Why Bill Clinton may cheer John McCain
posted at 7:26 am on August 4, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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ABC’s Good Morning America caught up with Bill Clinton this weekend while the former president tours Liberia. They discovered that Clinton still has not recovered from the bruising primary. It didn’t take much prompting to get Bill to insist that he got smeared in the primaries in a manner that sounds very similar to what happened this week:
In his first broadcast interview since his wife dropped out of the Democratic presidential race, former President Bill Clinton said he still has regrets, and insisted he’s “not a racist,” despite controversies surrounding his comments about Sen. Barack Obama’s win in the South Carolina Democratic primary.
ABC only has a short clip of the interview on line, but here is a longer transcript of Clinton’s response:
Q: Do you personally have any regrets about what you did campaigning for your wife?
A: [Pause, shakes head] Yes, but not the ones you say, and it would be counterproductive for me to talk about it. There are things I wish I’d urged her to do, things I wish I’d said, things I wish I hadn’t said. But I am not a racist, I never made a racist comment, and I didn’t attack him personally.
Democrats should take this as a hint that party unity will not be forthcoming, at least not beyond the superficial. Bill Clinton, at least, has not forgiven his treatment as a racial pariah during the latter part of the primary campaign, nor has his mood improved much. Neither he nor Hillary have rushed to Obama’s assistance yet, and except for the most cursory of statements of support, the Clintons have almost cloistered themselves over the last two months.
Ironically, Bill may find vindication in John McCain’s pushback on Barack Obama’s race-card play this week. McCain pounded Obama for the last several days after Obama accused McCain and Republicans for attacking him because he doesn’t “look like all those presidents on the dollar bills … and [he has] a funny name”. Even his own advisers were forced to acknowelege that Obama wasn’t talking about powdered wigs, and a majority of voters in a Rasmussen poll blamed Obama for smearing McCain.
McCain’s victory on this point should suggest a re-examination of the Bill-as-race-card-player meme of the primaries. Obama’s attack now looks like a pattern. He wants to pose as a post-racial candidate, but whenever anyone criticizes him too effectively, Obama retreats behind a my-opponents-are-racists defilade. Bill can hope that McCain’s victory and exposure of this strategy will retroactively give people a chance to reconsider their previous condemnation of his own behavior.
And the reverse is also true. Bill’s continued and impassioned defense against these charges help bolster McCain’s efforts this week. That’s why Clinton told ABC that the conversation would be “counterproductive”, but he couldn’t restrain his anger for very long in the event. The “post-racial” pose is collapsing, and it benefits both McCain and Bill Clinton.
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I saw something on FoxNews this morning that makes me think Bill can’t wait to pounce after election day. Something about being “free-er to speak down the road”. W’oh, boy.
“McCain for 4, Hillary for 8!” Tell all your Hillary-loving neighbors. (We’ll figure out what to do later.)
Marcus on August 4, 2008 at 7:36 AM
It is good that Obama isn’t being allowed to have his cake and eat it too.
Immolate on August 4, 2008 at 7:37 AM
Grafted on August 4, 2008 at 7:38 AM
Bill Clinton is now seeing that if he had pushed back agressively in the primary, he might have blunted Obamas attack and saved Hillary’s candidacy.
It must really stick in his craw that the McCain Campaign has maneuvered this issue more deftly than he did.
gridlock2 on August 4, 2008 at 7:44 AM
Getting an endosrement, even a contrived pseudo-endorsement, from Clinton, is a kiss of death.
coldwarrior on August 4, 2008 at 7:46 AM
Obama is amazingly inept when left to his own unscripted comments. McCain should have a camera following Obama wherever he is performing at an off-teleprompter event. Maybe we’d see a macaque redux moment, too (substitute appropriate PC slur).
horatio on August 4, 2008 at 7:54 AM
“Pose” is right. Obama’s entire Illinois political career was consumed with racial-identity politics. The notion that the race-obsessed Obama was ever “post-racial” is one of the biggest scams he has perpetrated during this campaign.
It’s about time this charade was exposed.
AZCoyote on August 4, 2008 at 7:54 AM
Maybe gridlock2, but I don’t think a hard push back in the Democrat primary would have worked as well. McCain has the benefit of Republicans and independents backing him in this dust-up. Bill probably would have been left high and dry on the race issue by the majority Democrats no matter what he did.
forest on August 4, 2008 at 7:56 AM
The Slickmeister has painted himself into a corner. He well understands that the only way his legacy escapes the “Night of the Long Knives” rests solely on the viability of Mrs. Clinton’s Presidential chances in 2012.
And the possibility exists that it could be more than his legacy that is at stake.
Personally, I’m enjoying watching him squirm.
there it is on August 4, 2008 at 8:06 AM
Obama is steadily moving towards being thought of as another city mayor candidate, along the lines of Marion Barry, David Dinkins, Sharp James and Kwami Kilpatrick.
These guys don’t get elected to national office. Obama won’t get elected to national office either.
NoDonkey on August 4, 2008 at 8:30 AM
IOW, follow the campaign around until Baraka makes a mistaka?
