Meet The Press Transcript: Discussion on Hillary RFK Gaffe

Read the entire transcript. Excerpts below:

MR. RUSSERT: Robert Kennedy's son, RFK Jr., issued this statement: "It's clear from the context that Hillary was invoking a familiar political circumstance in order to support her decision to stay in the race through June. ... I understand how highly charged the atmosphere is, but I think it is a mistake for people to take offense." Kennedy is a Clinton supporter. Michael Goodwin, of the New York Daily News, the home state paper of Senator Clinton, had a much different view. Here he wrote this on Saturday. "Her colossal blunder simply the last straw. We've seen an X-ray of a very dark soul. One consumed by raw ambition to where the possible assassination of an opponent is something to ponder in a strategic way.

"Many black Americans have talked of it, reflecting their assumption that racists would never tolerate a black president and that Obama would be taken from them.

"Clinton has now fed that fear. She needs a very long vacation. And we need one from her.

"Say good night, Hillary. And go away." Very complicated, controversial subject.

Doris Kearns Goodwin, your take.

MS. DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, neither historical parallel that she offered were true, because Clinton had already sewed up the nomination by June, and in Bobby Kennedy's case, he'd only gotten into the race like six weeks prior to his assassination. I don't think she even needs to argue. She should acknowledge that party unity probably is hurt, but that this election is so unique that having more people vote and more people registered and more people excited is worth taking it to June. The problem is that the argument that the Clintons supporters have sometimes made is the superdelegates shouldn't even decide in June. They should wait until August, end of August, because who knows what might happen in the summer--a gaff, another pastor coming out of the woodwork, or, God forbid, what this thought suggested. And I think once it played into that, it became much more troubling.

[...]MS. MAUREEN DOWD: Well, I think her timing was excruciatingly bad. I mean, right after the anniversary of King's death, right before the anniversary of Bobby's death, right when we learn the tragic news about Teddy Kennedy, and right when she and Bill seem engaged in kind of a hostile takeover of Obama's vice presidential mansion. So, beyond that, I think it gave delegates and a lot of Democrats the creeps, because basically the only reason she is still is in the race is that something bad will happen. Of course she doesn't wish him bodily harm, but she does want--she does wish him ill in the sense that they want a big horrible story that would debilitate him to break.

[...]MS. IFILL: Exactly. Why would you even suggest it? And the backdrop is what's important. There's probably no one who's ever been in a room with Barack Obama at one of these huge rallies or even just seen a photograph of it where it hasn't crossed their mind, if you're of a certain age and survived and lived through these assassinations and assassination attempts. So the question with, with the Clintons especially is we know that they are wordsmiths, that we know that they very carefully think about what it is they say. She's said this several times before. And so you have to think what do they think people would think? We've heard her campaign spokesman say things like, you know, "Who knows what could happen?" Well, they could suspend their campaign and still come back if something happened. That's not what she's arguing. And so, you know, unfortunately, it poked a sore that, that keeps existing throughout this campaign, and it, and it never is going to go away. A lot of women feel that sores have been poked and a lot of African-Americans feel sores have been poked. The future of party unity lies in them not continuing to reopen these scabs.

Karl Rove Exposed by George Stephanopoulos

Karl Rove appeared on This Week and was caught it what sounded like a stonewall. He obviously has something to hide (see read source article and video):

STEPHANOPOULOS: We’re just about out of time. This is — as you know, and our viewers probably know, you were subpoenaed this week by the House Judiciary Committee to give testimony on any involvement you may have had with the prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. He’s claiming there was selective prosecution. He’s out on bail now, even though he was convicted. He says your fingerprints were all over it.

Here’s what the House report said. It said, “In May 2007, a Republican attorney for northern Alabama named Jill Simpson wrote an affidavit stating that in November 2002, she heard a prominent Alabama Republican operative named Bill Canary say that Karl Rove had contacted the Justice Department about bringing a prosecution of Don Siegelman. The question for Mr. Rove is whether he directly or indirectly discussed the possibility of prosecuting Don Siegelman with either the Justice Department or Alabama Republicans.” Did you?

ROVE: Let me say three things. First of all, I think it’s interesting — everybody who was supposedly on that telephone call that Ms. Simpson talks about says that the call never took place. I’d say…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Although she produced a cell phone record, according to the committee.

