Bill Clinton - having destroyed Monica, your presidency, Al Gore in 2000, & Hillary's campaign - won't you please go home ala Bill Bailey(and shutup while you're at it).

In sum you are correct. It is difficult to envision such viciousness, but this in fact is the case. Clinton's statements on Bosnia adds to the list; she lied when it was clear to many observers that her version of events was false, and repeated it. No rational reason can be stated for this behavior as the same political point could have been made without the false remarks.

Your essential theme which is political destruction of Obama is the clear intent to Clinton's approach. A likely near term effect is to provide Republicans with more legislative control in the Congress than otherwise they would have, almost guarantees McCain the White House if she gets the nomination, and if Obama gets it Clinton's actions reduces his chance at winning the White House. Some have long said her goals is 2012, given recent events this appears plausible. She has never lead the contest in pledged delegates and likely never will; she is not entitled to the White House nor has see demonstrated that she has earned the right to compete for it.

If this continues past mid June, public rebuke by the majority of the Super delegates is the only recourse. The Democratic Party would be better without the Clintons than with them. The issue is sanity, not patriotism.

On the notion of evil. What has the Clinton done to expand the Democratic Party? As another has noted the Clintons know you when they need you.

I think that the latest Obama smear against President Bill Clinton will be self-defeating.
Obama already got all insane people who believe that Bill Clinton, is a racist, that Bill Clinton did to African-Americans what he did to Monica Lewinsky that the government gives Blacks the drugs, that Bill Clinton is playing the McCarthy card, that this country created AIDS and so on
Now Obama has to prove to undecided voters that he is a sane mainstream person, and he is not helping himself at all with his latest insane smear against our great president Bill Clinton.

There is a strange metric going on here: we now find that Obama has to keep quiet when the Clintons fire off veiled hints that he just isn't, you know, man enough, or patriotic enough, or something else enough to be president, like McCain is. If Obama just keeps quiet then he won't be accused of bashing the Clintons. Of course then he also will be assumed to be agreeing that he isn't man enough, etc. Now, somehow that just doesn't seem to mesh very well.

Bill Clinton is a very intelligent man and Hillary Clinton at least equals him in intelligence. Neither of them can logically be said to just accidentally stumble into these veiled hints about Obama's unworthiness, compared to McCain. So, logic says the hints are intended, planned, and delivered with malicious intent.

But, Obama just has to learn to stay quiet and not suggest that a fellow Democrat is insulting him. Otherwise......what?

One thing this long, drawn out Democratic nomination process has done is clarify the character of the two Democratic candidates, and exposed the vacuousness of the McCain/media campaign. Here's my speculations about how this year is going to work out, starting with the demonstrated character of the candidates as displayed through their campaigns, then some speculations regarding the course of the campaigns themselves.

Bush was clearly not of adequate character to be elected dog-catcher, and if anything he has grown less qualified each day in office. But to my surprise, Hillary Clinton has demonstrated that she is dishonest and not trustworthy either. Bush has never demonstrated good character, but Hillary's appears to be born out of frustration and ambition.

I was born before the baby boomers, and I am going to work for the election of Obama, and I will try to locally repair some of the damage that Hillary and her husband are doing to the Democratic party.

If the superdelegates do their job, they will be acting similarly to limit the damage to the Democratic Party. It's far from perfect, especially here in Texas where it has been moribund since Bush defeated Ann Richards in 1994, and there is little likelihood that there could be anything worse for this nation than another four years of Republican Presidency.

We are headed into a Depression and it will be admitted by Summer. All the weasel-words (worst economy since the end of WW II - by a primary architect of this economy, Alan Greenspan)are being spouted because no one in the media wants to be the first to admit that means "Depression." Bush is doing a superb job channeling Herbert Hoover. ("The government does not want to overreact and cause more problems than it corrects.") The Great Depression got as deep as it did and lasted as long as it did because Hoover, advised by the same kinds of Wall Street Bankers as Bush and Hillary are listening to did nothing for three years. A deep depression this summer assures the election of a Democratic President, especially as Bush's inaction continues. (He'll finally be convinced to act when his advisers can no longer lie to him. Again, about Summer.)

