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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IIRC, it started in the early 90's with the Clintonesque tactic of an "endless campaign". Perhaps even before that, as the Clinton machine tested and perfected this tactic while still in Arkansas. The then 'new' 24/7 cable news media latched on to it because they needed material and content to show for the growing audience of news junkies (and TV couch potatoes) which was burgeoning all around. It just snowballed from there, and voila! the media became a 24/7/365 poliical campaign.
I blame Crossfire for all this !!! LOL
IIRC, it was satellite launching technology. The problem was in the missiles themselves, with violent vibrations, IIRC, and the folks from Loral and Hughes helped them fix it.
I wouldn't bet on it. When Hillary left the White House, those 900 files were just the tip of the iceberg. I'm virtually certain that she had all the important files on everybody.
Among other things, she has the ability to blackmail a number of operatives at top levels of the FBI and the CIA, plus a lot of obvious sympathizers in those agencies. The folks who have been leaking secrets to the New York Times will have no scruples about leaking secrets to hillary, especially those she has blackmail handles on already. Plus the threat of what she'll do if and when she gets back into the White House.
Check that if you haven't. There's other stuff.
The most shocking thing about this article is that Bill Clinton actually gave a pass to a sleazy pardon! I'm really surprised he said no to freeing an American Indian double FBI murderer.
Get out the popcorn! I can't wait to find out the next thing that's going to stick to the bottom of their shoes!
Good point. I has been my observation that the Clinton "political genius" was based on fear and intimidation, not affection or brilliance. Becoming a "Friend of Bill" was a form of "life insurance."
Lacking the ability to abuse government power to hurt people, they are finding out that payback is a b(tch.
I think this is the 9/10s of the iceberg beneath the sea level generating the BDS. They have known since 2000 that GW is ten times the man their weak and weaselly BillyBoy ever was or ever will be. Every day W spends in office is a silent but stern rebuke to their collective lack of character, degenerate morals, compromised integrity.
There probably hasn't been one in a looooong time.
Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.
LOL. Well said.
Seriously, it has been a long time of Clinton and co./Bush and co.
Thanks Carry. It's very interesting reading.
They want to get donors and get organiztions for the ground game in the early primaries, IMHO.
Yes. I agree with you that part of the Democrat machine is to make this President much worse than Pres. Clinton so they have another Republcan that is so horrible to boost the Dems up.
She's a beaut!
Geffen knows.....
It is amazing to me how much the eyes of a person reveal about a person, either one on one, or in a photograph. In this photo even though Hillary appears to be passionately making a point, in her speech, It's pretty clear to me she is reading a teleprompter, and concentrating on what it is she is reading. All the other stuff going on, is just acting, and bad acting at that. And they said Ronald Reagan was just a "B" movie actor. HA!!!
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Nice graphic Phil!-
You are exactly right. The left can't stand being upstaged.
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I think I could find plenty of horses who'd send her some not so friendly fire . . . and maybe some burro's too.
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