This is disappointing and clearly not constructive. It divides the party and puts a loser's face on what can and should be the transcendent achievement of Hillary and all of her supporters.
"kiss my ass"?
It's been kind of a tough time for the best President of the last 20 years.
Before the beginning of the 2008 campaign, Bill Clinton's reputation was experiencing a well-deserved resurrection. After 8 years of Bush incompetence, arrogance and corruption, the American people were looking back to the Clinton era as a beacon of peace, prosperity, and achievement. A lie about oral sex paled in comparison to an orchestrated campaign of lies that caused the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and came with a $3 Trillion price tag, not to mention untold thousands of dead Iraqi citizens.
The simple mantra "I Miss Bill" appeared on bumper stickers and posters. It became the vernacular shorthand which contrasted the disastrous age of Bush's callow conservatism against the even-handed competence of Bill's brilliant and inspiring Democratic rule.
The Clinton Global Initiative focused governments and businesses on the critical issues of poverty and disease in the developing world. Whispers of Bill the Supreme Court Justice, or Bill the Secretary General of the United Nations abounded.
But when Hillary Clinton's "In it to win it." campaign was challenged by the new man from HOPE, Barack Obama, Bill's resurrection fell apart.
It's not worth recounting here, because we've all lived through the brutal primary season and we've all moved on. All of us, that is, except for Bill, himself. Apparently, he is so bruised from this season that he is telling his close confidantes that if Barack Obama wants his help, then Obama will need to "kiss my ass".This is disappointing and clearly not constructive. It divides the party and puts a loser's face on what can and should be the transcendent achievement of Hillary and all of her supporters.
As Democrats, we fight for our beliefs, battle things out during primaries and come together to fight for our beliefs when the time comes to defeat the forces of ignorance, hatred, and greed which now control the Republican party.
No one is hurt more by this than Bill Clinton himself. It sullies his reputation, his standing and his ability to stand up with the growing legions of devoted Democrats to lead the nation.
Where's the brave, proud, heroic, visionary who led our party through a decade of prosperity? Has he really been replaced by this broken shell? Where's the man who made a generation of young voters hum "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow", when we could have been marching with the conservative movement back across their bridge to the 18th century? Where's the Bill Clinton I love so much?
Where's our beloved Bubba, the comeback kid? I never thought he really left us, but now, more than ever, I truly do miss Bill.
he can bend over and kiss his own ass goodbyeas far as any future role in the party if this is his attitude.
The world does not revolve around him. And Obama doe not need him to win, although his willing strong support could make an important difference down ballot.
And quite obviously Bill is not the brilliant political strategist he thought he was, since he was a major part of torpedoing his wife's campaign, starting with his insistence on recycling his political advisers like the incompetent Mark Penn.
Tell him that if he wants a mouth on any part of his anatomy, if that is his attitude, let him perform whatever acts he wants on himself.
That was the original, this was the followup:
and let me add - I don't get this irritatedor vulgar all that often. I can be pretty forgiving, but I have had it with this guy's self-absorption.
I agree with you, he has done a pretty good job of destroying his reputation by how he has acted ruing this cycle, and this partiuclar remark is for me the final straw.
Peace
You sound like the Leave Britney Alone guy. You can't freak out every time a washed-up politician says something bad about Barack (or every time a British newspaper cites anonymous third-party sources with an out-of-context quote fragment). Let Bill wander further out to pasture where he can't hurt anybody.
Save it for McCain.
The irony of your Britany metaphor is pretty strong, too. Considering that I've essentially pointed to her as an emblem of the pervasive lie that is conservatism.
Most importantly, this post is really about how much I respect and appreciate Bill, the political hero of my youth. he and other Obama holdouts really need to take a serious look at what they're doing. It's not constructive.
You write:
his post is really about how much I respect and appreciate Bill, the political hero of my youth. he and other Obama holdouts really need to take a serious look at what they're doing. It's not constructive.
This is disingenuous, at best. With all due respect, WJC made some mistakes this past primary, and probably said some stuff that ought not to have been said.
But to be fair, Obama and his supporters treated President Clinton quite badly. In many ways, they attempted to minimize the presidency of Bill Clinton asa campaign tactic against Hillary. Well, okay, perhaps Hillary brought that on.
But worst of all, some of Bill Clinton's statements were utterly distorted in order to create the slanderous charge against him that he was a racist. I am speaking here of the "fairy-tale" statement.
That attack bothered me at the time, and I can understand why WJC may still smarting from that.
So perhaps all President Clinton is "doing" is reacting as a normal human being. Give the guy a break.
Now, that all said, I also agree with TGH that this sort of thing is not productive, and I hope the former great Democratic President and the soon-to-be great Democratic president find a way to proceed. But quite honestly, I think the ball is in Obama's court.
But I think the remarks were a pointed attempt to sacrifice Bill's record as president on the alter of superficial bipartisanship. I disagreed with the statements at the time.
Anyway, at least with respect to Obama personally, that was what I was referring to here, and I think I overstated my case.
And I agree that since it became apparent that he was goign to win the nomination, Obama has been very respectful and done everything reasonable to win support of both Clinton's in the wake of a tough primary fight.
But comparing TGH to the Leave Britney Alone guy- NAILED IT!
But like most of America I'm happy to know that the party and and country are headed in a very different direction with new leadership and a renewed hope.
Nothing is to be gained bashing Bill Clinton (though the Brits love this political soap opera) .... and Hillary has a chance to restart anew (for aznew). I will say Hillary did her professional best to promote Unity in Unity and for that deserves some support.
The Clintons need to take a very long break.... Obama doesn't really need them as much as they want their $10 Million personal debt covered. Pay them off and let 'em vacation on Martha's Vineyard.