A reader writes:
Get underneath a reporter’s empirical scrim for a minute. This is Freud by the numbers, Hillary’s id unbidden, her return of the repressed. Yes, obviously, she wouldn’t say this intentionally—who in God’s name would? She’s not that stupid, nor that malign. But she does very much want to be president—and her inappropriate desires got the best of her, and she blurted out her forbidden wish: that she gets the nomination somehow, someway, no matter how horrible the predicate.
That’s what this was about. Does she consciously wish for Obama’s murder? Of course not. But if he were to be assassinated, wouldn’t somebody have to be nominated anyway? And isn’t the most logical person, in that tragic instance, her? That’s what she was saying: Stick around, anything can happen. Even a horrible thing can happen—and that horrible thing would result in my nomination.
It’s really not that hard to figure out. Yes, it’s not conscious—but the depth of her ambitions, and her desires, are pathological and deeply creepy.
Clearly there's no knowing for sure. But I myself find this interpretation only slightly more plausible than the idea that she was floating the idea of assassination as some kind of scare tactic to inflame doubts about Obama. After watching her remarks, I still don't think she was doing either. It would be one thing if the context of her remarks had been a question like, "How can you still win?" But she was talking about the calendar in historical terms--not the uncertainty of the process.
Update: Turns out Hillary has said this before, back in early March. Which undermines the idea that some combination of stress and desperation finally made her snap, or blurt out some dark, secret thought.
--Michael Crowley