The Nation: Bill Clinton's Attack Reverberates

[marmar]

BILL CLINTON'S ATTACK REVERBERATES...Bill Clinton's new attack on Barack Obama is reverberating across the presidential trail this weekend, with politicos wondering whether Hillary's surrogate-in-chief is actually helping her. In a wide-ranging interview with Charlie Rose, Clinton suggested Obama was a risky and inexperienced choice. "When is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the Senate before he started running?" Clinton asked, arguing that voters who back Obama are "rolling the dice." "In theory, we could find someone who is a gifted television commentator and let them run," he added. The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder reports that near the end of the interview, "Rose indicated that Clinton's staff was asking producers in his show's control room to get them to have Rose end the interview."

Obama defended himself on Saturday, saying the attacks reflected Hillary Clinton's drop in the polls, and emphasizing that Bill Clinton himself was fairly new to national politics when he became President. "I have the kind of experience the country needs right now," Obama added.

The former president also tried to pivot from inevitablity to managing expectations. "I never thought had a big lead in Iowa and never thought she could have one," he said, contending that it's a "miracle" that she has a chance of winning the Iowa Caucus. Edwards adviser Joe Trippi rebutted that point in a conference call with reporters on Saturday afternoon. "With all due respect to President Clinton, it doesn't matter what he thinks about the finish, it matters what the working people of Iowa think," he said. The predictions of politicians and reporters usually count for very little in Iowa, which has picked the Democratic nominee in every cycle but one since the caucus began in 1972. (Gephardt is the only Democrat to win the caucus and lose the nomination; and no one competed there in 1992, when when Iowa Senator Tom Harkin ran). The bottom line is that any candidate aiming for "inevitability" plans to win Iowa.

David Chalian, Political Director for ABC News, thinks Clinton's attack is both revealing and ineffective. "This interview was remarkable and perhaps quite telling about the mood within the Clinton world at the moment. I'm not sure that Bill Clinton did anything in this interview to advance his wife's cause. He appeared quite tense and almost pissed off that Barack Obama is running for president."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=260228

[bunnies]

1. I always thought Bill would be an asset to her campaign.

Now I cant figure out if he's helping or hurting.

[Cha]

22. It's amazing how things

don't always turn out the way experience teaches us they should!

[Quixote1818]

26. It kind of reminds me of what happens when two kids get into it but then one kid runs to get

his older brother (the toughest kid in the school) to back him up. Everyone then yells at the kid to fight his own battle and he looks like a whimp.

You can't EVER get someone else to fight your battle if you start to lose no matter how popular that other person is! It ALWAYS looks bad.

[Cha]

29. See, I never thought of it

that way..but, you're right. Plus, the "older bro" in this case didn't do a very good job of defending.

[zulchzulu]

2. Sinking, sinking. sinking, sinking...

Perhaps finally we see just what the Clintons have done to the Democratic Party...

[Cha]

23. That'd be

nice.

[Bitwit1234]

3. No matter how they twist it,

now matter how they shake it...they cant' make Bill Clinton the disliked guy. That's the problem he is ten feet taller over any of Obama's American Idoler's...He is the man, and something Obama in his wildest fantasies would love to be..Never happen.

[sundancekid]

28. BC - disliked guy by me for sure - he set democracy and the Dem Party back

probably a whole generation with his wondering willy and hubris self-indulgence ... the latest stir is just MORE CONFIRMATION of how easily The Billary will stoop to conquer. Period.

[ClarkUSA]

32. No matter how Hillaryworld tries, they can't make Obama appear dishonest or untrustworthy

Iowans agree - in fact, Hillary is considered both by a margin of 2-1 relative to Obama. And sorry, Obama and his wife like him just the way he is.
Bill is a serial adulterer and womanizer as well as a calculated liar of epic political proportions. Those are qualities that any man would rather
pass on rather than want to possess.

[MH1]

4. I always thought

that Hillary was running for President when she first moved to NY to run for Senate.

Of course I can't prove that, but it was my impression and I believe that impression is somewhat widely shared. If I am right about that impression, then for Bill to couch his attack that way (Obama starting to run for prez only one year after being elected Senator) only makes people remember that impression, and it doesn't help Hillary.

jmho and ymmv and all that.

[here_is_to_hope]

11. Me too...n/t

[Cha]

24. bill said things that

he thought he could get away with for the general populace. People always accused hillary of wanted to come to New York and be the senator on her way back to the white house only as prez the next time but I totally defended her. I met and shook her hand in 2001 and was so proud of her. I felt fookin' betrayed in October, 2002 and it's been down into the abyss of hell with hillary ever since.

