FRENEMIES: Bill Clinton is taking flak from Dems over his alleged crack about President Obama “carrying our bags.” (Pete Souza/The White House)
The late, great sportswriter Red Smith once was asked why people go to a baseball game and read about it the next day. It’s simple, Smith said, “people go to spectator sports to have fun, and then they grab the paper to have fun again.”
So it is with the Clintons and Obamas. Watching them slime and slam each other four years ago proved to be one of the great spectator sports in political history. Thanks to a new report about a brutal 2008 Bill Clinton putdown of Obama, we get a chance to enjoy ourselves all over again.
“A few years ago, this guy would have been carrying our bags,” Clinton reportedly said of Obama. Two dead men, Ted Kennedy and Tim Russert, are at the heart of the report in The New Yorker, but the tone is consistent with what we know about the family feud of yesteryear.
The bad blood had some racial overtones and made the Democratic contenders the Hatfields and McCoys of politics, even if the blood they drew was rhetorical. There were so many cutting lines, including these:
Asked on “60 Minutes” whether she thought there was any truth to rumors Obama was a Muslim, Hillary said, “No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know.”
Obama’s team put out a memo criticizing the Clintons’ fund-raising from Indian-Americans and investments in companies that outsourced jobs to India, with this headline: “Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab).”
Bill said Obama’s claim to have been against the Iraq war all along was the “biggest fairy tale,” and accused the media of “sanitizing” Obama’s record. (Some things never change!)
At a snippy debate, Hillary was asked about being likable and Obama suddenly interjected with a cold, “You’re likeable enough, Hillary.”
Michelle Obama, without mentioning a certain intern and that blue dress, said to a women’s group, “If you can’t run your own house, you certainly can’t run the White House.”
Then Hillary topped them all when she rejected calls to drop out in late May, saying, “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.”
The slasher fest stopped only when Obama won the nomination, and Hillary held her nose to campaign for him. He then kept her inside the tent by making her secretary of state and helped retire her campaign debt. Yet, to this day, the Obamas have not had the Clintons to the White House for a private dinner.
All of which brings us to Charlotte, and the unlikely scenario where Bill Clinton will nominate the president for a second term. With Hillary choosing to be on the other side of the world for government business, Bubba will be alone for tomorrow’s spectacle.
Beyond the lingering personal animus, Bill Clinton will carry a conflict of interest to the podium. He wishes his wife were the incumbent, and he is still no fan of Obama’s presidency.
But this is business — the business of protecting his legacy and giving Hillary a final shot at the White House in 2016.
His legacy is that he moved the Democratic Party to the center and is the only Dem since FDR to win re-election. A President Hillary was part of his plan to vindicate his “triangulation” politics and diminish the memory of Monica.
But the would-be bag carrier got in the way. Not only that, Obama jerked the party back to the far left, rejecting Clinton’s centrism. That he is now in trouble and needs a Clinton to rescue him is a delicious bit of revenge for them.
For the 42nd president, the conflicting dynamics must be making his head swim. What can he say that will help Obama, Hillary and himself?
One thing is certain: This being Bill Clinton, helping Obama is at the bottom of his list.