Let me start by admitting that this diary is highly speculative and I would appreciate any factual corrections and contradictions that address my admittedly fallible memory.

While I was well into my adulthood in the 1960s and fully aware of the spate of assassinations that threatened to draw the United States into the category of third world regimes or "developing" nations, and while I never fully bought into the explanation that the removal of national leaders was accomplished by apparently irrational individuals acting on their own, I didn't buy into the conspiracy theories either--for the simple reason that my own mother-in-law covered that particular territory for our whole family all by herself.

Besides, the single nut theory of political assassination was apparently preferred by those most intimately affected.

It really wasn't until it was revealed, by the release of JFK's papers in 2002 and subsequently, that the Soviet planting of missiles in Cuba was actually a response to the presence of U.S. missiles in Turkey, which JFK had ordered removed and then discovered that it hadn't been done, that I came to the realization that like the assassination of RFK and MLK, the killing of John F. Kennedy removed a man of peace.

Of course, if that's correct, then the widely accepted explanation that Oswald, the lone assassin, was in the employ of Cuba and the Soviet Union to wreck revenge on their nemesis doesn't make any sense. Why would people with whom JFK had bargained in good faith want to see him eliminated?

That RFK and MLK were men of peace goes without question. That the killing of MLK sparked a spate of violence is not in dispute either. The question that hasn't been fully addressed is cui bono. Who benefited from the violence in the cities, the flight to the suburbs, the enhancement of law enforcement and, at present, the incarceration of over two million American people?

Oddly enough, it seems that a partial answer lies in the career and eventual fate of Richard M. Nixon, a man who, until his dying day, seemed incapable of figuring out that he had been set up--that his impeachment and removal from office was engineered from inside the White House, perhaps because his negotiating with China and agreeing to remove U.S. bases from Vietnam wasn't appreciated by the warmongers, whom we have with us still. Perhaps, since two assassination attempts had been foiled, it was decided that another removal method needed to be tried.

In any event, there's a pattern here which suggests that men of peace tend not to be long-lived. And, of course, if we don't realize that's what's afoot and conclude that somehow the victims are particularly attractive to crazies, our efforts to prevent such behavior from recurring are going to be less than effective.

Which brings me to Barack Obama. Until this latest assassination talk, I'd actually forgotten that the assassination of JFK was a central component in the kerfuffle over the civil rights legislation pushed through the Congress by President Johnson. Perhaps that was because the connection was first made by an apparently casual supporter of Senator Clinton, one Francine Torge, who expressed the opinion that:

"Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated. And Lyndon Baines Johnson was the one who actually" passed the civil rights legislation.

an assertion that was promptly rejected by the Clinton campaign in a statement that:

"We were not aware that this person was going to make those comments and disapprove of them completely. They were totally inappropriate."

even though this person, reminiscent of that woman, had been listed as an avid supporter of Clinton and, indeed, later in the day her sentiments were echoed by the Senator herself, when she confided to an interviewer at FOX that:

"You know, today Senator Obama used President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to criticize me. He basically compared himself to our greatest heroes because they gave great speeches.

"President Kennedy was in Congress for 14 years. He was a war hero. He was a man of great accomplishments and readiness to be president. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a movement. He was gassed. He was beaten. He was jailed. And he gave a speech that was one of the most beautifully, profoundly important speeches ever written in America, the "I have a dream" speech.

"And then he worked with President Johnson to get the civil rights laws passed, because the dream couldn't be realized until finally it was legally permissible for people of all colors and backgrounds and races and ethnicities to be accepted as citizens."

I won't bother quoting my original reaction to the perception that the acceptance of people is a permitable function, except to suggest that perhaps my horror at this mischaracterization of the law sort of swamped the insult to JFK and Obama.

And then, of course, there was the precedent of Hillary Clinton's rejection of the carpet-bagger tag on the grounds that RFK had moved to New York State to secure a seat in the U.S. Senate, so why shouldn't she? Indeed, in retrospect, considering the mythical passing of the mantle from JFK to the young Bill Clinton, one is tempted to conclude that the Clintons have been angling to re-create Camelot and the dynasty that wasn't, by doing the Kennedys one better. So, the antagonism towards Barack may be nothing more than an expression of jealousy at this upstart's success in claiming the spot-light they consider to be rightfully theirs.

