Shots in the Dark

Suddenly they’ve won four straight.…

Here’s the video of Hillary Clinton saying that Bobby Kennedy’s assassination is a historical precedent for her staying in the presidential race.

What’s particularly appalling is that she raises that tragedy in the context of painting herself as a martyr, picked upon by everyone, including “my opponent and some in his camp,” who all are pushing her to get out of the race.

The narcissism is profound. Obama has, of course, treated her with kid gloves, even if only because it’s the politically smart thing to do. Meanwhile, Hillary’s rationale for staying in? Well, everyone wants me to get out, so I’m going to thumb my nose at them.

Plus, Obama could get shot…..

Given Hillary’s desperate lust for power, one has to wonder: Is this wishful thinking on her part?

Anyone else think that Hillary just said perhaps the only honest remark she’s made in months?

Her latest reason for staying in the race? Barack Obama might get assassinated.

I wish I were making this up.

In WashPo, Tom Boswell looks at home run production around the majors since the steroids crackdown.

Surprise! It’s way down.

…to find a season with a home run pace comparable to the first 50 games of 2008, you must go back to 1993 — before the strike, before “Chicks Dig the Long Ball,” before the game turned its eyes away from steroid use and practically condoned any abuse of chemistry.

To my mind, it’s a much more interesting game because of it.

You know who Jeremiah Wright is, right? Sure you do.

Okay, now try another. John C. Hagee. Know him?

If you don’t, Hagee is an evangelical minister whose endorsement was welcomed by John McCain. Except Hagee is probably nuttier and more offensive than Wright.

Last week a videotape surfaced of Hagee explaining that, as the Times puts it, Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust was [sic] part of God’s plan to chase the Jews from Europe and drive them to Palestine.

It’s far from the only nutty thing that Hagee has said; he has suggested that Hurricane Katrina was divine retribution for a gay pride parade planned in New Orleans.

Then there’s this, from Wikipedia:

In his book, Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World, Hagee interprets the Bible to predict that Russia and the Islamic states will invade Israel and will be destroyed by God. This will cause the anti-Christ, the head of the European Union, to create a confrontation over Israel between China and the West. A final battle between East and West at Armageddon will then precipitate the Second Coming of Christ.

Nutty, right? Nuttier, to my opinion, than anything Jeremiah Wright said.

Still, back in February, McCain happily accepted Hagee’s endorsement.

Yesterday, amidst controversy about the Hitler remarks, McCain finally rejected that endorsement.

Where do you find that news? Well, it’s page one of the Washington Post.

But in the Times, it’s buried online, in a politics blog. And the Globe buries the story on page A10.

And in general, the association between Hagee and McCain has attracted far less attention than that between Obama and Wright.

Now, granted, there are differences, primarily that Hagee wasn’t McCain’s pastor.

But still…isn’t there something of a double standard here? And doesn’t it have to do with the fact that we simply assume that white Christian evangelicals can be wackos, but we fear an outraged and outrageous black minister, and thus transform him into a bogeyman?

…who just posted this picture of John McCain. Because there are two things we’re instantly supposed to notice.

One: McCain looks awful.

Two: Is that an espresso he’s sipping?

“If you asked me [if Chelsea would run for office] before Iowa, I would have said, ‘No way. She is too allergic to anything we do. But she is really good at it.”

—Bill Clinton, in the current issue of People

Will the Clintons never leave us alone?

Ben Mezrich, bestselling author of non-fiction books such as “Bringing Down the House,” is pitching a book about the creation of Facebook…and it sounds like a doozy!

According to Gawker,

In the proposal, author Ben Mezrich claims that Zuckerberg and his friend Eduardo Saverin started Facebook to get into a secret society and, of course, to get laid.

Below: one excerpt from the proposal.

That’s pretty much what the New York Times reports—well, suggests—today, anyway.

Because of a dispute over moving the date of the state’s primary, Mr. Obama and the other Democratic candidates did not campaign in Florida. In his absence, novel and exotic rumors about Mr. Obama have flourished. Among many older Jews, and some younger ones, as well, he has become a conduit for Jewish anxiety about Israel, Iran, anti-Semitism and race.

Among the rumors about Obama apparently held by Jewish voters in Florida: He’s an Arab, he’s Palestinian, he’s backed by Al Qaeda, he’ll fill his administration with followers of Louis Farrakhan.

So much for the stereotype that Jews are the smartest ethnic group—because this stuff is just idiotic.

Some of the resistance to Mr. Obama’s candidacy seems just as rooted in anxiety about race as in anxiety about Israel. At brunch in Boynton Beach, Bob Welstein, who said he was in his 80s, said so bluntly. “Am I semi-racist? Yes,” he said.

Decades earlier, on the west side of Chicago, his mother was mugged and beaten by a black assailant, he said. It was “a beautiful Jewish neighborhood” — until black residents moved in, he said.

Whatever else Barack Obama may be doing, he is certainly bringing to light racism that black people say still exists in this country and white people tend to deny.

And what’s impressive is how gracious and transcendent Obama is about this ugly stuff. While Hillary bitches [no pun intended, I promise] and moans about sexism hurting her campaign—though there’s not a whit of evidence to that effect—Obama is unearthing much larger and far more damaging veins of latent racism.

Which makes it only that much more important that he win. Because imagine the shame of our nation if Barack Obama lost the presidential campaign due to the color of his skin.