Cold blooded red faced anger from Bill Clinton

Eugene Robinson:

Six months ago, Bill Clinton seemed to be settling comfortably into roles befitting a silver-maned former president: statesman, philanthropist, philosopher-king. Now he has put all that high-mindedness on hold -- maybe it was never such a great fit, after all -- to co-star in his wife Hillary's campaign as a coldblooded political hit man.

No, scratch the "coldblooded" part. At times, in his attempt to cut Barack Obama down to size, Bill Clinton has been red-faced with anger; his rhetoric about voter suppression and a great big "fairy tale" has been way over the top. This doesn't look and sound like mere politics. It seems awfully personal.

Obama's candidacy not only threatens to obliterate the dream of a Clinton Restoration. It also fundamentally calls into question Bill Clinton's legacy by making it seem . . . not really such a big deal.

That, I believe, is the unforgivable insult. The Clintons picked up on this slight well before Obama made it explicit with his observation that Ronald Reagan had "changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not."

Let's take a moment to consider that remark. Whether it was advisable for Obama to play the role of presidential historian in the midst of a no-holds-barred contest for the Democratic nomination, it's hard to argue with what he said. I think Bill Clinton was a good president, at times very good. And I wouldn't have voted for Reagan if you'd held a gun to my head. But even I have to recognize that Reagan -- like Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union -- was a transformational figure, for better or worse.

Bill Clinton's brilliance was in the way he surveyed the post-Reagan landscape and figured out how to redefine and reposition the Democratic Party so that it became viable again. All the Democratic candidates who are running this year, including Obama, owe him their gratitude.

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Bill Clinton's brilliance was in the politics of deceit. That is what liberals like Robinson liked about him. They just don't like it when he practices against one of their own. That Robinson still would not vote for Reagan despite his accomplishments tells you something about Democrats. They would rather live under the threat of mutually assured destruction than live with conservative leadership.