But Hillary clearly does not have the character to be President. She is proving that by the way she is either controlling her campaign staff or, if they are off the reservation - which I don't believe for a second - it's a two level campaign as demonstrated by Rove and Atwater.

I'm not sure of Obama, either. He is a pig-in-a-poke candidate. But from what I have seen of his character, especially when contrasted to Hillary, he is the man we need in office next January.

That's assuming he lives that long. I haven't forgotten JFK, Martin Luther King, or RFK. (Nor do I trust the reports that Sen. Paul Wellstone was accidentally killed. To accept that I would have to trust the Bush administration. Anyone who trusts the Bush administration is a fool.)

I see this campaign as working towards the nomination of Obama, with the Republicans and their able assistants in the media trying to start a game of "Why don't you Democrats fight each other?" Florida and Michigan? Those were states that violated the rules that would let their Democratic primary votes count. That's a state problem, not one for the National Democratic Party to solve. The Democrats in those states need to remove the officials in those states who deprived them of the right to participate in the nomination process, and if they don't, its still a state problem. Only the Republicans and the media want it blamed on the national party.

After that is settled down, the campaign between Obama and McCain is going to be centered on the Depression, Iraq, Republican fear-mongering (Muslims attacking our shores in waves and supported by a man with a dark skin whose middle name is Hussein? Gimme a break.), racism, the Depression, and more racism like the current Rev. Wright crap.

The TV media is loving it. They're covering up McCain's age and lack of intellectual capacity to keep the conflict (ratings) going, just as they are currently covering up the fact that Hillary has lost the nomination and is too proud to admit it. I wouldn't be too surprised to find that she, like all Presidential candidates and Presidents, is in a vacuum-proof bubble listening only to her own supporters, and none of them want to be the first to say it is time to pull the plug.

So Hillary is giving the Republicans and the media a series of gifts by continuing her campaign. Face it. Barack has ten times the money she does, and she isn't keeping up. It's over for her. She needs to go back to the Senate and replace Harry Reid and try to remember why she became a Democrat after supporting Goldwater. Her intelligence and experience perfectly suit her for that role. In the meantime, I understand that voter's registrations in Pennsylvania are up amazingly. All those newly registered voters across the nation would have been blocked out of the general election. Now they just have to wake up that Tuesday and decide to vote after the three week media bombardment that is going to go on in October. If I were a Republican, and especially a movement conservative, these are exactly the voters I would have been trying to keep unregistered and otherwise kept from voting.

And if Obama doesn't survive the campaign this year, Hillay is the perfect replacement candidate. But that's all she has left.

Of course, last Summer I expected the candidates to be Giuliani and Clinton. So what do I know? [There are no indicators in the economy that consumers will somehow gain more money to spend to resurrect the economy, and the Republicans and blue-dog Democrats want to give all the government help to banks, businesses, and investors. That means no demand in a demand-driven economic downturn. No one will invest without predictable demand, so the money will leave the U.S. It's already too late to fix that this year even if it could be fixed, which I doubt. That I DO know.]

Richard xx: The Big Lie War came into my scope when the first CBS radio bulletin convinced me of its likelihood. That was in the Spring/Summer of 2002. It was at that point I began to scrutinize them all, including H. Clinton, whom I found wanting. I'm curious. Your comment primarily concerned economics. To what degree does the moral equation of the war concern you in comparison?

I assure you, this is not a holier than thou inquiry.

I agree completely with our friend "Hoppy" from my own former home state of California. The Clinton Partners in Pathos practically pioneered focus-group "lizard language" testing of subliminal say-but-not-say (i.e., imply-but-don't-state) soundbites. They never utter anything publicly political without knowing exactly which voting demographic they wish to influence and in what way. This doesn't make them "evil." It just makes them "slippery." Most professional politicians would consider that a compliment. Certainly, Deputy Dubya Bush has paid the Clintons the sincerest form of flattery by imitating them. Just think Karen Hughes, Ari Fleischer, and Scott McClellan.

