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Blogs by Erik Hare
Bill's World
1/24/2008 7:43:09 PM
It’s Bill’s world that we live in. It’s all about Bill.
That may be a harsh thing to say about our former President, Bill Clinton, but I can’t help but think that it’s how he sees it. When he has a score to settle, everyone else had better damned well look out.
Before I explain what the Hell I’m talking about, I want to make it clear that as a member of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party (DFL, we don’t have plain Democrats here) I was one of the first people I know of to support the guy in 1992. I thought George H. W. Bush was beatable, and that it was time to put some serious energy behind the Democrat’s plan for action. I waited for 3 hours when his bus was late pulling into Minneapolis just to shake his hand and stare him in the eye for a millisecond that he pulled into the sincerity of long and warm greeting. The guy is just plain good, the best politician there is.
Lately, however, we’ve seen a very different Bill. This is a man who has gone on the attack with the press, accusing reporters who have the audacity to ask pointed questions about his pointed attacks of all kinds of unfairness, mendacity, and plain old shitty behavior.
I don’t get concerned when people act politically. I only become worried when they are clearly acting against their own best interests; even moreso when they have the skill of Bill Clinton. What the Hell is wrong with him these days?
I figured it out largely by accident while reading a book, “Write it When I’m Gone” by Thomas DeFrank. This is a series of interviews with Gerald Ford to be published after he died, and was dutifully put into print last year. Ford wanted to help end the impeachment mess because he didn’t think it helped anyone to disgrace the President and the Presidency (go figger). He was rebuffed because Bill had no interest in contrition – he wanted to fight. So Ford stayed out of it.
The impeachment proceedings were an important high-water mark in partisanship, because they lit a fire under the Democrats. Sure, the Republicans had been hating us for years already, but in 1998 we learned how to hate them. They were no longer wrong, they were evil. They stood against everything that was good and decent and moral.
Fast-forward that sentiment to today, and what do we have? Battle fatigue is the best way to describe it as far as I’m concerned. Barack Obama scores big points with independents and Democrats alike by talking about getting past the partisan divide. How did that happen? Because the Democrats succeeded in grabbing both houses of Congress, humiliating Bush to a twenty-something percent approval, and what have we accomplished? Zip. Nada. Bupkiss. Dada. Doodley-Squat. Nichts. Nothing.
And that’s the point where we get Bill back into the picture. If Hillary Clinton does not win the nomination for President, it will be because of a backlash over the partisan divide that Bill Clinton had a lot to do with creating in the first place. He sowed the seeds, and Hillary will reap the crop. Women always get to do the harder job.
At this point, it’s hard to tell if Bill actually feels guilty about the prospect of screwing everything up for Hillary or if he’s just still mad about what was done to him. He’s pretty egocentric, so we can guess he’s mostly mad. But to see the spitting cobra that accuses members of the press of all kinds of malfeasance, well, something is seriously wrong with him. The possibility of a serious guilt trip cannot be left out.
Meanwhile, the press seems have taken to baiting him largely because it’s an easy way to get great video for the evening nooze. Since it’s too easy to be considered a sport, they may get tired of it after a while. Every night we have a lot of bizarre allegations against Obama actually, get this, respecting Republicans enough to learn what made them so popular over the last few decades. As if gathering intelligence and developing a candid assessment about your enemy is any way to win a war … wait a minute …
Through all of this, it’s all about Bill. Somehow, everything we know about politics is because of a world that Bill had a big hand in making. Just in case we forget, he lets us know constantly, out on the campaign trail for Hillary. You remember her, Bill’s long suffering wife, yes? It’s not about her, it’s still about Bill.
You’re living in Bill’s world. Be happy about it. At least there’s entertainment.
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