[Bitwit1234]

5. Have to add this tho

whenever Hillary gets a point over on the Obama American Idolers they start to mess them selves and run and around and pull out stuff they find under rocks.

WELLL PRESIDENT HILLARY CLINTON HAS MORE CLASS AND CHARACTER THAN THIS OPPONENT AND SHE WILL FORGIVE HIM.

[Jane Austin]

20. "Obama American Idolers "?

This is offensive, to me and to thousands (millions?) of other thoughtful people who are terribly concerned about our country and think Obama has much to offer our country.

Since when does supporting a candidate who is attractive and charismatic mean that's all his supporters can see?

FWIW, I have never watched American Idol, and when it was on at my mother's when I'd visit, it couldn't hold my attention more than a few seconds. I abhor manufactured idolatry.

Your characterization of Obama supporters is disgusting.

[Cha]

25. hillary's haters have nothing so

they resort to pre-school name calling.

[Nedsdag]

33. "Obama American Idolers?"

Is that all you Hillbots have?

How pathetic!

As for "president" Hillary Clinton and her "class and character," I have two words for you: Billy Shaheen.

[BeyondGeography]

6. The harder the Big Dog pushes on this, the more it appears to me he's misbehaving again

There's something very uneven about him out there recently. Making Hillary President has always at least in part been about redemption for Bill. (Bite lower lip before speaking) "I hurt you, honey, but I helped you, too." The more he puts into it, the more freedom he gets to be himself.

At least, I hope that's the reason. The alternative is pure megalomania.

[pscot]

8. The idea that we just have to have another Clinton

smacks of megalomania. Bill's role in the campaign suggests how he might figure in a Hillary presidency. His finger prints would be all over it. We would never know for sure who was making the decisions or pulling the strings.

[tularetom]

7. Clinton is taking this personally

To him it's all about him. The election is a referendum on his popularity, his presidency, his policies. He's become somewhat of a pompous ass since he left the WH and particularly since he began to hang with daddy bush. He's the one who's panicking at Hillary's downturn in the polls. If he doesn't STFU he's gonna drive her down even further.

He isn't relevant anymore and he needs to remember that.

[Cha]

27. Totally seems that. bill's not being wise

in his interviews.

[Evergreen Emerald]

9. It is not an attack: dang that propaganda machine hates the Clintons.

It was addressing the issue of experience. Good God, Obama is apparently completely off limits.

[BeyondGeography]

10. He realizes that an Obama presidency would have the potential to tower over his

Obama would transform the party and the country in a way that he never could or did. It would kill Bill to live to see that.

This is not about experience.

[Evergreen Emerald]

13. This issue is a legitimate topic for campaigns. Obama plays the victim

Why is it that Obama cannot be questioned about anything without the Attack word being used?

Obama, with the help of the media, is using the Bush campaign lie from Bush/Gore. Whenever Gore attempted to question Bush's stance, he was accused of attacking.

Obama is playing the victim because it helps him in the polls. He is disingenuous and that is bothersome.

I do not agree that Obama would transform the party: if his past is a reflection of his future behavior, he will not have the courage to take stands on anything.

Obama's experience is appropriate campaign fodder.

[BeyondGeography]

14. Sure it is, but if you think Bill's stridency on the matter of "experience"

is based on his concern for anything larger than himself, you're wrong.

[Evergreen Emerald]

15. I know that he is also campaigning.

Perhaps a bit of both. Perhaps he is suggesting that America needs a strong, experienced leader because he cares about America and because he wants the White House.

I am certain that Obama's complaints about attacks are just as much political bs.

[HeraldSquare212]

17. I wasn't aware he complained about clinton's interview

[Evergreen Emerald]

18. he did--as did the media

calling it an "attack" Whatever.

Check his "news conference" yesterday.

[vssmith]

12. How soon he forgets

He had NO National or International experience when he became president. Neither did Bush, Reagan or Carter.

Oh! I forgot he spent a year in Europe chasing whatever and smoking whatever on a Rhodes scholarship.

[proudmoddemo]

16. Deploy the Life Boats!

Hillary's campaign is tanking. I am so happy about this. After their arrogant, pathetic, and vile campaign, they deserve to lose. Especially Mark Penn...union busting doesn't pay. Let's get that straight.

[Dems Will Win]

19. Bill has lost his Mojo. Probably because everyone in the media is waiting for AFFAIR SHOE to drop

He is hurting, not helping Hillary. Didn't he lied about having sex with these women?



