Of all the people on planet Earth, is there anyone who has less standing to utter the words “Shame on you” than Bill Clinton? Yet there he was yesterday, scolding a television reporter for asking him about criticisms by other Democrats that he is leveling unfair and inaccurate attacks against Senator Barack Obama. For a man of bottomless dishonesty and irresponsible behavior to act morally offended about anything, especially for being asked about his own role in spreading false charges against a political opponent, is a remarkable thing to see.
Today’s Washington Post recounts that exchange in a front-page story. According to reporters Alec MacGillis and Anne Kornblut,
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton‘s presidential campaign aired a new radio ad here Wednesday that repeated a discredited charge against Sen. Barack Obama, in what some Democrats said is part of an increasing pattern of hardball politics by her and former president Bill Clinton.
Dick Harpootlian, a former chairman of the Democratic Party in South Carolina, accused the Clintons of using the “politics of deception.” A onetime Clinton supporter, Harpootlian said the Clintons’ recent tactics have been “all about deceit.” “This is harmful to the party, it’s harmful to the state,” Harpootlian added. “And I understand they want to win, but this is about–should be about–a competition of ideas, not who can pull the hammer harder.”
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who endorsed Obama last week, ripped into the former president for what he called his “glib cheap shots” at Obama. “That’s beneath the dignity of a former president,” Leahy told reporters, adding: “He is not helping anyone, and certainly not helping the Democratic Party.”
Furthermore, according to the Post,
For some rank-and-file Democrats, the tack against Obama is prompting a reevaluation of Clinton and her husband. Bill Clinton gained enormous popularity among Democrats in the 1990s partly because of his ability to achieve tactical triumphs over Republicans. Now, watching the use of rough-edged tactics against a fellow Democrat, some of those who supported him then are having second thoughts. “They’re obvious distortions,” said Ralph Byrd, a retired electrical engineer in Greenville, S.C., who voted for Clinton in 1992 and 1996. “We’ve had enough spin in the White House the last eight years, and we don’t need any more. It’s deliberate distortion that we don’t need.”
On MSNBC’s Hardball last night, the liberal radio talk show host Ed Schultz, agitated and fed up, said this about Bill Clinton: “He’s lying on the campaign trail… Bill Clinton is lying about Barack Obama’s record . . . He is embarrassing poor Democrats.” Now they tell us.
Democrats who stood by Mr. Clinton when he and his wife perfected the politics of deceit and personal destruction in the 1990’s are now shocked, shocked that he and his wife are employing the politics of deceit and personal destruction. But it is hard to condemn what you once applauded and even delighted in.
The late Michael Kelly understood Bill Clinton as well as any journalist ever did. And about Bill Clinton he once wrote this:
This man will never stop lying. To borrow a hyperbolic description of another of the century’s historic prevaricators, every word he utters is a lie, including “and” and “the.” He will lie till the last dog dies.
Barack Obama, who seems to be a political figure of admirable integrity, now faces the most ruthless political machine we have seen in our lifetime. We will see how the politics of hope does against the man from hope. If Obama succeeds in ending the presidential aspirations of this deeply cynical and corrupt couple, he will have done both his party and his country a favor.
