It's important for all of us to note with bemusement that as the republican collapse enters its last stages of failure, the desperate lashing out at Bill Clinton will reach fever pitches.
As you may have noticed, Drudge has been running a series of incomprehensible headlines about Bill Clinton lately, perhaps longing for the days before the complete bankruptcy of the republican philosophy had been stripped naked before the world. This is understandable if pitiful. Their president's failures are nearly complete. They can't even pretend to defend him anymore. They have nothing but failure, and so they have only the hail-mary pass of trying to blame the last democrat in charge. It is weak, silly and ridiculous.
Yesterday on one of the faux news programs, Newt Gingrich was going on and on about Bill Clinton's transgressions. This is a clear and desperately transparent strategy, but one we must note if we're to aid the final stages of their collapse into universally acknowledged failure.
But there's a key to our response we must note. We must never defend these arguments on their merits. That plays right into their hands.
The Bill Clinton blather is the equivalent of a last ditch effort to summon the so-called "moral outrage" that allowed them to sneak in and sieze power in 2000. The George Bush failures are so obvious now as to be incontestible to everyone but the most ardently uneducated Fox watcher. So they're desperate.
They can't appeal to patriotism anymore.
They can't invoke 9/11 to justify Iraq anymore.
They can't point to the economy or our world standing or even low interest rates anymore.
They have nothing. Bupkis. All they have are the memories of the Clinton impeachment and the blow job. So they'll do everything they can to go back to that time. The message is this:
"Sure George Bush is a failure, but so was Bill Clinton."
This is all they have left and it's absurd. Just as Newt's attempts to blame Clinton for Osama or Saddam or whatever else Bush has failed to accomplish. But try they will.
The "It's Clinton's fault" also plays into the immature almost teenage mentality of the modern republican party. It's as if they know they've driven off a cliff, so all they can do is blame mommy and daddy for not taking the keys away from them before they could. Thus it's democrats fault Bush invaded Iraq. It's democrats fault Bush can't find Osama.
They're fourteen year olds who when caught want to blame their father. Bill Clinton is their father. And so they lash out at the last mature president, the one who actually knew how to govern. They lash out as only immature children can do.
But what do you do when a teenager whines? You don't argue the merits. You ground them.
When you see this sort of tripe dominating Fox News and Drudge in the coming days, ignore it. Focus on Bush. Clinton is irrelevant. Do not engage this ridiculousness. Focus on the facts of today, over and over, and do not relent.
Like immature teenagers, they'll either burst into tears or run away.
We are the parents in this relationship. And soon we'll start rebuilding the destruction of their immaturity.
