Stopping at nothing

Is there nothing that Hillary Clinton will not do or say to get the Democratic nomination? Obama’s was a measured reaction to her quite extraordinary remark that she was continuing to run because of what happened to Robert Kennedy,

“I have learned that when you are campaigning for as many months as Sen. Clinton and I have been campaigning, sometimes you get careless in terms of the statements that you make. . . And I think that is what happened here. Sen. Clinton says that she did not intend any offense by it and I will take her at her word on that.”

But we now have (see Clinton Camp stokes RFK Controversy by blaming Obama in The Huffington Post) the riposte,

“The Obama campaign … tried to take these words out of context,” Clinton campaign chairman Terence R. McAuliffe said on “Fox News Sunday.” “She was making a point merely about the time line.”

And so it goes on. All that is certain is that whatever rage drives her, she is showing herself to be a deeply flawed person. There has been much about her determination, and husband Bill has been railing against the way she is being treated by the media. Sarah Amos on ABC News (quoted in The Huffington Post) reported

“Former President Bill Clinton in South Dakota today delivered a harsh critique of how his wife has been treated during her presidential bid, telling the crowd that he has “never seen a candidate treated so disrespectfully just for running,” and that, “she will win the general election if you nominate her. They’re just trying to make sure you don’t.”

As it all starts to unravel, where best to throw blame?

Viva Revisionistas!

This, from Jake Tapper’s Political Punch blog, is Bill Clinton explaining Hillary’s misspeaking

“She took a terrible beating in the press for a few days,” he said, per ABC News’ Sarah Amos, “because she was exhausted at 11 o’clock at night (1) and she started talking about Bosnia and she misstated the circumstances under which she landed in Bosnia. (2)

“Did you all see all that? And oh, they acted like she was practically Mata Hari,” he said — referring to the Dutch exotic dancer accused by the French of spying for the Germans and executed by a firing squad during World War I — “like she was making up all this stuff.

“And then the president of Bosnia said, ‘Well, it was quite dangerous when she came, there were snipers in the hills all around,’ (3) And then Gen. Wes Clarke, who was there trying to make the peace among the Bosnians, said ‘Yeah, it was dangerous, let me remind you three of the Americans who were on my peace-keeping team were killed because they had to take a dangerous road ’cause they couldn’t go the regular way.’

If that wasn’t bad enough, when Nancy Pelosi was asked about this, she referred to Bill Clinton having a “late night adult moment”. I cannot imagine to what she was referring. It certainly isn’t the sort of late night adult moment I usually have.

Jake Tapper’s subsequent post in Political Punch is excellent,

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was asked about former President Bill Clinton’s error-riddled defense of his wife, regarding her Hemingway-esque accounting of her 1996 trip to Bosnia.

“I can’t for the life of me figure out why the president would have said it except he may have been having a late night adult moment,” Pelosi told CBS’s Bob Schieffer, “but let’s leave it at that.”

Kind of harsh for a House speaker to say about a former president.

And ABC News’ Sarah Amos points out that Bill Clinton’s comments were hardly “late night” — having been uttered at 3 in the afternoon and again at 5 pm.

Somebody buy these Democrats some watches.

But then again, Bill Clinton’s late night adult moments usually took place in mid afternoon.

Shrewd Bill is still Slick Willy

A fascinating column from Clive Crook in the FT today, on Bill Clinton’s play of a joint Clinton-Obama ticket. After setting the context (Obama ahead in elected delegates after Pennsylvania but not enough to settle the nomination), he comments

This swirling uncertainty is the context in which Bill Clinton’s recent claim that a Clinton-Obama ticket would be unstoppable must be understood. It was an extremely shrewd political manoeuvre. It asserts a presumption, nothing if not bold, that Mrs Clinton is still the senior partner. It nominates Mr Obama as the Democrats’ presidential candidate in 2016 – and he is young enough for that to make sense. And it issues a summons, cynical as this may be coming from the Clintons, to party unity. This way, the Clinton campaign is saying, the party can come together, front both its favourite candidates (two for the price of one, three if you count Bill) and maximise its general election prospects.

Trouble ahead

Another win for Obama, this time in Mississippi, but the real news is the increasing bitterness in the contest for the nomination. In a year when there is everything to play for, and a great deal to lose, the Democrats seem hell bent on tearing themselves apart. An excellent analysis of the current stae of play in Economist.com, looking at why the scrap is getting uglier, and what the future may hold,

A campaign that degenerates into name-calling and mud-slinging will hurt Mr Obama more than it does Mrs Clinton. He has campaigned on messages of “change” and “hope” so he faces an unenviable choice in the long run-up to Pennsylvania. If he lets the Clinton team fling the brickbats without retaliation she may set the tone of the campaign. But respond in kind and his message of a new politics is tarnished. Even though he is behind there in the polls, Pennsylvania cannot come soon enough for Mr Obama.

For Clinton, what is at stake is no less than the redemption of Bill’s presidency, and her campaign is his by proxy. In part this is why Obama is so attractive, as he offers a real break from the tarnished past. All this however is mere gaming; the real battle will be with McCain.