Slew Of Gaffes Makes Pals Wonder Why Bill Clinton Is Losing It

New York Daily News:

He's just not the same Bubba.

Hillary Clinton's husband is still brilliant, still passionate and still a magnificent campaigner. But people who have known him and observers who have watched Bill Clinton for decades say he's lost at least half a step.

Think of him like Michael Jordan - only the past-his-prime version, playing for the Washington Wizards.

More than one acquaintance used the same words: "He's just not the same."

Colleagues point to a slew of potential reasons for Bubba stepping in it so often, including psychological and medical.

Some think he's not up to speed with the instant news world of the 21st century and spending too much time with wealthy, globe-trotting pals.

Read the whole story: New York Daily News

Comments

[Gilda]

He is scared s__less what Hillary is going to do to him when she does not get the nomination!
I almost feel sorry for the poor guy. Well, not that sorry.

[maxfusion]

Wow, the goat has acquired quite the gut in the last year.

[kawika]

A blow is a blow...To the heart or any other extremity...Guess he hasn't had enough?

[xmw]

BILL CLINTON WANTS HILLARY TO LOSE. HIS EGO IS JUST THAT HUNGRY. CLINTO NEEDS THE SPOTLIGHT AND DOESN'T WANT TO SHARE.

[Mikal]

Bill Clinton's erratic behavior is most likely the result of his heart by-pass surgery. It is common after surgery to loose some of your mental capacity in addition to being depressed. I have also observed that Bill Clinton has not looked robust and healthy on some occasions. This observation is from first hand experience but non-medical qualified opinion.

[OldOne]

Senile Dementia - you always have to look for early signs. Just as Reagan had Alzheimers while he was President. It could be Bill Clinton is headed down a very sad path.

[Oakland]

Several doctors at dkos have commented that it is a result of his heart surgery.

[finally]

I think it's more his need to be "the babe at every christening, the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral", and the fact that all his success really got to his head and makes him think he is infallable. After all, he once was "the most popular man in the world"... So sad - please, Bill, go... When he denies saying what he did only a day before, it's either lying (and thinking he can still get away with it), or really not knowing. Both scenarios are bad, and we do not need him in and around the WH again. Don;t let the circus back in town!

[Podewumun]

I noticed the same kind of "drift" in my stepdad's memory after his heart bypass surgery.

[DUECEMOM2004]

THE FOULMOUTHED & LYING CLINTONS

by
Reinhold Aman, Ph.D.

Patterson said Hillary was no stranger to the "N" word either. He heard her say "nigger" "probably six, eight, ten times. She would be upset with someone in the black community and she would use the 'N' word, like, you heard they've got the president's brother on tape using the 'N' word." [NewsMax, 17 July 2000]

[Gasparilla]

Great, let's quote Newsmax. Next up, the Drudge Report.

[biglith]

Bill Clinton has had heart by-pass surgery. People who have had this surgery often report personality changes. Perhaps this explains his behavior.

[lobear00]

Bill, the man is "guilt-ridden from head to toe. What is he to do. The thought of Hillary losing her long awaited seat in the white house is just to much " Stress.

[JaneaneTheAcerbicGoblin]

I don't think Bill is "losing" it.

People are just waking up and seeing what the Clintons really are, and they don't like it. They've been swindled big time. Bill and Hillary just felt like they were going to get the nomination, and had no plan B. So when Obama surged, they became furious and really went after him. Whenever the Clinton's power is on the line, then they get angry. They'll throw a liberal or two under the bus, but when their personal stature is threatened, then all of a sudden they find a backbone.

The Michael Jordan comparison isn't too far off. Jordan couldn't play anymore (or play at the level he played when he was in Chicago) because of his age, but his ego (and Jordan has a huge ego) got the better of him, and his legacy is tarnished to some degree. Clinton's desire for a 3rd term (and his realisation that it might be slipping away) is getting the better of him. The times of crisis bring out the real you, and Bill isn't handling it well. At least Jordan realised after a few years it was time to retire from playing for real.

[finally]

They get angy, or cry: HRC shed tears when she almost lost NH.. Where were the tears for all the lives lost in a war she voted for without reading the 193-page nat. intelligence estimate, so classified that NONE of her aids had access to it? She claims to have been "breifed", but never states by whom. It's allways about them, at ANY cost to the party and the issues they claim to care about.

