Bill Clinton can’t seem to accept that his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton will not be the Democratic nominee for President. And he continues to, intentionally or otherwise, put his foot in his mouth by suggesting Obama is a poorer choice for the nomination. Here’s the latest gaffe/slam by Mr. Bill as reported by The Hill:
Bill Clinton appeared to undermine Sen. Barack Obama again Tuesday.
The former president, speaking in Denver, posed a hypothetical question in which he seemed to suggest that that the Democratic Party was making a mistake in choosing Obama as its presidential nominee.
He said: “Suppose you’re a voter, and you’ve got candidate X and candidate Y. Candidate X agrees with you on everything, but you don’t think that candidate can deliver on anything at all. Candidate Y you agree with on about half the issues, but he can deliver. Which candidate are you going to vote for?”
Then, perhaps mindful of how his off-the-cuff remarks might be taken, Clinton added after a pause: “This has nothing to do with what’s going on now.”
The comments are unlikely to be taken as an innocent mistake by those Democrats who continue to be angry with the former president for, they say, not supporting the Illinois senator wholeheartedly, if not implicitly undercutting him.
The controversial comments came just hours before Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), the former first lady and principal rival to Obama, was due to speak from the convention podium. […]
From when he called Obama’s candidacy “a fairytale” to when he compared the Illinois senator’s win in South Carolina to that of Rev. Jesse Jackson’s, many Clinton loyalists, detractors and analysts feel that Clinton did irreparable damage to both his wife’s candidacy and his legacy as president.
Now in a convention that continues to be racked with stories and questions about how unified the Democratic Party truly is, Clinton’s appearance Wednesday — and his tendency to go off the teleprompter — has some Democrats very nervous.
Can you say “sore loser?” The only reason that this convention continues to be “racked with stories and questions about how unified the Democratic Party truly is” is because Bill Clinton and a few of the Clintons’ most fanatical and sycophantic supporters continue to leak stories to the media about this supposed division within the party. And I have a hard time believing that it’s all just an innocent coincidence that these stories keep popping up. It seems more like a calculated effort by the former President (if not his wife) to steal the spotlight from Obama, the party’s nominee, for his own personal and possibly vindictive reasons.
Imagine what a circus a Hillary Clinton presidency would have been with First Gentleman Bill acting like a loose cannon whenever he felt like it. This only reinforces my belief that Obama is the better choice, and that keeping Hillary off the ticket was also a wise move. Bill Clinton simply refuses to leave the stage gracefully, even eight years after his last term in office ended. He failed to fully back Al Gore in 2000, did the bare minimum for John Kerry on 2004 and now appears to be actively sabotaging the Democratic convention which will nominate Barack Obama instead of his wife, Hillary.
He’s lost all credibility with me, and to be frank, I pity Hillary Clinton for being married to such an ass. He only hurts her future career in the Senate with such antics. If Obama loses to McCain it will be in no small part because of this man’s enormous and overinflated ego.
I just hope he gives a great speech and then goes away.
I’d settle for the going away part, but that, as you know, will never happen.
But it’s Obama’s job to reach out to Hillary, not the other way around.
These attacks will never stop. There is nothing Barack Obama can do that will satisfy this particular subsection of the Democratic Party.
It’s also interesting that the largest population of this subsection is made of Angry Villagers.
Clinton is the only unsuccessful nominee to endorse her opponent MONTHS before the convention. I am talking major candidates. Jerry Brown didn’t do it in 1992, Jesse Jackson did not do it in 1988.
This desperate need to attack a women who is a heroine to 18 million Democrats is sad. Truly sad. Downright embarrassing.
Get over yourself Alice.
I wholeheartedly agree that Hillary has done a lot for the Democrats in this country. This is arguably the most important speech of her political career tonight and I know she’s capable of hitting it out of the ballpark.
But that still does not excuse Bill Clinton and the people who purport to speak for Hillary for saying what they are saying about Barack Obama. They know full damn well what they are saying, and they know the Village Idiots involved in this are looking to turn anything they can find into a war between Obama and Clinton.
