Pajamas Media: Midday: Everybody Hates Bill Clinton

January 24, 2008 11:33 AM

What are you looking at?

How quickly the favorite ex-president became a mangy and uxorious attack animal, berating journalists, slandering Barack Obama, and patronizing blacks. In the first of a new daily Midday news roundup, Michael Weiss charts the pandemic disillusionment with Bill Clinton — especially on the liberal-left.

by Michael Weiss

It seemed not long ago that Bill Clinton was the elder statesman with six-figure speaking fees and fawning press profiles devoted to his charity work on AIDS in Africa. Did it really matter who ran against the incumbent in 2004 when we still weren’t sure what his predecessor’s next career move would be? (Secretary-General of the U.N. seemed the most mutually beneficial arrangement.)

Now one cannot open a newspaper or click on the television without seeing 1992 played out in farcical sequel. When Bill isn’t chivvying journalists for the “aggressive” tone with which they ask him necessary questions about his wife’s sleazy campaign, or falling asleep during a Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial sermon in Harlem, he’s sounding as if he were the one locked in a David Mamet script with Barack Obama, easily his equal as a national politician.

Clinton likes to blame the media, but how can the media help itself? The aged and flabby Mr. Slick thunders and grumbles about the youthful and lean Mr. Smooth – copy like this doesn’t just hand itself to you every four years.

The Associated Press reports today of Bill’s latest tirade in South Carolina, a state he admits Hillary has all but already lost to Obama due to the black vote:

“I never heard a word of public complaint when Mr. Obama said Hillary was not truthful, no character, was poll-driven,” he told startled reporters.
“When he put out a hit job on me at the same time he called her the senator from Punjab, I never said a word,” he said, referring to an Obama campaign memo last year that attacked the Clintons’ links to the Indian-American community.

“Shame on you!” the former president exclaimed, berating the reporters for picking up on Obama’s attacks instead of focusing on the issues that he said mattered, such as the faltering US economy.

And yet the former First Family have been trading on inflated prices as the hounded victims of Ken Starr and the “politics of personal assassination.” At times they seemed blessed simply for having been the last occupants of the White House before the disastrous current ones.

This market, too, has its ceiling. Lefty radio host Ed Schultz called the male Clinton a liar and an embarrassment to the Democratic Party. William Greider, a journalist not unsympathetic to the pre-audacious liberalism of the 1990’s, has struck a common chord of disgust with the Clintons. Here he is in The Nation:

We are sure to see more of Mr. Bill’s intrusions because the former president is pathological about preserving his own place in the spotlight. He can’t stand it when he is not the story and, one way or another, he will make himself the story. I used to be sympathetic toward Mrs. Clinton on this point. No longer.

Other in cyberspace have begun to feel the same way.

Clinton’s former Secretary of Labor-turned-blogger Robert Reich, among them:

I write this more out of sadness than anger. Bill Clinton’s ill-tempered and ill-founded attacks on Barack Obama are doing no credit to the former President, his legacy, or his wife’s campaign. Nor are they helping the Democratic party. While it may be that all is fair in love, war, and politics, it’s not fair – indeed, it’s demeaning – for a former President to say things that are patently untrue (such as Obama’s anti-war position is a “fairy tale”) or to insinuate that Obama is injecting race into the race when the former President is himself doing it….Now, sadly, we’re witnessing a smear campaign against Obama that employs some of the worst aspects of the old politics.

Pundit Review is close to tears:

The most frustrating aspect of all of this is that Bill and Hillary Clinton should have been relegated to the ash heap of history a long time ago. Their behavior while in the White House was nothing short of disgraceful. Forget Monica for a minute. How about the White House coffee fundraisers, pimping out the Lincoln bedroom, savagely attacking women who credibly accused the president of harassment, all the while complaining about the politics of personal destruction. I voted for Bill Clinton in 1992. When nobody, and I mean nobody, in the Democratic Party stood up to these two, before, during and after his impeachment, I knew I could never again support a Democrat.

Sharon Cobb, a former Southern correspondent for MSNBC Online, says:

President Clinton is being short sighted and needs to look at the bigger picture of a Democrat winning the White House, whether it’s his wife or not, because a lying Bill Clinton front and center (again) is not a good thing for the Democratic party.

Catherine Morgan at Informed Voters wonders if Bill needs a “time-out”:

Don’t get me wrong…I like Bill Clinton, in fact I’m somewhat concerned about him. I realize he is very passionate about supporting his wife for president, but I would suggest that he may be overworked. Even for a healthy person (and lets not forget that it was just 3 years ago that Bill Clinton had heart bypass surgery), the pace of his schedule must be physically and emotionally exhausting. Please, give this man a time-out or something. Even if I’m wrong, and Bill isn’t totally exhausted, he still needs to take a break. It seems to me, that his recent behavior will ultimately hurt Hillary and the democratic party - by giving any Republican nominee an open door for this same type of attack.

