As I was rushing with the family out the door to go to an early dinner on Friday evening, my blackberry was already humming over the Hillary Clinton reference to Robert F. Kennedy as to why she was still in the Democratic race for President.

At dinner, none of us politcally aware types could even start to come up with a decent explanation of what she was trying to say to the editorial board of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader newspaper in South Dakota.

Now, in deference to Hillary Clinton, if you go and actually read what she said and the context of how she said it, it's not the worst faux pas in the book.

She didn't say something like, "Well, if Obama gets picked off by some gun nut, then I'll be around to be the nominee."

Instead, you could probably argue it was just another one of her clumsy remarks from this campaign - and she's had more than a few of those in the past few months.

"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," Clinton said.

Once most people in newsrooms in Washington, D.C. and New York picked their jaws off the floor and threw this story on the air, on the internet and in the paper, Team Clinton was behind the 8-ball once again. 

They tried hard to stop the ball from rolling on this story, but it was too late.  They even tried issuing a statement from Randell Beck, the executive editor of the newspaper on Friday night:

"The context of the question and answer with Sen. Clinton was whether her continued candidacy jeopardized party unity this close to the Democratic convention. Her reference to Mr. Kennedy's assassination appeared to focus on the timeline of his primary candidacy and not the assassination itself," said Beck in the statement.

Team Clinton went a step further, getting out a statement from Robert Kennedy Jr. as well.

"It is clear from the context that Hillary was invoking a familiar political circumstance in order to support her decision to stay in the race through June," said Kennedy. 

"I have heard her make this reference before, also citing her husband's 1992 race, both of which were hard fought through June.  I understand how highly charged the atmosphere is, but I think it is a mistake for people to take offense," said Kennedy.

It really didn't matter by that point, just as it didn't matter after Clinton said that it took LBJ to help Martin Luther King Jr achieve major civil rights legislation.

She lost the early spin on this one, too.

By Sunday, she was still explaining on the stump in Puerto Rico and in an op-ed in the New York Daily News as well.

"I was deeply dismayed and disturbed that my comment would be construed in a way that flies in the face of everything I stand for -- and for everything I am fighting for in this election."

"I was making the simple point that given our history, the length of this year's primary contest is nothing unusual," Clinton said in the column.

About the best thing one can say for Clinton is that this was Memorial Day weekend, so most people weren't hanging on every claim and counter-claim about this one.

That's about the best thing you can find.