Clinton's comparison of the Florida primary dispute to Zimbabwe

Hillary Clinton abandoned any respect for the truth when she compared the Democratic Party’s refusal to accept the results of the Florida primary (held in violation of the party's rules) to the Zimbabwean dictator Roberto Mugabe’s falsification of election returns a few weeks ago. For the past five years, brave democratic dissidents and protesting Zimbabweans who are both white and black have been arrested and beaten by Mugabe’s security forces, women activists have been raped and killed, and entire neighborhoods known to be politically opposed to Mugabe have been bulldozed. Nothing approaching such repression has happened in the United States since the lynchings and killings of blacks in the South, at the height of segregationist fury in the early 20th century. For Senator Clinton to equate the Democratic Party’s actions on the Florida primary dispute with the murderous brutality of an anti-democratic tyrant is more than an exaggeration, it’s an insult to the party she wants to lead and the intelligence of her listeners -- and indirectly it disrespects the truly portentous stakes in Zimbabwe, whose people who are struggling to surmount infinitely worse abuses of the democratic process than could have occurred in Florida.