So why is the Big Dog handing them ammo? How self-destructive does it have to get before both sides realize that a war is exactly what the Villagers and the GOP want?
All this bullshit boils down to one question, who do you want in the White House in 2008, McSame or Obama?
It’s gut check time. And it’s far past f’ckin time to admit that Hillary is not the answer to the above question.
They want Hillary, no one else. Father Pfleger was right.
It’s Nader all over again.
Hillary ran up a 20 Million dollar debt setting up Obama for Repukeliscumian trashing. All the themes that are being used against Obama were started by Hillary.
Now, we are trying to get a unified party. I have seen plenty of Obama reaching out, and Hillary herself has reached out.
Has Bill? No, I don’t think so.
I’m waiting for a gesture from the Hillary dead-enders. Obama has done a huge amount to reach out. He has come to them on his knees, and all he gets is the back of their hands. It’s disgusting.
They are playing good cop bad cop. This effort is coordinated.
EVer since Clinton opted to steal the Republican agenda and run on it in 1992, I began to have questions about his commitment to Democratic ideals. When his last motion in that direction was an appeal to racist Republicans and the Reagan Democrats, a group of insider racists, by using the blatant antiBlack code words, “changing welfare as we know it,” I had grave doubts about this man, which only magnified when he signed into law Gingrich’s state run “personal responsibility” welfare act. Nobody didn’t know who that law was directed at.
It all said that Clinton is prepared to use racism to achieve his own ambitions. And we saw it surface during the primaries.
If he speaks at the convention, I will not be listening.
The Democratic Party is a means to an end for Billary. He was just a bit too sanguine after Kerry’s loss, and Gore’s “loss,” for my taste. He triangulated and cut deals with repubs, thereby setting the table for an admin like shrub’s. And he doesn’t get mad about anything until it’s “Hillary’s turn.”
He just cannot seem to get in through his thick head that this is convention is NOT. ABOUT. HIM.
What a flippin’ whiner. He can bite me. He knows full well what he’s doing, but I guess he’ll wait to blame Obama again for what came tumbling out of his own big ass mouth.
When he speaks, everyone should stand and turn their backs, shunning him. Better yet, Bill & Hill should be scratched from their speaking slots.
Not to leap to Bill Clinton’s defense (gods above I don’t want to try to defend the man from much of anything, really), but there’s no context around that quote. That is terrible reporting in the article from “The Hill”. I have no idea what venue he was at when he made the quote (they just say he was speaking before “foreign dignitaries”), what the context led up to the quote or anything. As far as I can tell, he was explaining American politics to a group of folks who don’t understand why they’d select person X instead of person Y. Hell, for all I can tell he meant that the perception was that his wife “couldn’t deliver” and that Obama could, so they voted for him even though they didn’t agree with him.
The just looks like more of the media playing to the prevailing narrative. “Bill Clinton said something! It MUST be a slam on Obama! Let’s figure out how!”
Bah.
He’s too smart a politician to make such a statement without knowing its interpretation by the media, in context or not.
I remember having a dinner party with church members. We are Unitarian. It was 1996. The whole Lewinsky thing had just come out.
We had a HUGE argument over that fucking asshole Bill and his inability to keep the zipper zipped. I apologized for him, and took his side, but it galled me. I covered for him, over and over. Never again.
I will never vote for Hillary as long as she is married to Bill the Clown. Never.
It was 1996.
the Lewinsky story broke in January 1998.
Oh, I don’t think the young intern was the first to experience the Big Dog’s charms. There was a line of women making claims about his infidelity, and they were trashed by the Clintons well before 1996.
Eric Boehlert on the history of Democratic Convention. The sore winners on this board need to read this.
The ultimate goal of the Village is to continue the status quo at the expense of everything else.
If things change, they’re no longer the experts.
Yep, Clinton is not the first sour grapes loser during a Democratic convention. But he’s not the loser, Hillary is, and she doing what she can to avoid pissing on Obama. Obama, on the other hand, believes that he must have her endorsement to win, lest the hardline Clinton supporters vote McCain then move to Canada when Obama wins anyway.