Unfortunately for Bawl-and-Pillory's belated interest in actually EARNING the Presidency (with Ross Perot no longer around to grandfather them into it as he did twice previously), Senator Obama and his campaign staff know their semantics as well as anyone. They know how to illuminate the "lizard language" appeals to the sub-rational by elevating the primitive-fear-and-loathing stimulus up into the the rational part of the public consciousness so that the intended voter/consumer victims can see the bogeyman stripped naked in full view and looking rather comically harmless in the sunlight's bright glare. In short, the Clintons consider us binary, either/or, "fight or flight" animals while Senator Obama treats us as citizens who can think and reason if presented with intelligent arguments. Therein lies a distinction so vast as to constitute a revolution in contemporary American consumption-politics.

As Hoppy says, the Clintons want to play the say-while-not-saying game uncontested. They want to hit below the consciousness belt while still maintaining "plausible deniability," as the Nixon crowd used to put it. And when caught out cheating, they want to claim with faux-innocence that "We never called you dirty fucking pinko hippies 'traitors' or 'communists,' so how can you claim that we did?" I've had to witness this kind of Nixon/McCarthy shit from Republicans since I was in elmentary school in the 1950s. So, I know exactly what General Tony McPeak meant. Old "two-for-the-price-of-one" know what he meant, too. They just got royally pissed when the Obama camp pointed it out to everyone else to see.

The Clintons have found themselves in a contest with an adversary who understands them. Just because Senator Obama would like to deal with us as people, doesn't mean that he doesn't understand how animal-training works. Skinnerian operant conditioning can often work to train people just as easily as it works to train pigeons. I served almost six years in the United States Navy, so I know. It took me years of hard work to learn how to think for myself again.

The end game approaches, though; so I'd like to take just a moment to leave the tactical semantics for a discussion of campaign strategy. America doesn't have one national presidential election; it has fifty of them. The same goes for the party primaries. "What's past is prologue," as Shakespeare said, and so forty states already have voted while only ten remain to do so. Nothing that will happen in the future changes what has already happened, at least among the pledged delegates chosen by the people in their individual state elections. I don't see Senator Obama's support deserting him, and he seems to continually pick up more of those "superdelegates" as time passes, so any reasonable pick-up of a few more delegates in any likely combination of a few more states puts him ahead at the end of the process. Therefore, all he really has to do is hang on and keep on keeping on. He has the score, the field, and the clock in his favor. He doesn't need to win everywhere and by huge margins like You-Know-Her does simply to finish not quite so far back in second place. He only has to win in a few more places while losing too badly in a few others. In a game of cumulative small totals, he only needs the greater sum total in the end. The individual pieces don't matter once the puzzle has fallen into place, revealing the final picture. Most people can see the picture clearly at this late date.

You-Know-Her has a "strategy," too, as far as I can tell. It appears likely that she will just try to knock over the table and insist that someone else come along to put the pieces back together again in her favor. She obviously feels entitled to do this. If Senator Obama and his voters object, You-Know-Her will then try to weep for sympathy and claim that those mean old men just won't let her have what she wants. This really doesn't look like much of a "strategy" but it remains for us to see if the Democratic Party will go along with her loser temper tantrum.

I know that I won't waver in my support for Barack Obama, because I want an articulate President of a literate country; not a pigeon trainer of a flock of fools. Nonetheless, if the Clinton Partners in Pathos don't stop running to John McBomb for validation of their "country-loving" Republican credentials, I may have to start writing checks to the Obama campaign. At least I feel fairly confident that he will know best how to not waste my donation.

Thanks again to "Hoppy" for the stimulating observations.

I think Bill Clinton wants to be President again. I was against limiting the Presidency to two terms but have changed my mind and think that term limits might be a good idea for Congress as well. If Hillary puts Bill back in the White House who really will be in charge? Of course, I might not have the correct information about who was making the decisions during Bill's two terms.

tnathan:

"... Clintons words and tone are so good, reasonable and measured, that by keeping this fake scandal alive, Obama is doing favor to Clinton."

I agree with you on that. I'm not saying the Obama camp is smart to push this issue. I was disputing your original comment which claimed (absurdly) that these are 'insane smears' against Bill Clinton. It's Bill Clinton who is choosing to suggest to voters that Obama is someone who may not love his country.

I'm not offended by the description of "aging Baby Boomers", since it's true. I are one, too.

But I'm not worried about being shoved out of the way. I'm for Obama in a big way. So generalizations are not all that useful.

