Veronica

WHat is up with Bill Clinton. Why would they keep discussing this story? Doesn't make sense.

Ben Smith's Blog - Politico.com

Chantytown

Rude Pundit just posted about this:


Bill Clinton: "My Wife Is Old and Forgets Major Events in Her Life":

However you think about Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and its Thelma and Louise-like gunning of the engine when the cliff's end is near, the saddest part has been the self-debasement of former President and wannabe First Gentleman Bill Clinton. He has been about as latently sexist regarding his wife (with all his references to, among other things, how the men are beating up on "a girl") as many others, although we're supposed to dismiss it with "Ho, ho, that's just the way Bill talks, that old Southern rascal." And in his speech in Indiana yesterday, he went completely batshit.

Sure, the parade of lies he told about Clinton's Tuzla-landing hyperbole (or, you know, as we in the real world call it, "lie") is rather breathtaking for his strange insistence on trying to re-spin a story that had just about run its course for this part of the campaign, especially because he used an excuse for his wife that had already been taken apart by the mainstream press. For someone who is supposed to have political instincts like a hound has a sense of smell, it was a big fuckin' stumble, like instead of being the Fred Astaire of the stump, he became Jerry Lewis carrying a giant stack of plates.

Then he compounded it by saying this: "And you woulda thought, you know, that she'd robbed a bank the way they carried on about this. And some of them when they're 60 they'll forget something when they're tired at 11 at night, too." You got that? The candidate's husband just told us, "Hey, my wife's so fuckin' old now that if it's past Geritol time, there's big fuckin' details that are gonna disappear from her brain." So he wants the Democrats to run someone against the old guy by proudly declaring that they have a candidate who is a forgetful elderly woman. And not just little league forgetful, like "Where the fuck are the keys?" distracted, but big-time "Wait, were they firing bullets at my child or not?" early-stages-Alzheimer's forgetful.

And let's not even get into whatever the fuck Bill meant when he said people were treating Hillary "like Mata Hari" for what she said about Tuzla. Is Hillary Clinton a spy who fucks men for information or did we just get a little too much information on the Clintons' sex life, including fantasies involving Hillary as a bottomless espionage agent and Bill as a German officer feeding her little secrets to keep her coming back for more, offering pieces of the full plans of attack in return for oral, anal, and more? Maybe it's a reference to Mata Hari being executed for spying. Either way, fuckin' weird, like the rest of the speech.

As the ex-President, there's ways for Bill Clinton to campaign, but he's acting like some attack dog surrogate stumping for Hillary Clinton. There's right ways to campaign, as when he says things like, "She'll be a better president than I was," which is charming, loving, and supportive, and it comes from his experience. But his attacks on Democrats, especially, are off-base and inappropriate, no matter who his wife is. A little goddamned dignity with respect to his former position would go a long fuckin' way.

Even if you support Clinton as the Democratic nominee, the Bill distraction has gotten out of hand once too often. Time for someone to go back to his charity's office and the way-lucrative speaking circuit.

Note: The Thelma and Louise reference above is intentional in both its positive and negative connotations: Positive because, ultimately, all that was left for the two women in that film were conformity to and imprisonment in a patriarchal system, so why not keep going; negative because, well, they crash and die (even if we don't see the car hit the canyon floor).

neptune

Just what we need when the goddam phone rings at 3am.

__________________

Holy Mudhead, mackerel! Morse Science High!
It's....disappeared!
-- Firesign Theatre

ibex

The longer he keeps blathering about it, the longer the lie stays an issue. Despite the low personal opinion I have of both Clintons, I still don't think either one of them is stupid. I can only explain their prevarications and spinning of a story they should want dead as a kind of seige mentality. They're acting like a couple of cornered rats.

HarperLee

That was David Axelrod's reaction.

neptune

Also, by continuing to bring it up, in a kind of mocking tone, it is a way to defuse the issue -- to "own it", if you will, and show that you've shirked it off.

I think it's still a mistake, and they'd have been better off never mentioning it again.

__________________

Holy Mudhead, mackerel! Morse Science High!
It's....disappeared!
-- Firesign Theatre

HarperLee

He was unaccompanied by a Clinton campaign press escort for a day or two, and told his version of the Bosnia story, with more holes in it than Hillary's, to at least two crowds.

In one, he lied about Obama's oil ad and said, "It's almost like saying, you know, 'Vote for me, I brush my teeth every morning,' or, 'Vote for me, I never robbed a bank,' ..."

In the other speech, which has been covered on MSNBC all morning,
he says, ...Vote for me, I don't steal cars.

I don't think he would use the "I don't rob banks. I don't steal cars."
metaphor for a white opponent, but we all know that we are not allowed to accuse Bill Clinton of making racist remarks.

I hate to quote Chris Matthews, but Matthews (who refused to comment on the "steal cars" remark) said about the Bosnia remarks that he thinks Clinton is really worried about his legacy and trying to put his spin on the humiliation that Hillary's lying may have brought upon his legacy.

HarperLee

I thought it went over like the proverbial lead balloon when Hillary
tried to make light of the Bosnia lie on Jay Leno. Is everyone in
her campaign old and tone deaf?

Veronica

She is done, and no matter what she does she has lost some credibility in Washington, and has lost a lot of loyal fans. I will never support her the same way if at all.

ibex

I groaned with disgust when I saw that, I can't help feeling a huge amount of viewers did the same thing and rolled their eyes too. Leno would be a perfect format for her though since he's such a shameless, ass kissing suck up.