Hillary Now Having To Defend Bill
The Hillary Clinton campaign has a serious problem, and it now forces her to spend time on the defensive. People expected Bill Clinton's history to be an issue in a general election, but few would have predicted that Bill's campaigning would present so many obstacles for Hillary in a primary. She had to defend her husband after a dumb remark about a supposed "hit job" from Barack Obama went viral in a CNN video yesterday:
Hillary Rodham Clinton, defending her husband's increasingly vocal role in her presidential effort, sidestepped questions about whether Bill Clinton's suggestion that Barack Obama had put a "hit job" on him was language befitting a former president. ...The former president also reacted angrily upon being told that Dick Harpootlian, a former South Carolina Democratic chairman and Obama supporter, had called the Clinton campaign "reprehensible" and suggested it had borrowed tactics from Lee Atwater, the late South Carolina GOP strategist who famously practiced negative campaigning.
In response, Bill Clinton noted that there had been no outcry from reporters when Obama put out a "hit job" on him.
He didn't elaborate on what he meant, and Hillary Clinton refused to speculate in the interview.
Hit job? What hit job? Neither Bill nor Hillary could give an answer for that question, and for good reason -- it didn't exist. Bill simply made it up in order to push back against the question asked of him by the reporter in the video. It's a classic "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" response, telling a lie loud enough to distract people from the malfeasance at hand.
At one point, not long ago, people considered Bill so brilliant at campaigning that some worried that he would outdo his wife so badly as to discredit her. That analysis obviously no longer applies; instead, the worry is how badly will Bill damage her through his own gaffes. He now has Hillary having to answer for his ridiculous statements to a press that Bill is antagonizing, and he's making Barack Obama look like the latest victim in the Clinton smear machine.
And this is just the primaries. Imagine how the Republicans could goad Bill into more meltdown moments.
How long will Hillary put up with Bill? The better question might be how much more of this will it take to remind American voters of all the dishonest nonsense perpetrated by the Clintons during their first period of power. If this continues, it will just convince Americans that they do not want to put up with either Hillary or Bill for another four years.
UPDATE: Leading Democrats have now gone public against Bill Clinton:
In Washington, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who endorsed Obama last week, castigated the former president for what he called his "glib cheap shots" at Obama, saying both sides should settle down but placing the blame predominantly on Clinton."That's beneath the dignity of a former president," Leahy told reporters, adding: "He is not helping anyone, and certainly not helping the Democratic Party."
That concern was also voiced by some neutral Democrats, who said that the former president's aggressive role, along with the couple's harsh approach recently, threatens to divide the party in the general election.
The disaster continues. When Democrats come out and publicly scold Bill Clinton, people seee that the damage has been both real and substantial.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on January 24, 2008 5:50 AM | Comments () | TrackBacks (0)
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