Grendel
01-25-2008, 04:25 PM
From the op/ed page of the Boston Globe (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2008/01/25/statesman_or_hatchet_man/)Statesman or hatchet man?
January 25, 2008
IT WAS inevitable that former president Bill Clinton would play an active role in his wife's campaign for the presidency. Not for him is the aloofness of a Dwight Eisenhower. When asked during his vice president Richard Nixon's campaign for the White House in 1960 to cite a major Nixon contribution, Eisenhower asked for a week to think about it.
But Clinton has gone beyond being Senator Hillary Clinton's No. 1 supporter to become her No. 1 pitbull against her chief rival, Senator Barack Obama. If he is not careful, he will forfeit the elevated status he enjoys as an ex-president and leader of philanthropic foundations. And he runs the risk of dividing his own party, which until now had been united in its determination to end the Republicans' grip on the White House.
Neither Hillary Clinton nor Obama has dealt with notably tough opponents in winning their Senate seats, so there is a benefit for Democratic voters in seeing how both respond to the give and take of a hard-fought campaign. But the Clintons' unique situation has steered them - and the country - into uncharted waters. Certainly it is Bill Clinton's right to malign Obama's longstanding opposition to the Iraq war as a "fairy tale." But in making these and other criticisms of the Illinois senator, the former president sounds less like an elder statesman than like a political kidney-puncher.
The best contribution that Bill Clinton could make to his wife's campaign is to attest to the achievements and advice she provided during his presidency and to the work she has since done as a senator. Hillary Clinton has made much of what she sees as her advantage in experience over Obama, and no one was a closer witness of the White House years than her husband.
But instead of restricting himself to positive statements on behalf of Hillary Clinton, he has taken it upon himself not just to disparage Obama but also to accuse the media of failing to look critically enough at the Illinois senator. These statements by the former president are likely to remind voters of his griping about Republican critics and the press during the darker days of his own administration. The intensity of his campaigning will also raise questions about how much of a role he would have in the White House if Hillary Clinton does become president.
Two so-far neutral Democratic members of Congress, Senator Edward Kennedy and Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, have told the former president, in Clyburn's term, to "chill a little bit." Kennedy, Clyburn, and other party leaders know only too well that a bitterly divisive campaign for the nomination fought over offhand remarks about Martin Luther King Jr. and Ronald Reagan will cheapen whoever emerges as the nominee. Bill Clinton should take Kennedy's and Clyburn's advice and get back on the high road. "What it means" for the primary race (and the general election, beyond) aside, I can't recall a former chief executive involving himself in quite this manner. Granted, we've never had this husband/wife scenario, either, but this pit bull routine is really something else...
January 25, 2008
IT WAS inevitable that former president Bill Clinton would play an active role in his wife's campaign for the presidency. Not for him is the aloofness of a Dwight Eisenhower. When asked during his vice president Richard Nixon's campaign for the White House in 1960 to cite a major Nixon contribution, Eisenhower asked for a week to think about it.
But Clinton has gone beyond being Senator Hillary Clinton's No. 1 supporter to become her No. 1 pitbull against her chief rival, Senator Barack Obama. If he is not careful, he will forfeit the elevated status he enjoys as an ex-president and leader of philanthropic foundations. And he runs the risk of dividing his own party, which until now had been united in its determination to end the Republicans' grip on the White House.
Neither Hillary Clinton nor Obama has dealt with notably tough opponents in winning their Senate seats, so there is a benefit for Democratic voters in seeing how both respond to the give and take of a hard-fought campaign. But the Clintons' unique situation has steered them - and the country - into uncharted waters. Certainly it is Bill Clinton's right to malign Obama's longstanding opposition to the Iraq war as a "fairy tale." But in making these and other criticisms of the Illinois senator, the former president sounds less like an elder statesman than like a political kidney-puncher.
The best contribution that Bill Clinton could make to his wife's campaign is to attest to the achievements and advice she provided during his presidency and to the work she has since done as a senator. Hillary Clinton has made much of what she sees as her advantage in experience over Obama, and no one was a closer witness of the White House years than her husband.
But instead of restricting himself to positive statements on behalf of Hillary Clinton, he has taken it upon himself not just to disparage Obama but also to accuse the media of failing to look critically enough at the Illinois senator. These statements by the former president are likely to remind voters of his griping about Republican critics and the press during the darker days of his own administration. The intensity of his campaigning will also raise questions about how much of a role he would have in the White House if Hillary Clinton does become president.
Two so-far neutral Democratic members of Congress, Senator Edward Kennedy and Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, have told the former president, in Clyburn's term, to "chill a little bit." Kennedy, Clyburn, and other party leaders know only too well that a bitterly divisive campaign for the nomination fought over offhand remarks about Martin Luther King Jr. and Ronald Reagan will cheapen whoever emerges as the nominee. Bill Clinton should take Kennedy's and Clyburn's advice and get back on the high road. "What it means" for the primary race (and the general election, beyond) aside, I can't recall a former chief executive involving himself in quite this manner. Granted, we've never had this husband/wife scenario, either, but this pit bull routine is really something else...