Clinton advises Cherie to be MP

[emad]

August 07, 2005

Clinton advises Cherie to be MP



IF Tony Blair resigns his seat at the next election, Bill Clinton has a suggestion: he thinks Cherie should turn to politics and he’ll even campaign for her, writes Sarah Baxter.

“When he’s done and she wants a go, it would please me greatly. She is an enormously able person. I love her,” the former American president says.

Inspired by the example of his own wife Hillary, a senator who hopes to run for the White House in 2008, Clinton is offering to go on the stump for Cherie.

“If she ever campaigned for office and wanted me to go ringing doorbells for her, I’d be happy to do it. I think she’s great,” says Clinton in an interview in today’s Sunday Times News Review. The former president — who describes himself as “healthy as a horse” and fully recovered from his heart surgery last year — calls Britain’s equivalent of the first lady “young and vigorous”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1724503,00.html

[emad]

1. Given that young Euan Blair is about to start a Republican

internship, I assume this must be a vintage example of Clintonesque irony....

[Cha]

2. Is that telling or what?

cheri has her own problems in Britain, does she not?

[Greeby]

3. Uhh Bill

No, just plain no :spank:

[emad]

4. Interview: Sarah Baxter talks to Bill Clinton, Sunday Times link:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1723872,00.html

[SoCalDem]

5. Sorry to say this,but i think Bill should shut up for a while

:)

[H5N1]

6. Bill is just full of surprises these days

[msongs]

7. keep bill clinton away from women ok? nt

[Benhurst]

8. Ho-hum. More bad advice from Clinton. Barbara Bush's new

son should think before he opens his mouth.

And, Cherie, honey, take some baking lessons. You might be needing to smuggle a hacksaw into the Hague for Tony.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. They had fun taking the quotes slightly out of context on BBC radio

It is never too late to change course, Clinton suggests playfully. Cherie is “young and vigorous”, he points out. “When he’s done and she wants a go, it would please me greatly. She is an enormously able person. I love her.”

He reflects for a bit. “They may be sick of it by then; it’s up to them what they do.” But he goes on to make Cherie an irresistible offer.

Just don't think about politics, and see how you can interpret his remarks ... ;-)

[Anarcho-Socialist]

10. So I wasn't the only one who interpreted it that way

[Wetzelbill]

13. If Bill Clinton was talking about my woman that way.......

I'd never let either one of them out of my sight. Clinton is one man you don't want trying to mow your lawn. He's a little too smooth around the ladies...... B-)

[emad]

15. Mow your lawn? As in 'Desperate Housewives'? I think this

interview is more about his post-bypass male virility than anything else.....but.....

He ain't no spring chicken any more and she ain't Monica #2.

[Wetzelbill]

16. no, from Kingpin (The Farrelly Brothers)

Randy Quaid's character Ishmael is going to get beat up by Skid Mark (Roger Clemens) because he's dancing with his girlfriend. Roy Munson (Woody Harrelson) goes over to save Ish, but once he sees how big Skid Mark and his friends are he yells: " You don't mow another man's lawn" and punches his friend out. :)

[emad]

17. Phew! Had me worried for one moment....

xxx

[1932]

20. Conservatives love to turn professional images of women into sexual images

and they belittle professional aspirations of women.

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. Lighten up a little

I think the joke was about Clinton's reputation with women, rather than against Cherie. Cherie has no political aspirations. You can never take a joke when someone you support is involved, can you?

Remember than Cherie has already made public jokes about her sex life with Tony. I think she'd be able to laugh at this.

[1932]

23. Some of the posts in this thread remind me of

things Republicans said about Hillary when they wanted to rally the stay-at-home moms to vote Republican and be hostile to the idea of a professional woman.

I'm not saying that Clinton doesn't make it easy. Nonetheless, it's interesting how deeply ingrained these attitudes are that Republicans tap into.

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. None of them remind me of that

because they're aimed aginst Bill Clinton. Cherie Blair is, of course, a highly successful professional woman, and Clinton is suggesting she throws that up to take on her husband's career instead, when she decided against that over 20 years ago.

Show me anything in this thread "hostile to the idea of a professional woman". "These attitudes"? What attitudes? Be specific.

[1932]

27. The Bill Clinton quote is NOT about sex. It's about her qualifications.

But, your post suggest that people read sex into it.

Even if your intention was to make a joke about BC, you're relying on a stereotype about women being sexually available to men. The joke is that when Tony's finished with her, it's Bill's turn. Hah, hah. Funny. Except that's an idea about women not belonging in the workplace that Republicans like to propogate.

Lewinsky notwithstanding, I don't think Bill or Tony believe that the proper role for woman is to make herself sexually available to men. If they did, they probably wouldn't have married the women they married.

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. You need a sense of humour, AP

People do read sex into it - that's what they did on the radio programme this morning. This is a joke about Clinton being sexually available to women - making her "an irresistible offer" "when she wants a go". It's he who has the past in this respect, although Cherie has been happy to make jokes in a national newspaper about how "size matters", and that Tony was always "up to it" five times a night. You see, they do have a sense of humour.

[1932]

29. Whatever.

Is the context in that story whether she's qualified to be an MP?

My point is that the jokes come easy when they're about sexualizing women in the workplace. Everybody is ready to jump aboard with that imagery. I just thought I'd point out that conservatives tend to use those sterotypes. Can I point that out? You don't think that isn't true do you?

I wonder why liberals don't have their own set of stereoptypes and cliches they exploit to reveal the true nature of right wingers rather than use the conservative ones. Wasn't there a story about xenophobia or racism or royalty in the British press today?

[Matilda]

30. Cherie did have political aspirations in the past.

She ran for parliament the same year that Tony first ran; he got in,
she didn't. She may give it a try again some time, who knows?

[leesa]

11. I don't trust Bill Clinton and his ties to these people. He seems like he

is a member of the Neocons trying to steal the planet. What IS his role with them anyway? The moderator? Make a huge surplus for stealing?

[emad]

12. Wish I had the smary pic of these two from today's printed edition

of the ST.....

I think he's just pulling her leg ..... knowing that Poodle has no longer got one to stand on himself.

[UpInArms]

14. What is it with the nepotism within politics?

husband, wife, sons, daughters -

Don't they get it- most of them are incompetent and their families and their values are not fit for public consumption.

This monarchy crap is starting to push my annoyance buttons.

:banghead:

[FreeStateDemocrat]

18. Name recognition is the asylum of the uninformed voter.

[paranoid floyd]

24. Nice one

It's all about the branding.

[davidinalameda]

25. that's been going on forever

just like any other "business"

[bluedog]

19. Cheri doesn't like

this bush administration....
Cherie accused of attacking Bush
Cherie Blair
Cherie Blair has been lecturing in the United States
Cherie Blair has been accused of criticising George W Bush's policies in a private address she gave during a United States lecture tour.

The prime minister's wife is said to have praised the Supreme Court for overruling the White House on the legal rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3968843.stm

Sunday, 31 October, 2004, 01:31 GMT

[1932]

21. I have tremendous admiration for Cherie Blair.