This is a power struggle between the old and the new, though. I'm rooting for the new.

And by the way, in case you haven't noticed, terms like "cultist", "Obamaoids", and "Obamaistas" aren't exactly complimentary terms, either. I think it's probably a good idea for both sides' anonymous posters to take a good, long look in the mirror and shut up. It's a whole month until the Pa primary, and everyone is getting sick of the way this race is degenerating.

"I think it would be a great thing if we had an election between two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interests of the country..".

Does Bill Clinton believe there has ever been a presidential election in which that has not been the case? If asked, of course, he would say, "no". He probably has already.

Then why did he make such a idiotic remark?

Because he knows his wife's campaign is doomed, and is embittered.

Speaking as someone who rallied to The Office of the President when he was impeached, I say now, and for the first time, that I deeply begrudge being forced to support such a pissant.

Every credible survey of voters shows that its the baby boomers that have been Hillary's biggest supporters. Obviously, not all baby boomers--including me, incidently--support Hillary.

My point is this is also a battle for influence, not just the nomination. To paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt, "No one can make you feel insulted without your consent". That's your choice.

It would be interesting to go back and see some of Bill's responses when folks were spending time talking about his draft-dodging and trips to Moscow.

Excellent quote from Eleanor Roosevelt about insult requiring one's own co-operation. Personally, I prefer the Buddha's admonition from about two-thousand-five-hundred years ago to the effect that "No one can give offense to anyone unwilling to take it." Something like that. Therefore, the Clinton Partners in Pathos cannot offend us if we refuse to grant them the power to do so.

On the other hand, Bawl and Pillory's conflicted political androgyny does exude a fairly Greek hint of entertaining drama as we await the fated retribution of the Furies who don't much care for over-reaching human arrogance.

Thanks for sharing the Mark Twain quotes, workerbee. Please allow me to reciprocate.

As an ex-patriot (not a misspelling) expatriate now living in Southern Taiwan, I've always appreciated Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce's "Devil's Dictionary" definitions of key terms that I wish more Americans would internalize as innoculation against the prevailing crypto-fascist nationalism now poisoning the nation's political discourse. Among my favorites:

"Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any man ambitious to illuminate his name. In Doctor Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer, I beg to submit that it is the first."

"Patriot. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors."

"Army. A class of non-producers who defend the nation by devouring everything that might tempt an enemy to invade."

"History. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools."

As for my own personal philosophy of Ex-patriotism, I would call it "living happily in someone else's country rather than dying miserably in one's own."

Back to you ...

The aging baby boomers are on the verge of becoming irrelevant, and they don't like losing. It's now a fight to diminish Obama's influence.

O for heaven's sake - I'm an aging boomer and I and everyone else I know is an Obama supporter.

Please try to avoid these generalizations about big groups of people. I don't see every "aging boomer" in the country supporting Hilary.

Sheesh.

Joseph,
You didn’t answer my question

Can you explain again, what’s your accusation against Bill Clinton? Are you saying that he wanted to spread negative impressions about Obama? If so, what was the chain of events and people who spread these negative impressions of Obama ? Didn’t you notice that it was Obama who spread “negative” information about himself?

In no way did I interpret Clinton’s remarks as questioning Obama’s patriotism

Isn't it about time that Americans matured enough to stop falling for the silly Patriotism gambit:

"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."

George Bernard Shaw

I expect to hear the wacky parsing of everything the Clintons say from Rush Limbaugh and other right wing wackos but Ruth Rosen? Come on Ruth! Get off your high horse here and remember sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Get real please!

tnathan:

Not particularly clever, and factually wrong.

--------
"The fact remains that nobody interpreted his remarks as have anything to do with Obama until Obama broadcasted them to the whole workd."
--------

That's not accurate. Many people listening did notice. Some will be influenced. Others will not. But people notice. The fact that there are people like the writer you linked to who don't notice doesn't prove that nobody noticed, does it? Go back and check the record and you'll see that pundits and journalists did notice it and commented on it before the Obama camp said a thing. People listening noticed. They hear the Presidents words and they get the fairly plain meaning of them. Imagine that, people listening to Clinton's words and understanding what they mean ... amazing how that works, don't you think?

