[TRYKER]

That poem reminds me of the Harry Truman special that PBS just broadcast.
"If you can keep your head about you..." Truman fell into a giant undertaking when Roosevelt died and he kept his head . That was quite a story.

[plebeianswillrevolt]

I admire Barak Obama for his courage in running for office. The insults and violent threats he faces from Clinton daily are nothing compared to what he will face in office. He will try to reform that corrupt beast. Who will be there to help him? He's taking too much upon himself.

[ckdogs]

We voters can be there to help him. With our votes, and our support, he can "reform the beast".

[davidly]

As I understand it, everyone who supports the Sanator's cause are not just supposed to be there to get him into office, but to stand and demand change with him. When JFK said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." he meant just this. Unfortunately not all the people who voted JFK into office stood up and demanded justice for the country after his assassination. The people failed. No country, let alone the human race, will truly succeed until the people really want to.

[abakwaman]

Excellent post, Mr. Bromwich.

[JDD]

This is the most eloquent, meaningful, and profound piece I have read in a long time, and a much-needed perspective on recent (and not-so-recent) events. Thank you so much, and thank you especially for giving us that remarkable William James quotation.

[hippieforlife]

I do not see what the fuss is all about. Robert Kennedy WAS assassinated in June. A very tragic event. However, how people keeping reading all these different things into simple comments, I will never know.

I think that Mr. Obama is just so egotistical that he thinks everything that anybody says is about HIM. As a presidential candidate he is just not that important. If he becomes President, then he becomes important. At this point he is just as important (or not) as any other citizen of this country.

Also, there is not a right wing bias in the media. Look around, the MSM has been throwing garbage at our current President for over 7 years. Most of the cable talking heads are spinning like crazy for Obama. Hardly a right wing point of view.

[MizKit]

huh?

[queotic]

Hillary? Is that you?

[bluegrasser]

Get some help.

[vcabq]

Becuase is was not a simple comment. She was saying why she was staying in the race and intentionally lied about her husband's part when he actually had the nomination in March. She is not stupid, or simple, or just tired. She had said it three different times and anyone who cannot see there was a motive behind her comments is unbelievalbly naive or blinded by the Clintons or Republicans.

[VicPerry]

She may not be simple or stupid but that doesn't make her remark some brilliant piece of realpolitik either. The fallout hasn't been positive, for starters. If anything really does happen (or almost happen) to Obama, there is now NO WAY she will emerge unscathed, much less enjoy a crowd rallying around her.

[Enlightened22]

Here comes a real challenge, to try to explain all that is wrong about Hillary's comment. It seems to me you haven't even read the article, which does a good job explaining it.
A) It starts with a lie. Her husband did not wrap the nomination in June. All was over in April. And the big primaries were later in the season in those years. But we are so used to all the diffrent lies she can utter in a sentence that people don't even react anymore.

B) We all remember Kennedy was assassinated in June". She could have said, Kennedy was still running in the race in June. Even though it would have make no sense, considering he had started running a couple of weeks prior to the assassination. You don't need to be a great psychologist to wonder, why does such a kind of thinking occupies Hillary's mind. Yes she was trying to make an historical argument, although deeply flawed. But wrapped around that argument came this line of thinking. " Anything can happen, I could be lucky enough, remember, Bobby got killed late in the season". There is no other way to explain such a slip of the tongue. She certainly did not mean to say that, but that's what her mind said. And that's why she is such a scary character. Obama has many flaws (poor debater, appearing sometimes distant and arrogant), but nothing that can compare with Hillary's mischevious mind.

[disteta]

David Bromwich - Amazing article - at the heart of what's really disturbing about the Clinton's - people I used to defend vigorously. You have said what has needed to be said since she began her deceptively negative campaign. They don't care about their party or the people of this nation. After her assassination remarks, she doesn't deserve to represent anyone, let alone or nation.

[tmbo]

Here here. I completely agree and won't forget. After she looses the nomination and returns to the Senate, I'll be giving money to whoever her opponent is in the next NY senate seat election that she'll be in.

[wmholt]

Well said.

Mr. Bromwich, thank you for the thoughtful and intelligent article.

[jbatch]

Mr. Bromwich:

Great post -- for me, though, her legitimacy ended with her Iraq vote; the Bosnia story was the oak stake in the heart, and this? Sad.