RD on August 4, 2008 at 8:32 AM
Bill’s problem here is he’s part of a political party who’s members retroactively recoil from any mention of racism, whether the charge is accurate or not. So within the primary campaign, just the accusation of racism was enough to get the Clintons in trouble in their race against Obama. But in the general election, the field of voters is much larger and much less inclined to simply run with an accusation made by Barack and/or his supporters, simply because he said it and they want to make themselves feel good by electing an African-American president and striking a blow against racism (and southern racism in particular, as if it’s still 1955 in America).
jon1979 on August 4, 2008 at 8:36 AM
I think Bubba Billy’s real problem is that he is just darn right PISSED OFF that his own Democratic party turned its back on what was practically supposed to be his wife’s coronation as the first female President and he is now thinking of showing his ultimate distain for B.O. by throwing his support to McPain.
Translation: He’s a sore loser.
pilamaye on August 4, 2008 at 9:12 AM
I’m not getting the vibe where Bill will cheer on McCain. Let’s not go crazy here.
Valiant on August 4, 2008 at 9:14 AM
Bill Clinton is in Liberia, in the capacity of Humanitarian? Liberia could use some attention. So could Zimbabwea.
Dr Evil on August 4, 2008 at 9:19 AM
Why hasn’t anyone mentioned that Barack is not really black? He’s only half Black. Which also means he’s half white.
Given the racial politics he’s surrounded himself with shouldn’t that mean he half hates himself?
Perhaps that’s the problem.
lodestonejames on August 4, 2008 at 9:31 AM
I think that Bill Clinton may be thinking about leaving the party and when he does he will use Reagan’s “I did not leave my party, my party left me.” quote.
Depending on how badly the party implodes at the convention I would not be a bit surprised to see Hillary leave, too.
Why do I think this?
Because it is obvious to all by now that the Democratic party has been taken over by the anti American radical left/Marxist wing and those people have no use for any who do not blindly follow. The Democratic party has essentially thrown all the centrist/moderate FDR/JFK Democrats under the bus. That is alot of people to throw under the bus-about 30-40% of the people who normally will vote for a Democrat. Combine those people with the people who are centrist/moderately right Republicans (or RINO’s in the vernacular) who are fed up with the constant push by the hard right/ultra conservative wing and you have one of the few times in the history of this country where the conditions are ripe for the formation of a third party and have it succeed.
If done properly that third party could quite possibly become the majority party very quickly. What it would require is someone who knows how to organize it and get people to rally around it and that is something that Bill Clinton knows how to do.
Now, I know that many of you will make all sorts of arguments against this and especially about Bill Clinton but you are all viewing this whole situation through bleu or red tinted glasses. There are many people in this country that are tired of both parties but see no viable alternative (you can spare me the Libertarian argument, Libertarians are viewed as just “mildly nutty” by people who are centrists.) Bill Clinton, despite his many foibles, is one of the few people who tried to drag the Democratic party back to the center and many centrists have few problems with him policy wise.
Nahanni on August 4, 2008 at 9:32 AM
if he’d do this, envoke JFK and Scoop Jackson…he may have the power to move the party as a whole in the right direction and off the cliff its on. and possibly save his legacy in the process?
jp on August 4, 2008 at 10:10 AM
Billy Boy has been hoist on his on own MSM petard.
Justice!
Mojave Mark on August 4, 2008 at 10:19 AM
“Neither he nor Hillary have rushed to Obama’s assistance yet, and except for the most cursory of statements of support, the Clintons have almost cloistered themselves over the last two months.”
And they are going to remain “cloistered” until that little matter of a $20 million campaign debt is retired IN FULL. Never get between a Clinton and money.
Denver! Denver! Denver!
GarandFan on August 4, 2008 at 10:41 AM
That’s a great idea!
It would be wonderful to get all those RINO libs out of the republican party once and for all.
Then the Christian/conservative republican party will glide to easy victories each and every election year against the two democrat parties.
SaintOlaf on August 4, 2008 at 11:34 AM
nahanni @ 9:32, As one of those ” right leaning centrists”
I’m 90% with you on the third party timing. BUT, Bill
Clinton is never to be trusted to care about anything but himself. I’m tired of trying to fit into someone elses tent,
maybe it’s time for our own.
aceinstall on August 4, 2008 at 11:42 AM
Thank you SaintO, for making my point.
aceinstall on August 4, 2008 at 11:46 AM
To paraphrase Winston Churchill:
Don’t ever, ever, ever trust Bill Clinton.
Labamigo on August 4, 2008 at 1:17 PM
The closer this gets to the DNC convention, the funnier it going to be. Get your beverages and pop corn ready because it could even beat out Batman’s “Dark Knight.”
I’m surprised some people are so puzzled about why Bill’s pissed off. Simple explanation, the DNC rules committee used sandpaper instead KY Jelly on Hillary’s hemorrhoids. The every “vote counts” has become a super Democrat nightmare, that just can’t seem to go away. Oh well, the Dems asked for Howard Dean, and Donna Brazlle, and got way more than bargained for!
byteshredder on August 4, 2008 at 3:25 PM