We will eventually have a female president, not this time around, but eventually. Hillary may have lost this primary precisely because she wanted a second Clinton presidency at a time when the people wanted something else. Her war mongering was also scary to many at a time when everyone wanted us out of Iraq. Out of the frying pan into the fire, so to speak.
Obama doesn’t need oppositiion. You need to click on that link to Boehlert I posted. You need to read it.
This sad need to keep dumping on the Clinton’s is not going to help Obama.
The Clintons are what they are. People who’ve sold out the working class with NAFTA et al, who let those media mergers go through (the results of which we see nightly), who turned their heads while the CIA dumped cocaine in Mena and then cranked up the drug war against the poor, who gutted welfare. And whose Iraq policy was responsible for thousands of deaths over eight years.
Sure, people can worship whoever they want.
Alice, I did read the article. The Clintons represent an alternative centrist view of the Democratic party, a continuation of the DLC compromised agenda, which incorporates right wing positions, and that is their problem. Hillary did do a good job last night.
thanks, that’s a great article. And he only talks about ’88 and ’92, which were calm beside ’80 and ’72 let alone ’68.
this is shaping up to be one of the calmest and most unified conventions ever, despite the efforts of some of the media to stir shit.
the sore winners who feel some desperate need to trash the Clintons, who keep shopping around for reasons to be angry, are a serious threat to victory in November.
Plenty of places to shop looking at how Bill Clinton, Ed Rendell, Paul Begala, and others have been behaving.
The Clintons are garbage. Wake up.
Who are you voting for Alice?
No way. No how. No McCain.
OK, I read it. I think Boehlert’s history lesson is misleading. Jerry Brown? Are you kidding me? Jackson-Dukakis? The very fact that this race was so close compared to those makes the stakes much higher than those of conventions past. If, as polling indicates (however dubious) that up to 30% of one-half of the Democratic primary voters will vote for the Republican nominee, where is the historical equivalent?
If 30% of the Dems vote for McCain our country is screwed. And the 30% are screwed up.
But I think that this is horsepucky scare talk by Republican panic trolls.
Sore winners?
Wasn’t King Bill that said:
People’s lips are bloody from biting them, because they want to unify. But still today, he and his fellating sycophants expect to have their collective asses kissed. And THAT’S what’s grating. And it’s not happening.
I don’t recall Bill caring about and being demanded catharsis for the wittle howt feewings of Doug Wilder, Bob Kerrey, Tom Harkin, Paul Tsongas, and Jerry Brown.
Bill was NOT my first choice; my first choice was Paul Tsongas. When he was chosen, however, we went to work because we had to get rid of Poppy. And when he was successful, we were all so happy.
But in short order, we were called to defend Bill. I have defended that man, repeatedly, for years in different ways and roles, after Guinier, after Elder, after welfare deform, after triangulation, after impeachment. And still that sorry SOB has the unmitigated nerve to bitch and moan. After ALL countless numbers of people have done for him.
And because his narcissistic feelings are injured, he wants to repeat history by being intentionally divisive.
I am so sick of the disrespect. Bill can go straight to hell. He’s got enough money to ride out a third Bush term. Millions don’t.
So kindly spare me.
Amen.
.
He uses people to his own advantage. Hillery’s sacrifice for Bill’s political career. He used women for his sexual appetite and wants to be back in the limelight on the Washington political stage. What’s worse, since leaving office and on the lecture itinery he’s become rich. He thinks wealth equates with power, wisdom and knowledge. He’s lacking in all three, poor lad. I would suggest the island of Elba for his retirement.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
I don’t believe there is any truth in the quote The Hill linked to Bill Clinton. Google provides no additional sources but Hannity’s blog.
Oct. 22, 2003 – In the interview, conducted last month in his Harlem office in New York, Mr. Clinton also admonished Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, without specifically naming him, for saying that he alone represents “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.”
