"You gotta do what you gotta do"--Bill Clinton

Wall Street Journal Editorial:

One of our favorite Bill Clinton anecdotes involves a confrontation he had with Bob Dole in the Oval Office after the 1996 election. Mr. Dole protested Mr. Clinton's attack ads claiming the Republican wanted to harm Medicare, but the President merely smiled that Bubba grin and said, "You gotta do what you gotta do."

We're reminded of that story listening to Barack Obama protest his treatment by the now ex-President Clinton on behalf of his wanna-be-President wife. "You know the former President, who I think all of us have a lot of regard for, has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling," Mr. Obama told a TV interviewer. "He continues to make statements that are not supported by the facts -- whether it's about my record of opposition to the war in Iraq or our approach to organizing in Las Vegas."

Now he knows how the rest of us feel.

The Illinois Senator is still a young man, but not so young as to have missed the 1990s. He nonetheless seems to be awakening slowly to what everyone else already knows about the Clintons, which is that they will say and do whatever they "gotta" say or do to win. Listen closely to Mr. Obama, and you can almost hear the echoes of Bob Dole at the end of the 1996 campaign asking, "Where's the outrage?"

This has been the core of the conservative critique of the Clintons for years. So it is illuminating to hear the same critique coming from Mr. Obama and his supporters now that his candidacy poses a threat to the return of the Clinton dynasty. Even Democrats are now admitting the Clintons don't tell the truth -- at least until Mrs. Clinton wins the nomination.

Mr. Obama's two examples are instructive because they are so wonderfully Clintonian. On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, Mr. Clinton attacked Mr. Obama's claims of having opposed the Iraq war all along as a "fairy tale." This is a tough charge coming from a two-term Democratic President in a Democratic primary, and it probably helped turn some voters against Mr. Obama.

But it was also a classic distortion intended to turn voter attention away from his wife's own Iraq fairy tale. She's the candidate who voted for the war and backed it for years before she decided she had to be sort of against it, only to later become really against it, and now to favor a withdrawal starting in 60 days. We think Mr. Obama is dangerously wrong about Iraq, but compared to Mrs. Clinton he's a model of consistency.

Then there's Mr. Clinton's moaning before Saturday's Nevada caucuses that his wife's supporters were being strong-armed by pro-Obama unions at casino voting sites. Clinton campaign allies sued and lost on the matter, and the former President sounded like a Chicago ward heeler as he told reporters about the Obama campaign's voter-intimidation tactics. Yet on the day of the vote Mrs. Clinton won at seven of the nine casino sites, and the Obama campaign was left asking if its vote had been suppressed. It wouldn't be the first time Mr. Clinton accused an opponent of doing something his own campaign was planning to do.

Some in the press corps argue that Mr. Clinton's attacks are hurting his wife. But if they were, he'd stop....

...
Democrats will not reject the politics of fraud when they think it is to their benefit. Never mind that Clinton wound up sending their congressional delegation into the wilderness for 12 years. They still thought it was wonderful that he could scam the public about Republicans. Don't expect them to reject the politics of fraud as long as they think it is working. In fact Slick Willy is so slick that he can make Obama look like a hero again if he is the VP nominee. Just watch him and be awed by the audacity of this hopeless cynic.

Comments

  1. Hillary had a moment of honesty when she choked back the tears in NH. The honesy had to do with the fact that at that moment everything she had worked and planned for at least the past 8 years was slipping away from her. Now any emotion or outrage is feigned to garner sympathy, as she said, "She found her voice." How BAD does she want to be President, it is her EVERYTHING. She would dry up and blow away if she fails, deflate and fall to the ground like a Led Zepplin.

    Hillary is an arch behind the scenes manipulator as she sees nothing can be gained from working openly. The real question about Hillary is if there really is anything behind the curtain, or is it all about having power and nothing about what to do with it. The first 8 years showed that the direction of the wind was tested before anything was even said.

    The bet is that if Hillary becomes President ole Bill will be seen and not heard from. He will be a political advisor to Hillary whose usefulness will be in decline as she has found her own political acumen. It is possible that she could get Bill to be head of the UN. What would that exactly means is unclear as the UN is a deeply divided organization that has a hard time agreeing to anything. From seeing Bill lately, he doesn't look good, his health is in question.

    Hillary for all her "feminist rage" is still afaid of her father and mothers judgements of her. She is and was unwilling to confront those demons to be her own person. As such she is a deeply conflicted person. That is the weakness in her armour, she is unwilling to commit and or risk herself for anything and as such will be jousting with windmills even if she ascends to the Presidency. She will be battling those "Right Wing Conspiracys" from now until doomsday.

    Then there is another question to be answered, underneath all that "radical rhetoric" that Hillary thinks she believes in, lies that right wing conservative coreof her Goldwater Girl days that she so heartly abhors. She is after all still her fathers daughter, and those beliefs even though unspoken still resonate within her. That is the real Hillary that lies underneath all the conflict Thus for all Hillary espouses, if her Father was a tyrant, Hillary is a tyrant to.

    In America there are too many competing interest for power for Hillary to have clear sailing to get any agenda she has implemented. If memory serves U well, you will remember that the Clintons inherited a Democratic Party majority in Congress in 1992, what exactly did they get accomplished with that majority. The Democratic Party is even more Centerist now than in the early 90s as most the newly elected Democrats to Congrss in 2006 were conservative in nature to be electable.

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  2. Bill Clinton is an absolute disgrace. Understanding that he is a "forever campaigner", he has inserted himself where he does not belong. And, Hillary is responsible for that. the two Clintons are the most despicable pair we have seen since Bonnie and Clyde.

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  3. Are you kidding me? I realize the WSJ is right of center, but I laughed out loud after reading this. So, you're basically saying that the Clintons will do whatever it takes? What about Karl Rove? What about Dick Cheney? And let's not forget about King George. The Repugnantcans could teach Machiavelli a few tricks! Let's just say that the Clintons learned from the best!!

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