I Gotta Get a Grip

You know all of those times on this blog that I accused Hillary Clinton of telling Martin O'Malley to "get a grip" when he went off a tirade about gun control in a Democratic presidential debate?  Well it turns out that I misremembered what was said.

In the Democratic 2016 presidential debate that took place in December 2015, O'Malley blamed the federal government's failure to pass gun legislation, an action he achieved in Maryland as that state's governor, on the "flip-flopping political approach in Washington that both of my two colleagues on this stage have represented there for the last forty years."

At that point, Sanders replied, "Whoa, whoa, whoa.  Calm down a little bit, Martin."  Hillary Clinton then said, "Let's tell the truth, Martin." 

"I am telling the truth," O'Malley replied.

Clinton and Sanders then responded by saying that O'Malley had misrepresented their records on gun control, but O'Malley refused to concede the point.  Whether he was telling the truth about his primary opponents' positions on guns or not, though, Hillary Clinton did not say to O'Malley, "Get a grip, Martin."

The funny thing is, I watched that debate myself, and I could have sworn remembering that she did tell him to "get a grip."  But the transcript of the debate shows otherwise, and a USA Today article about that very moment in the debate concurs with the transcript.  But then, there have been times when I can't even remember what I had for lunch the day before, and there were a couple of times when I distinctly remembered things that could never have happened, as I explained in this blog entry from a few years ago.  So, no, Hillary did not go nasty on O'Malley and tell him to get a grip, and I apologize for having said - here and elsewhere - that she did.

I also apologize for the sore-thumb typos in my since-fixed post about what happened in Las Vegas. :-O

However, I maintain that when Bernie and Hillary descended on O'Malley in that moment during that debate, Bernie acted like he was O'Malley's dad and Hillary acted like the aunt you can't stand but tolerate because she's married to your mom's brother.

Ugh.  I think I need a vacation.  I've been having a tough time lately . . .. :-(