Posted on 02/22/2007 6:50:55 PM PST by neverdem
POLITISCOPE
Clinton Faces (Not So) Friendly Fire
By John Mercurio, NationalJournal.com
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007
Take a good, hard look at Bill Clinton. When the 2008 Democratic primary is over, the former president (and would-be first husband) might look a lot different.
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The battle between Bill Clinton's wife and Barack Obama could have a far-reaching impact on the former president's long-term legacy. |
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Since the earliest days of his first term, Clinton has been a favorite GOP piñata and fundraising tool. But for the first time since he entered the White House in 1992, Clinton's record as president will be openly scrutinized, dissected -- and yes, criticized -- in a Democratic primary. That race, especially the battle between his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., could have a far-reaching impact on the former president's long-term legacy, particularly among two crucial groups of voters: women and blacks.
In some ways, Bill Clinton has only his wife to blame for such threats to his legacy. After all, he is (arguably) a semi-innocent bystander in his wife's brewing fight, the indirect target of anti-Hillary salvos fired by Democratic rivals, who can justify their criticisms by noting her efforts to own policy achievements compiled by her husband's administration.
Such critiques could come at great risk in a party still overflowing with adoring Clinton fans. But strategists from opposing camps believe it's a deep quiver from which to launch arrows, as long as those arrows are carefully chosen and fired with precision. Democrats may be unlikely to accept criticisms of Clinton's record on the economy or civil rights, for example, but they're willing to consider challenges on issues like campaign finance, health care, ethics, some aspects of foreign policy and, of course, his personal behavior.
"It's been papered over for a while. But disagreements have been there since day one," one Obama strategist said this week. "This is a fight some Democrats have wanted to have for years."
The earliest and most aggressive practitioner of this tactic has probably been former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who partly blames faulty WMD intelligence from the Clinton administration for his "wrong" vote authorizing the Iraq war in 2002. "I went back to former Clinton administration officials who gave me sort of independent information about what they believed about what was happening with Saddam's weapons programs. They were also wrong," Edwards said Feb. 4 on NBC's "Meet the Press." "And based on that, I made the wrong judgment."
But the most blatant example erupted Wednesday when Clinton's camp was drawn into a feisty tussle with Clinton-turned-Obama supporter David Geffen, who decried the political dynasties that have run the country for the past 18 years. (Geffen's relations with the Clintons soured in early 2001, when the president refused to pardon American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, a convicted murderer of two FBI agents.)
In an interview with the New York Times' Maureen Dowd, Geffen, a member of Obama's finance team who co-sponsored a glitzy Beverly Hills fundraiser for him Tuesday night, said he's supporting Obama because he's "inspirational" and "he's not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family.... I'm tired of hearing James Carville on television." (Subscription Required)
He said the Clintons lie "with such ease, it's troubling."
Geffen also hit Bill Clinton below the belt. "I don't think anybody believes that in the last six years, all of a sudden Bill Clinton has become a different person," he said in a thinly veiled reference to Clinton's personal indiscretions.
Hillary Clinton's campaign hit back, hard and fast, calling Geffen's remarks a "slash and burn" slam on the senator "and her family" that Obama should repudiate. "While Sen. Obama was denouncing slash and burn politics yesterday, his campaign's finance chair was viciously and personally attacking Senator Clinton and her husband," said Clinton campaign communications director Howard Wolfson.
Camp Obama was only too delighted to turn up the volume. "We aren't going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs fired back. "It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when he was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln Bedroom."
The spat, played out in a series of statements released to the media, continued.
Other Democratic candidates have taken a different tack, attempting to criticize Hillary while praising Bill and, in doing so, trying to put some distance between the two Clinton legacies. Perhaps no one is more motivated to follow this strategy than New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the only former Clinton Cabinet member in the 2008 race. His decision to run suggests he doesn't feel particular loyalty to either Clinton and indicates he may feel free to throw barbs her way. He said recently that while he has great respect for Bill Clinton and worked well with him in various administration posts, he was never personally close to Hillary.
"And I do know cases where he is calling individuals who he thought were supporting Sen. Clinton, and they're supporting me," Richardson told the Albuquerque Tribune this month.
For her part, Clinton on Wednesday personally chose to respond to Geffen by, well, standing by her man. "You know, I believe Bill Clinton was a good president," she said in Nevada, to cheering applause from an audience of union members. "I'm very proud of the record of his two terms."
-- John Mercurio is a NationalJournal.com contributing writer and a senior editor of The Hotline. His e-mail address is jmercurio@nationaljournal.com.
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This is getting good.
Sick, disgusting creatures.
The MSM won't be able to minimize the Clinton troubles for too long.
According to the adulating minions of BillyJeff, he was the first black president.
We don't need Obama.
.
RATs eating RATs....I love it.
I'm beginning to think they don't want to minimize the Clinton troubles any longer, that they've decided Obama is their candidate.
break out the popcorn
FBI files?
Oklahoma City?
If that is the case, and I hope you are right, I hope she is totally HUMILIATED.
No more Clinton's Please!!!!!..............
Good point. We can FINALLY expect to see Clinton dirt finally hit the fan.
Must this twit preface each thought with "you know."
It is troubling. They lie even when it is totally unnecessary.
Congenital Liars!
When the dirt hits the fan I will provide the water to make it MUD!!!!!!
I have heard more and more comments about no more Bushes or Clintons. People can see that she is a vile, angry, deceitful ugly person and once her true colors (Marxism) comes out, she will be rejected, we must pray to God.
It would be interesting to see how this plays out in the MSM. I would bet that coverage of the most damning information will be limited to strong Blue states where Republicans would not be expected to make inroads during general elections; e.g., New York and California.
So Geffen had no problem supportingand throwing money at the great liars when they could help him get his murderer friends out of jail. But now they are... just great liars.
Can we at least get to see a steel cage match between Geffen and Carville before the primary season ends and they all make kissy kissy.
This is astonishing in itself, that even Pres Clinton held some moral scrulples in not pardoning, and that Geffen would become enraged and hold a grudge that he didn't pardon.
Pass the popcorn ... the extreme left are showing themselves for exactly what they are, and it ain't a pretty sight. Are you watching this, America?
You will know the Clintons are in real trouble when/if the NY Times lets Dowd spew her venom in their direction. Until then I suspect this is more practice shawdow boxing for the REPUB trashing they will unlease after the primaries.
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