Obama gives Clinton a break on RFK remark

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (MCT) — Barack Obama said Saturday that he accepted presidential nomination rival Hillary Clinton's explanation that she made an innocent gaffe in citing Robert F. Kennedy's June 1968 assassination as a justification for continuing her long-shot bid for the Democratic presidential nomination into June.

Clinton raised the analogy to the campaign-trail murder in response to a question Friday from the Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial board in South Dakota about calls for her to quit her campaign against front-runner Obama. Her remarks rapidly provoked an uproar, and she apologized within hours.

Asked about Clinton's remarks in an interview with Radio Isla Puerto Rico while campaigning in the commonwealth, Obama attributed them to fatigue.

"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. "Senator Clinton says that she did not intend any offense by it, and I will take her at her word on that."

Clinton's remark touched a raw nerve, particularly since anxiety over Obama's safety has been a frequent though mostly unspoken concern of many of his supporters, as well as party leaders.

His barrier-breaking candidacy has stirred concerns over racist threats, and the Secret Service judged the risk to his security high enough that it assigned a protective detail to him at an unusually early stage of the presidential campaign.

Many people who see a parallel between the promise of Obama's candidacy and the careers of the John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy also inevitably turn to their thoughts to the two brothers' early ends.

Clinton brought up Robert Kennedy's assassination as she sought to explain to the South Dakota newspaper why she was continuing her candidacy even though the odds are heavily against her success.

"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. You know I just, I don't understand it," Clinton told the paper.

Clinton later issued a statement saying she was simply making a historical reference to nominations that were not resolved until late in the election season.