The Richmond Democrat, a pro-Obama blogger, thinks it’s extraordinary that Clinton would damn an entire state electorate and still self-pityingly portray his own side as wounded:

“There is so much wrong with Clinton’s response that it’s hard to know where to begin. Is he implying that Blacks are racists who can’t look beyond Barack Obama’s race? Is he implying that Obama, a Black, is somehow unworthy of the presidency? What about women? Are they incapable of voting for anyone other than another woman? Are they incapable of making an informed choice based on their examination of the facts?”

“Millions of voters do not love Bill Clinton but want Hillary to succeed,” notes Kate Stone. “If she can’t do this without him grabbing the spotlight then she has no voice and nothing has changed.”

However, the satirical weekly The Onion probably said it best:

CHARLESTON, SC—After spending two months accompanying his wife, Hillary, on the campaign trail, former president Bill Clinton announced Monday that he is joining the 2008 presidential race, saying he “could no longer resist the urge.”

“My fellow Americans, I am sick and tired of not being president,” said Clinton, introducing his wife at a “Hillary ‘08” rally. “For seven agonizing years, I have sat idly by as others experienced the joys of campaigning, debating, and interacting with the people of this great nation, and I simply cannot take it anymore. I have to be president again. I have to.”

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Comments (22)

kiwiijack :

Now I understand what Hillary really meant when she famously proclaimed: "I have found my voice".

She forgot to add: "...and my voice is called Bill".

Jan 24, 2008 03:07 PM

kiwi jack :

Now I understand what Hillary really meant when she famously proclaimed: "I have found my voice..."

She just forgot to add: "... and his name is Bill."

Jan 24, 2008 03:14 PM

kpeyser :

Just you wait. Not long from now, Dems are going to come together like never before, and they will come out in record numbers in the general election to wipe the sons-of-bitches Republicans off the map for good.

Take a good look at the map on this link:

[www.lukecole.com/Electoral%20Map...]

The country marked in red will soon shrink to a dot.

Jan 24, 2008 04:49 PM

Catherine Morgan :

Thanks for linking to my post. :)

Jan 24, 2008 05:38 PM

venividivici :

You do realize that one only need know two facts to refute this:

1. The areas of the country in red are the fastest-growing, population-wise, as people and businesses leave the cities for less expensive land, enabled by telecommunications technologies.

2. Republicans have more children than Democrats, and will continue to pass along their Republican mores to those children.

Unless Democrats can somehow stop businesses from moving outside of the big urban areas, with their high taxes and failing infrastructure and somehow stop Republicans from having 2 and 3 times as many children as Democrats, there's nothing that can be done to stop the country from continuing to swing to the right.

Which is fine by me, since I hated Clinton before hating Clinton was cool.

Jan 24, 2008 05:56 PM

postroad :

It may well be that Bill is knowingly doing what he is doing and derailing Obama...Bill is no dummy.

But that said: thank the good lord that George W. Bush remains beloved by the press, by his party, and by the American people! what was his popularity rating last week?

Jan 24, 2008 06:10 PM

stuart williamson :

What Billy Jeff has done is utterly destroy any claim to leadership by Hillary. She has revealed herself as hopelessly subservient to her hubby. No Margaret Thatcher she. And now he's swung the "undecideds" who fear a HillyBilly White House.

Jan 25, 2008 12:18 AM

amr :

Mr. Clinton (and Mr. Carter) is a disgrace as a former president. Mr. Bush Sr. and even Mr. Nixon followed the unwritten rule of say no evil about the sitting president. I may dislike a president, but I have respect for the office; something that those two seemly do not have. As an elder statesman and former president, it is demeaning to that office for Mr. Clinton to become the attack dog for his wife’s campaign.

I am old enough to remember Lurleen Wallace running for governor of Alabama in 1966 when her husband could not run for another term and Mr. Clinton’s actions seem to indicate that he is the candidate in reality as was Mr. Wallace. If Mrs. Clinton was the strong woman and candidate that is alluded too, she would stop his disgraceful actions and, in my opinion, have dumped him as her spouse some time ago. But it would appear that her political goals are far more important.

Jan 25, 2008 04:50 AM

Mike :

One of the Dem bloggers asks, "Is he implying that Obama, a Black, is somehow unworthy of the presidency?"