Calling on the party’s liberal and centrist wings to stop their ideological warfare, Mr. Clinton said he had “no objection in this primary season [to] Candidate X saying, ‘I’m for that,’ and Candidate Y saying, ‘I’m against it.’ You’ve got to have a little of that.”
“But I don’t believe that either side should be saying, ‘I’m a real Democrat and the other one’s not,’ or, ‘I’m a winning Democrat and the other one’s not,'” he said.
Throughout his campaign, Mr. Dean, an antiwar liberal who has attacked his chief rivals for the party’s nomination for supporting the war in Iraq, has brought Democrats to their feet, cheering, with the line: “I’m Howard Dean and I represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.”
That claim, which has become the mantra of the former Vermont governor’s insurgent campaign, drew a sharp rebuke from the Democratic Leadership Council, which Mr. Clinton chaired for two years before he won the presidency. DLC founder Al From and its president, Bruce Reed, attacked Mr. Dean as a member of the “McGovern-Mondale wing” of the party, the “wing that lost 49 states in two elections and transformed Democrats from a strong national party into a much weaker regional one.”
Denver drama: Can Clintons get over it?
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Bill has become a grumpy old man. I think I misjudged him. I thought that after Gore’s defeat he would set up in Washington and become the unofficial leader of the Democratic opposition to the Bush administration. It was a natural role for him. He could do his speeches, pay his debts, and still support a big enough establishment in DC to set up a salon. He’s smart as a whip, and surely understood where Cheney was taking the country.
Instead he played the ‘ex-president’ game. Well, I’m sorry. He had greater responsibilities than that, given the terrible circumstances created by the Supreme Court decision. The only possible excuse he had for not speaking out was that the Bush administration had something on it, and threatened to use it if he didn’t keep his mouth shut.
I used to regard blackmail as a distinct possibility, but I don’t any more. He’s just a grumpy old man.
I think Bill played it that way because the gameplan was always to get Hillary in. He wanted to let the Dems sway in the wind than present his wife as the only alternative.
The plan didn’t come to fruition. Now I won’t be surprised if after Obama wins Faux News hires him as a pundit to criticize the Obama administration.
When Billy and Hilly left the WH after the future war criminal Dumbya took the oath……Billy and Hilly had a huge rallly with hundreds of supporters and the press was there, the megalomaniac couldn’t let go of the fact he was not the Prez anymore and they were having a rally….the reTHUGS went ballistic and now I can actually see what they meant about them ClintonS…. megalomaniacs, power hungry HACKS.
A huge mistake to have allocated some much of the Convention time to “honor” the Clintons. The only, only one thing that will assuage is for Obama to step aside.
The Clintons throughout have not be a class act… Like a horror movie that never ends.
Once again, the Clinton Rules take effect — and to the detriment of the truth. Bill Clinton did NOT call Barack Obama’s candidacy a “fairy tale;” he called the senator’s alleged opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq one, and he was absolutely correct: Obama has voted the same way Hillary Clinton has, namely, to fund the occupation consistently. The only time either of those two voted against funding the occupation was when Chris Dodd shamed them into it early on in the primary season.
If you’re going to criticize Bill or Hillary Clinton, do it for the right reasons, and with the truth. Yes, the truth is unpleasant and it makes Obama look like a jerk, but that’s no one’s fault but his.
As for the quoted, bold-face remarks, I can’t help but view it as a dig at Nader and McKinney supporters. He’s trotting out the same tired line of “the perfect is the enemy of the good” that wore off years ago. No one asks for perfect, or expects it; we’re asking for good, but being saddled with a choice between bad and worse. Bill, shut the hell up. If you didn’t insist on selling out the American people, those whose incomes have dropped and whose health care woes have soared under nearly thirty years of conservative misrule, you wouldn’t even have to worry about voters seeking an alternative to the two major political parties. It’s the DLC’s fault that Democrats can’t win elections — you people keep sabotaging efforts to turn the party back toward its New Deal era values. Shut up, go away, and stop attacking people for not buying into your baloney.