[1968survivor]

Thank you, Mr. Bromwich, for this well written piece. I agree that while we cannot truly judge HRC's INTENT - such factors as fatique can cloud one's judgement about what words will convey one's intent - there can be no argument about the EFFECT of her words. If she truly had no idea what that effect would be, she is not the smart, savvy candidate everyone has portrayed her as. And if she knew, but thought that the political climate was such that she could get away with it, I can only hope she now realizes how horribly mistaken she was. And in either case, I believe she has destroyed what was one a promising and hopeful path to the presidency. Anyone either that ignorant of our political history or of human nature (the first case) or that willing to use reprehensible images to frighten voters or to call up the tragedies of the past for political gain (the second case) is, in my opinion, not fit to hold the highest office in our land.

[dawlishgal]

The kindest explanation I can come up with is that Hillary is finally feeling some guilt fo having deceived her supporters about her chances in order to get them to cough up some more money for her campaign (particularly reprehensible among the poor of Appalachia, whom she also pandered to by changing her speech pattern to a poor imitation of theirs and immediately dropping it after their votes were tallied).

She is trying to let herself off the hook for her deceit by showing them she wasn't totally lying...th­ere still was one path to victory, ie. something terrible might happen to Obama. It is a narcissistic trait to think about how one can benefit from the misfortune of another, and just a hope skip and a jump away from wishing (at least on an unconscious basis) for that bad thing to happen.

It might help to gain HC a bit of sympathy if we remember that she had a brutally perfectionistic father who never permitted his children to come in second at anything without trying to shred what was left of their egos.

[mairs]

Such factors as fatigue actually do the opposite. You are more likely to say what's really on your mind instead of using your judgment to censor these things out. So on the contrary, if she was actually fatigued, I would put more stock into her really thinking she will wait to see if anything happens to Obama.

[Anastasia]

Well said.

And kudos to Bromwich for writing such a thoughtful piece.

[TRYKER]

Aptly put, thank you. My impression exactly...­a person of presidential quality would never speak such words.

[syllepsis]

Excellent discussion. Two points:
The internal logic of the Clinton campaign necessitated the delegitimization of Obama. Since her charisma is lacking, and charisma is necessary to amplify the relatively small policy differences between the two, she played the hand she was left with: The appeal, subliminal and overt, to racism (the "Appalachian strategy"). As with Nixon, who used the Southern strategy effectively, she can claim to be non-racist while claiming to be a victim herself (of sexism; Nixon, of media perception). RFK Jr. ran with the strong enthusiasm of the AA community, and this factor, plus his charisma, sets up the terms for her 'gaffe.'
Clinton herself was the other major victim of the Republican attacks during the 90's. She was delegitimized, in the most personal terms possible (the public spectacle of her husband revealed to be a liar and adulterer). To prevent this from happening again, she has to project an image of indominatible strength. That means, talk of "obliterating" the enemy, casual references to violence (the Bosnia lie and the RFK comment).
Violence is the result of delegitimization, and the cause of more of the same. The only way to break out of the circle is to vote for a candidate who consciously abjures it, i.e., Obama.

[SamanthaJaneSalem]

Giving Senator Clinton the benefit of the doubt, she misworded a line which she had used on previous occasions without controversy. Still, I can't help but think how insensitive her off-hand reference to Bobby Kennedy was. That's Bobby Kennedy-- not Abraham Lincoln. 1968-- not 1865. In matter-of-fact, unemotional language Senator Clinton referred to an event which is still fresh in the national consciousness. What's worse, she brought it up in the same week that Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with cancer.

I once admired Senator Clinton for what I saw as a cool, competent demeanor. Whereas Bill Clinton could be hot-headed and, shall we say, inappropriate in his behavior, Hillary was a a real pro. Bill might win out in the charisma category, but it was Hillary who had her act together, was less prone to embarrass herself and her party.

The experiences of recent months in this primary season have crushed that impression of Senator Clinton. There's just too much drama, too much exhausting dishonesty and over-the-top behavior. Take what we've gone through this year and multiply it over the next four or eight years. "Clinton Fatigue" for sure.

The true pro's of presidential politics don't casually refer to the "A" word, especially in connection with a recently lost beloved figure, and in the same week the illness striking another Kennedy cause Robert Byrd to weep on the Senate floor-- an image of humanity Clinton might model herself after in the days ahead.

[michael429]

Well done...wel­l said....Th­ank you.

[desertbreeze]

Eloquently written David. I continue to be non plussed by the lengths to which the Clintons will go in order to win. There can be no more excuses for either of them. They have spoken and acted shamefully throughout this campaign..­...a discredit to the democratic party and all we stand for. I expect this type of trash from the Republicans but not from representatives from the party of inclusion.
Hillary in particular is the most divisive candidate I've seen in my 57 years. She will say or do anything in order to be elected...­..she has no moral compass and as Eugene Robinson said in an opinion column, "is in danger of losing her soul." With all due respect, I believe she lost her soul a long time ago.