Bill Clinton Implies Obama Campaign is Evil.
Sat Feb 16, 2008 at 12:29:57 PM PDT
Okay, the Hillary Clinton campaign appears to be in meltdown mode, and it is flowing from the top with ex-president Bill whining about not getting any respect from Barack Obama.
It's bad enough when Bill says his wife isn't getting respect, but when Bill starts defending himself he is taking away from his wife's campaign and making himself look like the biggest loser.
Then Bill gets on such a roll that he makes a statement that can only be seen to imply that Obama's camapaign is an evil jaugernaut "taking out" the "good" candidates.
Decide for yourself below the fold if I'm seeing things that aren't there.
[Disclaimer: I'm not an Obama partisan, I'm a Kucinich-supporting progressive, and I don't even think Obama is a progressive. But I am opposed to a continuation of the Clinton presidency by electing his wife. I believe as a matter of principle, that no relative in the first degree should be elected to the same office held by an immediagte family member. I'm of the opinion that American democracy is so fundamentally opposed to the idea of nobiity and inherited family power and aristocracy that people do not deserve to be eligible to be elected based on family connections. I didn't oppose Hillary running for the Senate since Bill Clinton never held that seat, but I think both her and George W. Bush should be considered ethically, if not legally, inelegible to hold the office of President because their immediate family members held it. I think the kind of mental gymnastics that we see here from Bill Clinton demonstrate my point that when power becomes a family affair that the imits of decency and credulity get easily crossed.]
Here is another story about poor ole Bill Clinton saying he is not getting the respect he deserves from Obama.
February 16, 2008
Bill Clinton: Obama's ignoring my White House legacy
NACOGDOCHES, Texas (AP) — Former President Clinton on Friday accused Sen. Barack Obama, his wife's rival for the Democratic nomination, of trying to ignore any accomplishments they achieved during their years in the White House.
"You have one candidate who's made the explicit argument that the only way we can change America is to move into a post-partisan future and therefore we have to eliminate from consideration for the presidency anybody who made good things happen in the '90s or stopped bad things from happening in this decade," said Clinton, who was winding up a day of East Texas campaign appearances for his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"It doesn't matter how much good you did," the former president said at Stephen F. Austin University. "We've got to get rid of you because you had to fight to make something good happen. You had to fight to stop something bad from happening. And if you fought, you made somebody mad, we ought to give you an old watch and retire you. You can't possibly make a contribution to America's future."
Without mentioning Obama by name, Clinton said the Illinois senator was promoting a position that it's "actually an advantage to not have any experience because you've not made anybody mad."
"It's been very effective," Clinton said. "It's already taken four good candidates out. It would have taken Hillary out if she didn't have so much grass-roots support and so much guts."
Clinton said his wife's position is to "bridge the party divides when we can, but we also need to be prepared to fight."
The Clinton campaign is getting pathetic. I'm now feeling sad for Hillary and Bill to see them reduced to such double-talk. It's like a boxer staying in the fight but reeling so much you wince just to see they haven't thrown in the towel yet.
I mean look at the sentence referring to the strength of the Obama campaign:
It's already taken four good candidates out.
What does Bill Clinton think he is saying? The clear implication is that a campaign that "takes out" "good" candidates is an "evil" campaign? Otherwise there is no reason to insert the word "good". He's trying to say don't let the last "good" candidate be taken out by this "evil" campaign.
Bill Clinton obviously takes the voters to be such simpletons that he assumes he can say these kinds of subliminal messages and get away with it.
Let's deconstruct this lulu:
"You have one candidate who's made the explicit argument that the only way we can change America is to move into a post-partisan future and therefore we have to eliminate from consideration for the presidency anybody who made good things happen in the '90s or stopped bad things from happening in this decade,"
What exactly does that mean? First, I don't think it is true that Obama or his campaign has used the term "only" but even if they had, no one in the Obama campaign is seriously saying that the future is going to be "post-partisan." Reaching across partisan divisions to find the areas of agreement is not a "post-partisan" vision of the future. It is a vision of moving ahead. And of course Bill endorses this vision a couple sentences later when he says Hillary also wants to "bridge the party divides". So what was his point? That somehow Hillary will fight Republicans but Obama won't? That Obama will give up partisan politics entirely and surrender the Democratic Party?
Second, no one that I have heard in the Obama campaign is suggesting that "anybody who made good things happen in the '90s" is going to be "eliminated." Again, using language like "eliminating" opponents is another attempt by Bill to say the Obama campaign is "evil" because it "eliminates" its opponents. And of course Obama is not "eliminating" "anybody" from the 90s because Obama has many of Bill Clinton's own people in the Obama campaign. Bill Clinton would like people to ignore that Obama has taken in Clinton advisors because then it would show that Obama is not rejecting the past but trying to build on it.
Okay, let's look at another doozy:
"It doesn't matter how much good you did," the former president said at Stephen F. Austin University. "We've got to get rid of you because you had to fight to make something good happen."
Can anyone take this guy seriously? Does Bill Clinton seriously think that anyone will believe Obama is trying to "get rid of" the Clintons "because" they "fought to make something good happen"? Just how silly will he get? Sure, just because the Clintons fought to make something good happen, not Obama wants to "get rid" of them.
So here's the third time Clinton is using the "eliminate", "get rid of", and "taken out" imagery. This is, in case you haven't noticed it yet, the imagery of Clinton's favorite TV "family" drama the Sopranos. This is mobster language, and Bill Clinton is again trying to sell voters the meta-message that Obama is an evil gangster from Chicago who is trying to "eliminate, "get rid of" and "take out" the "good guys" from New York. The Clintons are not the family that I want in the oval office.
It is pretty sad to see Bill Clinton melting down this way. He has left behind all pretence to issues politics and content debate. Now he can only drum up tired re-run dialogues from TV shows.