But, what if PEACE is the central issue? What if the JedReport has got it right?

Hillary Clinton has overcome way more sexism than anybody should ever have to, and that is part of what makes her such an inspiring candidate for so many people.

But sexism is not what cost Hillary Clinton this campaign: Iraq was, and what's more, she knows it -- or at least she should know, because her staff does. On February 17, 2007 she told people who disagreed with her vote on Iraq to choose from the other candidates:

“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from,” Mrs. Clinton told an audience in Dover, N.H., in a veiled reference to two rivals for the nomination, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.

Her decision not to apologize is regarded so seriously within her campaign that some advisers believe it will be remembered as a turning point in the race: either ultimately galvanizing voters against her (if she loses the nomination), or highlighting her resolve and her willingness to buck Democratic conventional wisdom (if she wins).

I was in the audience that day and wrote up the event for Blog for America.

One question that's been widely reported was a repetition, posed this time by a university professor, about her vote in support of the Iraq invasion. No doubt, the reason it was widely reported was because, instead of simply repeating the explanation that she was misled, she went on to challenge the voters for whom this vote is a major concern to vote for someone who didn't take part in making the decision to invade Iraq. And she tried to direct our attention to the future by pledging to end the war, if it's still on-going when she assumes the Presidency.

A more heated discussion of the issue surfaced a little over two months later during a Town Hall meeting at the Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, NH. This too is memorialized in a post on Blog for America, by Timothy Horrigan of Durham.

The Noise Machine mischaracterized the last question of the event at the high school, by the way. The way it was played in some reports was that a hostile questioner (and, we were supposed to infer, a conservative questioner) was hauled out of the event by Clinton's thugs. (She actually had no thugs: she is followed around by the Secret Service, but the security was otherwise unobtrusive.) The questioner was indeed hostile, but Sen. Clinton made a point of answering her question respectfully. The gist of the question was “Did you read the 92-page National Intelligence Estimate in 2002 before voting on the Iraqi war resolution?” Sen. Clinton said that she had been briefed thoroughly (which was a tacit admission that she didn't actually read the document itself) and explained why looking back she now recognizes that she voted the wrong way.

which is augmented by a commentary from Karin Powers Russell, who identifies herself as the questioner. Jed Report has compiled the relevant quotes:

All of which lead me to conclude that Hillary Clinton, however much she tries to dissemble is a war-monger, in thrall to the people who, like John McCain cheerfully announcing his promise to bomb Iran, relish the mayhem and destruction attendant to warfare.

And, if Barack Obama is in danger, it's because, like Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King and Anwar el Sadat, he's not. And because, unlikely as it seems, there are people who firmly adhere to the great leader concept and remain convinced that the direction in which a society is headed can be most easily changed by eliminating the leader of the parade.

Of course, there are some people who become demoralized when good people are killed, or imprisoned (like Don Siegelman), but the fact remains that the quest to guarantee human and civil rights was only just begun in the U.S. in the 1960s and, despite even the most recent severe set-backs, in terms of the equal application of the law and support for the Constitutional principles of liberty and equality, they are widely recognized as set-backs amid a determination that the conservative ideal of a paternalistic society is just plain wrong.

In any event, I think that's what has to be made clear. Not only is this election not about Barack Obama, but the societal change we contemplate will go forward with or without him. The progress towards equality doesn't depend on one man. And, that being the case, there's no prospect of profit from his elimination.

In other words, it should be made crystal clear that we will let no war monger take the place of a man of peace.

Never mind Maureen Dowd's suggestion:

Obama now has the perfect excuse not to pick Hillary as his running mate. She has been too unseemly in her desire to be on the scene if he trips, or gets hit with a devastating story. She may want to take a cue from the Miss America contest: make a graceful, magnanimous exit and wait in the wings.

The Democratic bench of peace-mongers is deep. In addition to Edwards and Dodd, who have been fairly vetted, there's also Kucinich. And that, my friends, is how we'll keep Barack safe--by making the election not about him, but about us.