---------
You didn’t answer my question
---------

You asked 4 questions. I told you very clearly what I was accusing Clinton of.

As for Clinton's intention, it's simple, he wants to add fuel to the perception (held by some) that Obama is not patriotic. The order of event is this: 1. rumors float around that Obama is a muslim, a manchurian candidate, unamerican. 2. Bill Clinton says things to feed the rumors.

So no, Obama is not spreading bad information about himself.

Does that help?

"The point is, nobody saw Clinton comments as a code until Obama told them to see a code."

I saw it, and millions of others saw it on their own, without being told to see it.

Emerson said, "I want nothing to do with politicians; they are not men." The recent behavior of Bill Clinton is an example of the behavior that caused Emerson to say that.

Ruth and the rest of the Obamaniacs,

It's great you support Barack Obama. Really, he's a good candidate. Smart, inspiring, with a deliberative and serene temperment that inspires confidence. It's possible his style could actually change the way people think about politics and partisanship. If he wins the nomination I will be proud to vote for him in November.

Sadly, almost none of you make that case for Obama. Instead your argument is soley that he is not her. How pathetic.

Ruth, your essay is outright mendacious. I note you quote only bits of Clinton's response to the is he muslim question because you know she answered in the negative again and again and again and it was the reporter's hectoring that occasioned the "so far as I know" but that sort of honesty seems below the standards of an Obama supporter.

Again and again Obama supporters distort and sometimes, as in your case, outright lie to score points against the Clintons. CAn't you make a case for your candidate without scraping the bottom of the gutter?

Is it because you know her economic policy is better, her health care plan is better and she does have more experience. Is is because on the metrics many people use to judge candidates, whe beats him. Is that why you cannot make a case for him, only a case against her?

I am proud to support Clinton. Yes, she's played some hard politics in the election. I didn't like the 3AM ad, but you know what, if Obama and you are all so tender you come crying and whining over this, you all have no business in politics because it's going to get tougher for the general.

The primary is the test to see if you have what it takes, if you can't run the gauntlet of what has been a relatively clean and easy primary, then you don't have what it takes to fight for the nomination. By this time in the 1992, we had Genneifer Flowers, the ROTC letter, etc. so chin up and get a grip. You embarrass me to be fellow democrats with your crybaby attitude.

Destor - Elliotness,

I think I am going to agree with both of you.

When Geraldine Ferraro went all racist ballistic over Obama's candicacy I simply didn't understand it until (I think it was Josh) said that she sees Obama's campaign as being merely Black identity politics, with little crossover to mainstream Democrats.

I interpret that as saying Geraldine thinks that Obama will peak out with the Black vote and the more liberal Democrats, leaving the election to be won by McCain. Only Hillary can bring in the old-line Democrats who are the base of the Party and save the Presidential election from the Republicans.

That view defines Obama's campaign as a powerful but limited campaign based primarily on a counter-reaction to America's racist history. It also ignores the many elements of apparent cross-over to go beyond just a "boutique" Black candidate. I'd be willing to bet that Bill and Hillary also see the race for the nomination in those terms. Thus you get the frustration and even anger from Hillary and sometimes Bill. If I'm right, then they see Obama taking the Demcrats to defeat in the crucial 2008 Presidential election, and only Hillary can prevent that. They are also frustrated that they see it so clearly, yet the rest of the Party seems ready to risk everything on Obama.

The Hillary camp's view, if I'm interpreting it correctly, is one I would expect from a group who consider her background and experience to be superior to everyone else in the race and the reason why she should be President. Add to that the President's bubble, which the main candidates are already entering, and the reactions from Bill and the Hillary camp are all quite rational. They are afraid that if they lose the nomination, the Democratic Party will go down into defeat for the Presidency in November, and only they can save it.

Obama sees himself as a new type of politician for America, one not limited to a "boutique" candidacy of the type the Hillary camp thinks he is running. The fact that the polls have the two candidates effectively even since super-Tuesday strongly suggests that the Party members themselves have not decided which view will prevail in the nomination, and no one has more than a clue how it will work out in the general election.

I see large elements of likely truth in both views, which is one reason I found it so hard to decide between the two.

