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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Add TWA Flight 800 to the list.
Let the pirranahs eat each other.
It's the last one that could blow the Clintons sky high, and the Democrats with them. If Jayna Davis is correct, the government of Iraq was involved in an act of terrorism on US soil with massive loss of life years prior to 9-11.
Can you enlighten me? I haven't heard of this. I thought the perp in OKC was just some nut from Idaho.
Make that 21 years ... yer leaving out Bush 41
(and already they're planning for Jeb and Chelsea to carry on the family's (feud?) tradition !!! )
Excellent point! This couldn get really ugly.
I'm not certain that the MSM is sold on Obamassiah yet. Earlier this week on CNN's Situation Room the repeatedly showed clips of B. Hussien at a political rally that had white crescent moons on a blue background. The same clip over and over as if to accentuate his Muslim-ish-ness. I was wondering what CNN was playing at.
Ditto that. If enough is exposed and people continue to snipe at her, all America will see what a ruthless, vile, lying shrew that she is.
BTW, a FReeper sent this me this link afternoon, and should make interesting reading for blacks and Jews in this country.
http://sonic.net/maledicta/clintons.html
I can see that we are all after the same outcome. No Hillary Period!!!!!!...............
Don't forget he also changed the rules so his big contributor Loral could sell satellite technology to the Chinese. Technology the Chi-coms are now using to blast satellites out of the sky. Thanks Bubba.
Must this twit preface each thought with "you know."
It's her subconcious preface of saying, "I'm going to tell a lie."
Yer right, the Ward Churchill contingent never was able to swing an election :)
/sarcasm off
Carry - - you are just warming up!
What about
-the Wellesley senior thesis,
-the Rose files,
-Craig Livingstone,
-travelgate testimony,
-Peter Paul scandal,
-the original Barrett Report (which some allege contained info of IRS abuses toward political enemies,)-
-Hillarycare (secret meetings, it would have been illegal to choose your own doctor),
-FALN terrorist pardons,
-and the theft of White House furniture and tableware?
The list is longer, of course.
One wonders why the "Hollywood" Dems haven't used any of these gems.
.
Sure. Consider the endorsements. They aren't just a bunch of conspiracy freaks.
LOL!
The whole country has lived through this riffraff. Everyone should remember but may have to reminded. The remaking of the Clintons is on and it is upon us to clarify to voters throughout the country that the Clintons are riffraff.
I do not understand how the Presidential race started now. Someone help to explain this- including how the decision was made and by whom.
It may be true that TWA 800 was an act of terrorism, but the list above more directly involves Hillary. The Murrah Building in OKC had many of the records necessary to bust the Clintons on Waco for example. Hillary's and Vince Foster's participation in what happened there is more direct. I don't know to what degree she was privy to what happened with TWA 800.
No, just dropping examples. The full list we'll never know.
Keep posting the list not just here but everywhere.
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