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Hillary Clinton Says Love Pushed Bill Clinton Over The Line

January 27th, 2008
By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

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Roy-Lichtenstein-Kiss-V-133905_1.jpg

New York Senator Hillary Clinton today conceded her husband may have crossed the line in his aggressive campaigning against her chief rival for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination but has an explanation: love and fatigue made him do it.

Hillary Clinton admitted Sunday her husband Bill’s hard-charging campaign tactics had gone overboard, but chalked the ex-president’s fiery broadsides up to love and a chronic lack of sleep.

A day after rival Barack Obama trounced her in the South Carolina primary, the former first lady also mounted a vigorous defense of the two Clinton White House terms, which Obama has said did not spark transformational change.

Clinton was asked on CBS television’s “Face the Nation” whether her husband was “out of control” after he took the Illinois senator, and the media to task, during a foul-tempered week-long campaign.

“You know, my husband has such a great commitment to me and to my campaign,” the New York senator said.

“He loves me just like, you know, husbands and wives get out there and work on each others’ behalf.”

But wait: Bill Clinton insisted over the weekend that he was “99.99 percent” accurate in his campaigning and wasn’t doing negative campaigning. Is there some conflict here?

She blamed the tensions of the tight battle for the party’s presidential nomination

“Maybe he got a little carried away. You know, that comes with a hard-fought election,” she said.

“It also comes with sleep deprivation which, you know, I think is marking all of us, our families, our supporters,” said Clinton, who herself is running low on sleep, as she jets back-and-forth across the country.

Clinton is correct about the pace of the campaign.

American political campaigns have always demanded nearly superpower stamina from their candidates. But the kinds of things that Bill Clinton is now being accused of (misrepresenting facts, seemingly raising the race card before the vote and raising it right after the vote, lecturing working reporters who ask tough questions and putting words in their mouths) are not what you generally see from successful candidates. And in the history of the United States there has been no example yet of a former President who has cast off the majesty of having served in the Oval Office to lower himself into the political trenches and come across to many (including some top Democrats) as if he’s a ward heeler in a big city political machine.

But, yes, love does do foolish things…

ANOTHER VIEW IS HERE.

Illustration is Kiss V by Roy Lichtenstein

UPDATE: We don’t usually link to The Drudge Report, but this is what he now has at the top of his site:

NYT LEAD MONDAY: Hillary’s campaign will try to ’shift former President Bill Clinton back into positive, supportive-spouse role’ he played before her loss in Iowa… Developing…

Kennedy For Obama: Intends to campaign aggressively with Western trip this week, followed by appearances in Northeast… Kennedy upset over attempts by Clinton campaign to highlight Obama’s race and distortions of statements, record… made views known in call with former president…. Developing…



This entry was posted on Sunday, January 27th, 2008 at 6:43 pm and is filed under Newsweek Blogitics, Primaries, Negative Campaigning, South Carolina, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, 2008 Elections, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 6 Comments

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    Love made him do it?
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    Maybe within our memory no one has been quite as active in campaigning for his successor but simply put there are been many notable cases where the former President has indeed joined in the fracas. In 1952 after being defeated in the New Hampshire Primary Harry Truman decided not to run and subsequently endorsed Adlai Stevenson before the convention. From that point on till the election he campaigned by train throughout the nation giving what were described at the time as highly partisan stump speeches against Dwight Eisenhower.

    An even earlier example would consist of James Buchanan being so unhappy at losing the nomination to Stephen Douglas that he bolted the Democratic Party and set up another faction who nominated John Cabell Breckenridge to represent the pro-slavery South. Buchanan was no shrinking violet in the few speeches he gave describing alternately Lincoln or Douglas as tyrannicides and (politley put) Negro lovers.

    Theodore Roosevelt guaranteed the victory of Woodrow Wilson when he campaigned and railed against his succesor for one term, Howard Taft, as being in the thrall of of the Morgans and the Vanderbilts. He even led his own delegates physically out of the Republican convention and into another hall nearby to create and run as the nominee of the Bull Moose Party. Roosevelt described Taft as selling out the progressives and Woodrow Wilson as a Ku Klux Klan sympathizer. Hardly the gentility we assume to have the norm for ex-presidents.

    As distasteful as some obviously have concerning Bill Clinton's campagining he does not represent some kind of break with American presidential politics. And as much as our memories assume that all our former presidents retired as represented by The Apotheosis of Washington the reality is that the dignified retirement is relatively rare and a recent phenomena.
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    Sorry, that should have read "tyrants" not "tyrannicides." Never have been able to get Booth shouting, "Sic semper tyrannis" out of my consciousness.
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    kiwione- but I loved your "tyrannicides"! I vote we keep it.
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    Funny how it took being pummeled in an election for Hillary to realize that Bill loved her and that they were all tired....

    The last time the issue of Bill's love surfaced it was over a white woman in a closet. This time it's with a black man on the stump and in full view of everyone! :)

    But to be fair, I'm sure all the candidates are exhausted and I don't know how they keep it up on the campaign trail, including Billary. I may not support her, but she does have a lot of energy, and so does Bill, after his surgery of a couple years ago.
    • ^
    • v
    Kiwione,
    Excellent historical perspective!
    Thanks
 
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