[EugeneWright]

Personally, I think he waited too long to flare up. He should have expressed outrage upon first hearing about the memo by Obama's campaign urging staffers and the press to seek opportunities to paint Clinton statements as evidence of "race-baiting".

When these bogus charges actually started to take hold in South Carolina, the president who had appointed more blacks to cabinet and high level positions than any president in history, this president who was probably the first to have blacks among his very best friends, this president who was more at home with black audiences than with white ones really did start to come unglued a bit and I think it's perfectly understandable.

[morgagni]

Yeah EW, except that didn't happen. I read the memo he's referring to, and it doesn't say what you think it does. It just gathers quotes from HRC and their surrogates­...doesn't say anything about instructions for the staffers and the press.
Bill & Hillary said what they said, and no one forced them to do it. Even before this campaign, they have been known to cross the line. Usually, they attack White Republicans with it (like when Hill said the Repub-controlled Congress was being run "like a Plantation"). Now they are just taking it to the next level.
So it's not really a question of "losing it"; it is, sadly, their worst traits being revealed to the public at large (including Democrats).

[Gasparilla]

The fact is that it was Michelle Obama who said she might not work to elect Hillary if she is the nominee. You can be sure Bill Clinton will be out there for Obama, if he is the nominee.
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/011885.php

[dbroad]

Obama may not want Bill stumping for him. Hell, Bill's wife has told him to shut up.

[Gasparilla]

I'm sure he will want Bill out there. But nice deflection from the point of what I said. If Bill had said something like that, you would have never heard the end of it.

[Clarabell]

I think most have forgotten about this -- amonst all the other stuff. I really am beginning to think that the "lunatic fringe" that Arianna talks about are residing right here on her site. Person above country. And why isn't Huffpo out here every day saying how McCain is "losing it," after all, isn't he the one we really have to worry about? Arianna said Huffpo wasn't endorsing either candidate, but you sure could fool me. Most of my posts with this tone don't seem t be "making it" and I " wonder why."

[EugeneWright]

Because Arianna who was part of the right-wing fringe obsessed with zippergate in the '90s. She may have changed political strpes but cannot shed herself of her (negative) obsession with Bill Clinton and it's reflected in what gets posted here.

[aliceblue]

Michelle Obama is Calvinist. Wright's
church is a Calvinist denomination. I and
about half of Protestant America belong
to the same Calvinist denomination. My
church was white and in a very Republican
town, but it's essentially the same morality-
driven world view.

Calvinists are not prudes, they invented
the Puritan 'lusty marriage,' but the
Clintons' behavior (when caught) was an
absolute horror to me, I was literally
sickened all those months that Bill lied
on and on.

Expect a higher level of moral
indignation from the Obamas and
if Hill gets the nomination, expect
a lot of write in votes for Obama.

[sclucie]

After six months of non-stop attacks, distortions and lies, why should she? Maybe the Clintons should have taken this into account when they decided to follow Mark Penn and his scorched earth tactics.

Michelle Obama is the only person in this campaign, including Hillary Clinton who has talked about the real lives of women in America today. Nearly half of American mothers are single mothers. Can anybody remembered the last time Hillary Clinton mentioned them? No. Because Hillary is not campaigning in America, 2008. She's campaigning in an imaginary America - 1958.

[ChrisInTennessee]

Sure, Bill will campaign for Obama - just like he did for Al Gore... All he did was come to Gore's campagin fund raisers and try to hit people up for money for Hillary's first senate run and belittle Gore whenever he could. Yeah - he'll "work" for Obama. Get real.

[YRM]

It may be fun sport to pile on the Clintons, but the fact is the neoconservatives have perpetuated this propaganda to good effect for a long time. The last thing Wall Street wants is the kind of New Deal politics tthis political couple espouses, and so we're seeing the "weapons of mass destruction" scam unleashed again to throw the presidential election. Meanwhile, as Bill Clinton claimed, the Obama campaign did circulate a 4-page memo right after his wife won the New Hampshire primary, well before he said anything about South Carolina. Here it is. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/12/obama-camps-memo-on-clin_n_81205.html

For more on the manipulation of the primaries, see the article I've posted at thecityedition.com.
http://www.thecityedition.com/Pages/Archive/Winter08/2008Election.html

[MiddleRoad1]

The neo cons didn't make him diss AAs in SC, or make him yell, red-faced, at his own supporter in SF. They didn't make him lie about Hillary's lies, or tell reporters that his wife asked him to shut up afterwards.
Bill brought this on himself

[EugeneWright]

The Obama campaign pimped his comments as a "diss of African Americans". Barack Obama is not Black America, he is one man but his campaign has with a high degree of success convinced an awful lot of people that any attack on him is an attack on Black America.