I think it's more that he's implying that anyone not named "Clinton" is unworthy of power--but if it takes a race card to get the point across, the race card will get played.

I just wonder how all those people who moved heaven and earth to defend him ten years ago, despite whatever private disgust they felt at defending a fiftysomething man who got his jollies by sexually harassing and using and abusing women under his power, feel now?

Jan 25, 2008 05:11 AM

bandit :

Hil's an inspiration to women everywhere who can't stand up for themselves but want to pretend they're important. Maybe more crying will help?

Jan 25, 2008 05:14 AM

Assistant Village Idiot :

Sharon Cobb thinks that Bill Clinton needs to look at the bigger picture and do what's good for the Democratic Party? How does she get a correspondent job like that if she's blind? Bill & Hillary Clinton do not consider their party, or their country, to be the bigger picture. They believe they are the biggest picture.

Democrats are waking up to this far too late.

Jan 25, 2008 05:24 AM

WR Jonas :

And the Democrats think this spectacle is creating more support for Democrats? I wonder if there is anything they( the Clintons) can do which the MSM will not clean up, cover up and try to repackage ?
Really, just think of the pile of stinking , offensive , gagging stuff they leave behind and never have to answer for. And upon this mountain of reeking debris, are the squirming hordes of politicians like a nest of rats waiting to reclaim the throne.

Jan 25, 2008 06:33 AM

Dark Helmet :

Let's see if any of you can grasp a few very simple facts.

1. oboma is not black.

2. clinton has been a disgrace since he lied under oath, was impeached and sold military grade systems to the chinese.

Running his mouth like the last greatest failure in American history, dimmy carter, is the icing on the turd cake he left for President Bush to clean up.

3. hillary has been a political prostitute for her own ambition and agenda the entire time.

4. There is a very real and valid reason that bill clinton did not carry his home state in either election and why hillary is a politician from NY rather that Arkansas. The people who know them don't want them.

5. There are millions of us who have been waiting for the rest of you to catch up after your mental vacation. It's too bad it takes a 1/2 white man ( obama is as much this as 1/2 black, don't like the rest of the story? Tough) to bring you around. The damage has already been done and the worst is yet to follow.

Stay tuned.

Jan 25, 2008 07:17 AM

jennanjack :

Bill is acting this way because he is terrified of what Hill will do to him if she doesn't win.

Jan 25, 2008 07:39 AM

Reagan gal :

Where is Vernon Jordon? I wonder what he makes of all of this.

Jan 25, 2008 08:03 AM

sharinlite :

I find it so funny that the Left is just now actually "discovering" the real Bubba & Hill? Please, this is what they were, are and will always be: smarmy, lying, cheating po' folk who made it the "easy" way...they stole it!

Jan 25, 2008 08:17 AM

retro :

Yawn... Yesterdays news is best saved for lining bird cages.

Clenis is irrelevant and his only useful purpose is media fodder for people with no lives.

Jan 25, 2008 08:38 AM

Capster :

Fact check on the comment by Dark Helmet. Bill Clinton did win AR in both 1992 and 1996.

Jan 25, 2008 09:35 AM

Kevin K. :

Dark Helmet got his facts wrong? Funny, I would have figured him to be one of those intelekshuwals from his comment.

Jan 25, 2008 10:13 AM

Wolf Pangloss :

The Obama-Clinton battle is shaping to be a giant monster 4GW battle of disciple of Saul Alinsky versus disciple of Saul Alinsky. And if you think the primary is bad, just wait until the survivor faces a Republican and really lets out all the stops. The MSM will do everything it can to help the Billary Clintons win including free advertising disguised as news, pre-forgiveness of every brutish thing they say, and turning up the volume to 11 on every single baseless anti-Republican rumor that swirls around the Democrats' water coolers.

Jan 25, 2008 01:41 PM

Dark Helmet :

Capster,

I stand corrected on clinton and Arkansas, he did win by less than 18 percent.

Not what you would call a ringing endorsement.

Thank you for pointing that out. It is still a lack of support from the people who know him best, but it is not a loss as I mistated.

We all know how important "is" is with bill.

I will make sure that my future posts reflect that fact.

As for the other little remarker, kevin k, you don't seem to have anything to say that disputes the rest of my comment.

Good, then maybe you learned something today too. That's the point. Form your own ideas with the information you have and then hold them up to the light to see if they work. I have no problem with that.

Most of the time, it proves what I say.

In fact, kevin, even with the only mis stated fact being pointed out and dutifully corrected, the idea and the meaning still ring through.

Jan 25, 2008 08:02 PM