Hillary IS the establishment Democratic party, with both the pluses and minuses of that. There is more track record and so more to judge, but at the same time there is so much caving in to and compromise with the Republicans even when they have been invariably wrong and incompetent in literally everything, and corrupt to boot.

Obama does seem to seriously want to move to new, more positive political levels and I am extremely impressed with the political skills he brings to the task. But at the same time, he has very little track record and effectively none nationally outside this campaign. His ability to win delegates at the caucuses shows damned good organizing of the committed core of his supporters. But can he get the old line Democrats to go with him? He seems to me to ignore history too much, forgetting much of what has been so hard learned by so many. Like the fact that you can never never never trust a Republican to deal in good faith or the honestly carry through what they promise, or that no health care without a mandate can be universal, and anything short of universal access to health care has failed every time it was tried.

So I think there is a big divide between the two camps, and the divide has good reasons. But I also think that once a candidate is decided on, the divide will be quickly papered over. I also think that the economic woes given us by the Republicans and the Reagan Revolution will be recognized as being as serious as the Depression by this Summer. That makes any expectation that McCain can win the Presidency ludicrous. This is already seen - properly - as a Republican-caused economic crisis. Even with full media support, the voters will not let the Republicans slide when they are voting with empty pockets because the economy has turned down.

So we all wait on the Pennsylvania voters, (I'm betting on an effective tie) and I'm waiting to see if Hillary can pull out of the fund-raising slump. (My bet is no.) And that will put paid to her candidacy. The current disagreements will disappear like a light fog when the day warms up.

The party is not going to let the decision of the nominee get into a real convention. The decision will be made before Denver, and even the losing camp will heave a sigh of relief around their complaints. Besides the uncertainty, an open convention would be handing McCain the election. Anything is better than that.

Let me put it to you this way, Elliott Ness.

Obama's central argument for his election is that he is different and will bring a new era of national unity and reduce the polarization in Congress.

In exchange for getting the great unifier, we are asked of overlook his inexperience, he placebo reforms that sustain the problems and his relative conservatism.

So, when his campaign resorts to whining and pointing fingers, he undercuts and obliterates the one reason he has to ask people to vote for him.

Oregon Activist,
Ruth, your essay is outright mendacious.
Yes,
Ruth Rosen is a journalist and historian. She is professor emerita of history at the University of California, Davis and a visiting professor of public policy and history at U.C. Berkeley.
She should know better than spread mass hysteria.
She is worse than Reverend Wright.
Berkeley is a very good university for hard science, but their history, political science and so on are last refuge of radical left wing dogmatics.

tnathan:

One more thing. I'd prefer to continue this discussion with the non-trolls on this this discussion board who care about the truth and who were devoted to having a sincere discussion about the nomination race, and people could actually ask themselves who is right on the facts and the issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself because of trolls.

Joseph,

In the wake of controversy over comments made by Barack Obama's former minister, Clinton's comments could be seen as an effort to draw attention to the issue of patriotism in a state with a high population of veterans.

The former president made the comments to less than 80 audience members at an invite-only event focused on veterans issues. The audience was subdued as Clinton gravely outlined a message of patriotism and honor for military service, The small sea of navy-blue VFW caps nodded along in agreement.

Update: Bill Clinton spokesperson Matt McKenna clarifies the former president's comment: "Actually, as is indicated by the quote itself, President Clinton was talking about the need to talk about issues, rather than falsely questioning any candidate's patriotism.

He was lamenting that these kind of distractions 'always seems to intrude' on political campaigns. This consistent with his criticism of the 'politics of personal destruction,' which dates back 16 years

So, what's seems to be a problem?
Bill Clinton spokesperson Matt McKenna clarifies the former president's comment before McPeak's response. If Obama had not decided to make a big deal out of this speech before less than 80 audience members, nobody would notice that Obama patriotism is being questioned. It was Obama choice.
People are allowed to clarify their statements.
For example:

Obama himself gave a similar explanation during an interview Tuesday with WOAI radio in San Antonio, Texas. Expressing frustration that his wife's remarks had been taken out of context and turned into political fodder, the Illinois senator said, "What she meant was, this is the first time that she's been proud of the politics of America, because she's pretty cynical about the political process, and with good reason, and she's not alone. But she has seen large numbers of people get involved in the process, and she's encouraged."