[partyofone]

Yeah yeah, the Clintons are always the victims.... in their own minds. They are dishonest, mean-spirited, selfish, users, opportunists and manipulators. The world treats them so badly, while they sell influence to the highest bidders to become mega millionaires, destroy the Democratic party, and do permanent damage to this nation.

YRM, anyone who defends the Clintons is as dishonest as they are.

[osage]

Hillary and Bill Clinton are destroying the Democratic Party's chances of winning the 2008 presidential election. They are their own Doomsday Machine. That is a political truth, not hyperbole. Anyone who can't see there genocidal campaign tactics are stupidly playing directly into the hands of Republicans. Anyone who doesn't understand the depth of the divide the Clinton's negative campaigning is creating within the Democratic Party isn't being rational......or they are just as myopic, arrogant and unconcerned about electing a Democrat president as Hilliary Clinton is. If you want to argue that she should continue until after the results of NC and IN are in, I can accept that. But if you want her to continue her candidacy all the way to the convention, you are complicit in her kamikaze assault on the viability of the Democratic Party. Right now, the best thing that ever happened to John McCain is Hilliary Clinton's inability to accept defeat. She is doing McCain's job for him. She is doing more damage to the Democratic Party single-handedly than the entire Republican Party is capable of doing. Whose side is she really on?

[dana94591]

Right on! I think their "won at all costs" is really wrecking Democratic chances of winning this election. If we end up with another Republican victory it will their fault. Now that they have "helped" make RACE an issue as well as CLASS in the case of Obama, how can they THINK that they stand to benefit from it????? Yeah, she should run the course but I don't think that she is playing fair. i.e. DAMAGE to the very party they supposedly represent. They just want to win!!! And that is not enough!

[partyofone]

The whole point of the Bush-Cliinton era partisan wars is to pit Americans against each other so there is no consensus on major issues and the corporate-­profiteeri­ng status quo is protected. The major concern of the corporations is for Obama to be defeated because he can unite the nation for constructive change. If McCain and Clinton are nominated, the corporations win because the two candidates are the same.

[dbroad]

Hillary knows she cant win the nomination. She is damaging Obama so he will not win the election and she will run again in 2012.

[lobear00]

Always take one day at a time. You never know what the next day will bring.

[harriscrl3]

He has tarnished his legacy in my eyes. I regret voting for him twice and will never look at him the same way again.

Carol

[gayleg]

Another disloyal Democrat.

You could be pro-Obama without constantly bashing the Clintons, Carol.

You and your ilk are destroying the Party.

[candlewax]

The one lobbying negatives is the one destroying the party and most agree that that would be Clinton.

[MiddleRoad1]

So, if you don't like the Clintons, you are a disloyal Democrat? Wow! After calling women who voted for him betrayers of the sisterhood, this is the most insidious comment.
So whats next? If we don't like Queen Hillary, we are unpatriotic?

[partyofone]

There is no difference between the Clintons and the Bushes, just the technicality of party registration. If being a Democrat meant anything, Congress would be functioning. It is not .
Establishment politicians are all the same, and corporations rule.

[meneghin]

Blind loyalty to a party is typical and inherent to totalitarian systems. When you disagree with what a party or a party nominee does you are not being disloyal but simply exercising your democratic right to express your opinion to bring about changes that in your mind represent improvements. BTW your primary loyalty needs not be to a party but to your conscience and what you think is good for your country. The voice of the majority is what ultimately counts.
What you are calling "disloyal" democrats are those who are uncomfortable with a party that demands loyalty from their members while at the same time insisting on enforcing undemocratic rules (e.g. superdelegates) that are totally inconsistent with the party name and mission.
I will continue to support the candidate of my choice but I plan to cancel my registration from the Democratic party. I need this kinf od freedom to be able to respect myself.

[candlewax]

I'm with you except I only voted for him once. When they turned their backs on millions of children and forced them into even more severe poverty without the help of medicaid, I could not vote for him in '96. I have mistrusted them ever since. Peter Edelmen of the Children's Defense Fund resigned in disgust after that. There is a reason why people say they will do anything for power.

[dana94591]

Hey, I don't regret working for the election of and voting for Bubba, but what I am upset about is the revelation that he is just a mildly racist southern bigot!!!