ROVE: Well, I would say three things. First of all, I have — I learned about Don Siegelman’s prosecution by reading about it in the newspaper. Second of all, this is really about a constitutional question of separation of powers. Congress, the House Judiciary Committee, wants to be able to call presidential aides on its whim up to testify, violating the separation of powers. Executive privilege has been asserted by the White House in a similar instance in the Senate. It will probably be asserted very quickly in this — in the House. Third, the White House has agreed — I’m not asserting any personal privilege. The White House has offered, and my lawyers offered, several different ways in which if the House wants to find out information about this, they can find out information about this. And they’ve refused to avail themselves of those opportunities.

We didn’t say, close off any option to do anything else that you want to do in the future. We said if you want to hear about this, let’s sit down and talk about this, and then you’re entitled to do what you want to do in the future. This is now tied up in court. It’s going to be tied up in court and settled in court. And frankly, the House last week doing this, you know, is duplicating what the Senate has already done and it’s already found its way into the courts.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But to be clear, you did not contact the Justice Department about this case?

ROVE: I read about — I’m going to simply say what I’ve said before, which is I found out about Don Siegelman’s investigation and indictment by reading about it in the newspaper.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But that’s not a denial.

ROVE: I’ve — you know, I read — I heard about it, read about it, learned about it for the first time by reading about it in the newspaper.

The reason he is using classic lawyer language has to do with the possible legal troubles he faces:

The House Judiciary Committee pressed its investigation of possible political influence in Justice Department prosecutions on Thursday by issuing a subpoena to Karl Rove, the former chief political operative at the Bush White House.

Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the committee chairman, said the subpoena was necessary because Mr. Rove had explicitly declined an invitation to appear voluntarily. Mr. Conyers and fellow committee Democrats say they want to question Mr. Rove about the dismissals of several federal prosecutors and ask whether he knows anything about the decision to prosecute former Gov. Donald E. Siegelman of Alabama, a Democrat.

Mr. Siegelman, who was convicted on a bribery charge, was released from prison in March pending an appeal after an appeals court ruled that he had raised “substantial questions” about his case.

Jimmy Carter: Clinton will be Forced Out after Last Primary

Why haven't the superdelegates acted already to end this race especially after Hillary's despicable assassination comment. The Democratic Party obviously lacks any moral leadership to stand up to thugs like the Clintons:

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Sunday he expects Democratic superdelegates to reveal their choice for presidential nominee soon after the final primary in June and that Hillary Clinton will then have to quit the race.

In an interview with Sky News, Carter said he did not think Clinton was achieving anything by staying in the fight.

[...]"I'm a superdelegate ... I think a lot of the superdelegates will make a decision quite, announced quite rapidly, after the final primary on June 3," he told Sky News.

"I have not yet announced publicly, but I think at that point it will be time for her to give it up," Carter said.

Democrats needed to put this farce to end because the Clinton dredging up Florida and Michigan could have repercussions for the general election. It is clear Billary want to damage Obama so that Hillary can run in 2012. It is so obvious at this point that it makes you wonder why the press doesn't jump all over her. Are the Clintons untouchable? They seem to always get away with it. Democrats are their own worst enemy:

Democrat Barack Obama accused rival Hillary Clinton on Saturday of "stirring up" a controversy over the disqualified Florida primary election because it was her last hope of winning their party's presidential nomination.

[...] "The Clinton campaign has been stirring this up for fairly transparent reasons," Obama told reporters on the plane from San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Chicago, adding she had not done so earlier in the race when she did not need the delegates to win.

"Let's not ... pretend that we don't know what's going on. I mean this is, from their perspective, their last slender hope to make arguments about how they can win, and I understand that," Obama said.

Neither Clinton nor Obama campaigned in either state before the primary elections, and the Illinois senator removed his name from the Michigan ballot. Obama spent three days campaigning in Florida this week.

A party committee will meet next Saturday to seek a resolution to the conflict. Obama said he wanted the delegates seated and brushed off arguments that voter anger at his less aggressive role in resolving the issue would cause lasting resentment among Democratic voters in Florida, a battleground state in November's general election.

Obama should not be playing politics with this matter. He should be denouncing the Clinton divisive tactics not appeasing them. It is clear that Hillary wishes Obama ill. He should be demanding Ms.Clinton pullout of the race since she is hurting the Democratic Party. He is acting like a typical politician by not standing up to her. And he could lose the general election if he continues to turn the other cheek. You don't back down to bullies:

Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama empathized with rival Hillary Clinton on Saturday for the firestorm she ignited by referring to the 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy.

"I have learned that when you are campaigning for as many months as Senator Clinton and I have been campaigning, sometimes you get careless in terms of the statements that you make and I think that is what happened here," Obama said in an interview with Radio Isla Puerto Rico during a campaign visit to the Caribbean Island and U.S. territory.