Where was Ariana in 1968?

Hillary was in college. The war in Vietnam was eating up our young men. My Dad was on a ship somewhere near Southeast Asia. My brother was less than a month old. The nation was combustible. And then, the worst thing possible happened. No one who was living in America at the time will forget it. It became a fulcrum around which many of our lives would turn. That was the year I started paying attention to politics. When I look at this video, it still brings tears to my eyes. I see the kids running after the train and I flashback to my own childhood. It doesn’t take much to call these images up. It could be just a simple question during an interview, “Why are they trying to get you to drop out?”

Ariana, do you want to answer that?

ghostlegpress has this fitting comment that expresses the anger and disappointment we feel over the media, the Obamasphere and the Obama campaign’s reaction to this faux outrage:

Bobby Kennedy was my hero. In 1968 I was 17 years old and I believed absolutely that he would end the war in Vietnam and begin to end the racial injustice that was an open, festering sore on this country. I thought he’d be the greatest president the USA ever had.

At the same time, Eugene McCarthy’s supporters could only say that Gene was purer – better – braver on the war than Bobby. I remember a McCarthy supporter challenging Kennedy because McCarthy risked …whatever – nothing really – by challenging LBJ in New Hampshire and RFK didn’t. “Where were you when we were in New Hampshire?” the McCarthy supporter heckled. Ceasar Chavez, who was on the platform with RFK, answered, “He was with me in Delano!”

That answer meant nothing to the college kid, but it explained the whole world to me.

In a phrase that has some resonance today, I remember a magazine article which discussed student involvement in the campaigns explaining that Gene had the “A” students and Bobby only had the “C” students.

All that seemed to matter to some was that Gene McCarthy was laconic, ironic, and way too high brow for the average voter. Bobby had the masses. And we had Bobby.

I went to sleep on June 4, 1968 believing RFK had won the California primary and would win the presidency. I woke on June 5 to learn he’d been shot. I woke on June 6 to learn he’d died. I stood all day on June 8 waiting for his funeral cortege to pass.

1968 was a terrible time, but it was also a time of great hope. Those of us who came of age politically in that time will never forget that the primary season began in February and ran thrrough June.

Anyone who believes Hillary doesn’t have that time emblazoned on her memory just doesn’t know American history. They can twist her comments as much as they want – but for anyone over 50, a primary that extends into June isn’t an anomaly. A primary in June will always evoke RFK for me. Not because of the horror of its end – but because that was the last time I had real hope fo this country.

The current outrage disgusts me more than I can express. It’s not Hillary who sullies the process. Lying spinmeisters who’d use the assassination of one of this century’s greatest men to score cheap points are the ones who should be ashamed.

I haven’t really ever forgotten what an elitist bastard McCarthy was – and it will be a cold day in hell before I forgive Obama.

Stop. Now.