And was reported to be canoodling with these 2 ladies in 2002 by the NY Daily News, The NY Post, CNN, with a Photo of Lisa Belzberg and him in an"intimate" pose in Newsweek:


Belinda Stronach


Lisa Belzberg

Clinton linked with wealthy socialite

THE tangled love life of Bill Clinton was again under the microscope yesterday when he was romantically linked with a glamorous blonde.

A magazine photo showed the former president of the United States in an intimate pose with the Canadian socialite Lisa Belzberg, 38.

They were photographed by Newsweek in front of a refrigerator at her mansion in Katonah, New York. It rekindled long-standing speculation about the pair, who have been spotted together at a number of functions over the past year.

According to the New York Post, Ms Belzberg, a millionairess separated from her husband, the Seagram alcohol heir Matthew Bronfman, about a month ago following a liaison with Mr Clinton.

...

"Friends were stunned to see the photo of Clinton in front of Lisa’s stainless steel Sub-Zero refrigerator with Jonathan Alter’s cover story on the ex-president," the paper reported. The article claimed Mr Clinton and Ms Belzberg were involved in an encounter last month.

"She was seen flirting with Clinton at the Super Bowl party he hosted in his Harlem offices," it added. At the time Mr Clinton joked of his relationship with Ms Belzberg: "She married a guy worth $6 billion, but she still likes to flirt with me."

A spokeswoman for Ms Belzberg, who runs the educational organisation PENCIL , insisted that she has not been involved in another relationship since her split from Mr Bronfman. "There is no-one else," she said bluntly.

http://news.scotsman.com/billclinton/Clinton-linked-with-wealthy-socialite.2317821.jp

According to 6/12/02 Page Six of the New York Post: WHATEVER there was between Lisa Belzberg and Bill Clinton, it appears to be over. Belzberg, the brainy blonde behind the PENCIL nonprofit group that helps the public school system, was rumored to be more than friends with the former president, who lives just 10 minutes away from the mother of two in Westchester. "She's heartbroken," said one source. But there is little chance of reconciliation with her husband, Matthew Bronfman. The Seagram heir, who split with Lisa in February, is said to be very happily dating a fashion industry executive, Stacy Kaye.

Inside Politics 6/13/02: "The New York Post reported yesterday that the relationship between former President Bill Clinton and Lisa Belzberg 'appears to be over.' If we do the math, that means that Mr. Clinton and the pretty blonde socialite lasted seven weeks. "Tabloid rumors of a romance between the two appeared around April 23, claiming the pair met at a Christmas party last year. Mr. Clinton behaved like 'a big old hound dog' and later, trysts reportedly took place in mid-afternoons on the 24th floor of New York's chichi Hudson Hotel."

OBAMA not only has the experience, he has better judgement than Bill Clinton, who destroyed the Democratic Party in the 90s and in the 2000 election BECAUSE HE COULDN'T KEEP HIS PANTS ZIPPED.

Even though Gore did not have the blowjobs with Monica, he suffered at the polls because of it, and Hillary will too. She is even closer of course and is enabling Bill to commit further adultery on the Democrat's dime.

Don't be stupid people. Think back to the sinking feeling you had when Monica was announced in Jan. of 97. It will happen again if HIllary is the nominee, but in October of '08.

[Cha]

21. I thought bill clinton could

hide his feelings and schmooze with pappy bushit cause he was a former prez like 'imself?

Maybe they really do like the bushits..it's just Obama who has the audacity to run for prez when hillary thinks she has it wrapped up after her stellar performance in enabling bush for 5 years in the senate. Damn, she's 'pose to get rewarded!

[Robeson]

30. I saw that interview, and several things stood out. First, ....

...it stood out how highly intelligent he is, compared to the corporate proxy-in-a-suit who currently resides at the White House. Second, I didn't think his message would go over well. I'm sure it appealed to Hillary supporters, but that's preaching to the choir. It seemed rather condescending, and I don't think that appeals to non-supporters.

Third, of course he's going to "catapult the propaganda" for her. It's his wife. I can't fault him for that.

[Quixote1818]

31. You simply can't have someone fight your own fight. That always backfires

It's like when two kids get into an argument and then one kid runs to get his tough older brother (the most feared in school) to back him up. Everyone then yells "Can't you fight your own fight? What are you a wimp? You can't handle him?"

Getting someone to fight your own battle NEVER EVER works! It always makes you look weak!