I Agree: Some Words are Off Limits During a Campaign

Even from our vantage point here, outside the US, it’s still hard to ignore how ugly and sordid the campaign for the Democratic Nomination has become. However, I don’t think we ever heard anything as ghoulish as what was reported this morning. Apparently, Hillary Clinton said this during a recent interview:

My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it…

I was only eight years old when Bobby Kennedy, the younger brother of JFK, was assassinated. I later learned in school that his campaign was notable partly because of the number of young people who were working for him, and that he was trying very hard to heal and unify a stricken US, disillusioned and fearful (by the trauma of his brother’s recent murder) and involved in a war they did not support. Sound familiar?

The idea that a young leader — a leader who has even been compared to Bobby Kennedy—will soon find a bullet heading for him in late summer, isn’t something we should be forced to contemplate, or discuss, or even hear mumblings about. It’s certainly not what I expected the ‘Talking Heads’ to be chattering about this week. Leaving the thought hanging out there, that ‘Assassinations tend to happen in June, so I better stick around’ (as if the month were like some kind of hurricane season), is bad enough. But to invoke that particular kind of horrible event during an interview while running for President is just sick.

Whenever I talk to Canadians about the US, the subject of violence, in particular gun violence comes up. The US is seen as a violent place, where violent people have easy access to guns, and Americans are perfectly OK with that. Often, this observation is delivered with nervous laughter, as if the country to our South were just some crazy Aunt we hope stays in the cellar, and that some day she won’t come barreling up the stairs with a rifle, doing that slaughtering thing she does from time to time.

What I’ve often felt was the worst thing about America, was the fact that so many Presidents (and presidential candidates) have been either targeted for death or killed. Hillary’s offhanded reference reminds me that I’ve frequently had to mull over the thought that Obama’s running mate had better be someone I trust in the White House, because by golly, he’s going to get shot, sooner or later. I agree with Keith Olbermann of MSNBC. We all must acknowledge that assassination is (for lack of a better word) a loaded word.

Here’s his response (in 2 parts). For those who don’t want to watch the video, I’ll try and find a transcript. Nevertheless, I don’t think it will communicate just how outraged he is, and I am.

Update: It looks like Dick Morris. a former adviser to the Clintons has a similar, if not identical opinion:

Everybody who has thought seriously about the Obama candidacy, including me and probably including the Senator himself, have reflected on the horrible possibility that he would be assassinated. One cannot think about Obama, the Kennedy-esque candidate without worrying about his safety. But we all observe the discipline of not raising the issue in public. We all worry that to do so would be to encourage some maniac to take a shot. Now Hillary has violated this unstated but heretofore universal taboo and brought up the possibility. That is not to say that she is hoping for a murder. But it is to say that the possibility is uppermost in her mind and a significant part of her rationale for staying in the race. And, by raising it, she has made it more possible.

(From dickmorris.com )

I Get To Attend an Opening…Again

Ah yes, I remember it well: The long lines in the Cambridgeside Galleria Mall, the T-Shirts for those nearer to the front of the line, the excitement as the doors finally opened… The Apple Store opening in Cambridge, Massachusetts was one of the first ones that Apple had. We were used to the fact that although we weren’t Cupertino (or even San Francisco), Cambridge was one of the East Coast centres for Apple’s presence. After all, in the early days of Macworld Expo (and I doubt if many people who own an Apple product know this at this point), there was a West Coast Macworld Expo in San Francisco in January and an East Coast Macworld Expo in Boston, usually during the hottest week in August. It wasn’t until that fateful day when Bill Gates’s 20-foot face appeared on the screen behind Steve Jobs during his keynote (and it was hissed by the crowd) that Steve made sure that there would be no more MacWorlds in Boston.

I know, I know, there were probably other reasons, but Jobs’s annoyance at the disagreement of the Boston crowd with his strategy of having Microsoft invest in Apple during their darkest hour probably didn’t help the show. In the following year, Jobs refused to give the keynote, and the show moved to New York City. It continued on a few years there at the Javitts Center, but attendance at that venue quickly petered out. As many have pointed out, the Internet can now disperse information about products far faster and farther than any show floor could. There is now only one MacWorld Expo, each January, and it remains a San Francisco tradition.

When we moved to Vancouver, I missed that sense of being on Apple’s radar. Despite the fact that many here use the Mac (in fact, in recent years it’s increased), I found the local Certified Apple Dealers a bit ramshackle, with relatively small variety of peripherals and messy, poorly maintained display areas. My first job was working for someone who hated the Mac, and he was relieved when I didn’t insist that I use one in his small office (I would have been the only Mac user in the shop). At IBM, we all were assigned Thinkpads, of course. The consultants from Victoria often had Macs. At Blogger and smaller business events, the Mac was predominant. Nevertheless, the absence of the iPhone in Canada, the higher prices for products, and constantly hearing the rumors that Apple Hated Canada didn’t help matters.

Our days of living in a relatively less important spot in the Apple universe are about to end. On this coming Saturday morning, I hope to be in line for the opening of the first Apple store in Vancouver. We’ve been waiting for this for some time. Its going to be in the heart of downtown, at the Pacific Centre Mall (actually the previous location of Holt Renfrew, a high end Department Store, who have moved into new digs nearby). I believe that it’s only the fifth store in Canada, with the other three in Toronto and one in Laval.

To put things in a bit of perspective, another Apple store opened in Boston (across the river from Cambridge, but certainly near our old home) last week. It’s the largest Apple Store in the world, taking up three floors and sporting an all glass facade, on Boylston Street. Oh well, I guess Boston still looms larger in Apple’s realm, but at least we’re no longer off the map.