Bill Clinton Craps Out

I speak for dice shooters everywhere when I say that Bill Clinton has seriously dissed the honorable game of craps .

When he went on the Charlie Rose show last week and tried to scare the Bejeezus out of the American people by claiming that to nominate Barack Obama would be to "roll the dice" with the country, he grossly distorted the odds.

Clinton's fear-mongering remark reveals much greater experience in rolling around in the hay than rollin' dem bones.

To be precise, rolling the dice is one of the very best bets you can make in Vegas, or anywhere else. Depending on how much a given casino allows you to put down as odds behind your basic pass line bet, on every roll of the dice the house has a razor-thin advantage of only about one-half to one-and-one-half percent. Indeed, in the most liberal of casinos that allow 100x odds, the house advantage drops to an invisible 0.02 percent.

That means a roll of the dice, to use Clinton's term, is for all practical purposes an even-money 50-50 bet. Which, as I said, makes it a damn good bet.

If Clinton had really wanted to spook us, he would have instead implied that voting for Obama was not a roll of the dice but rather a "spin of the wheel." Roulette is a veritable cash vacuum cleaner for any casino, offering a 5.36 percent advantage to the house -- four to 15 times riskier than a friendly game of dice. Worse, any spin of the notorious Wheel of Fortune offers as much as as a staggering 24 percent house advantage, perhaps a hundred times more dangerous than trying to toss an innocent eeyo-eleven at the craps table.

Even the most generous of slot machines offer an edge to the house 3-4 times greater than craps.

All that to say any 50-50 bet, like craps, is a great bet. And Bill Clinton's use of this particular metaphor ought to allow us to compare the risk of rolling the dice to that of electing Hillary. Is she really better than a 50-50 chance not to embroil us in another war? Not to fail again on health care? Not to succumb to the power of special interest lobbies? Are you convinced enough to put some money down?

I'll let you decide which level of risk you're more comfortable with.

I, for one, would rather roll the dice.

Comments

[PhilBlogwood]

Poor Bill. He keeps slipping up. I give him a lot of credit for 8 years of peace and prosperity. I like his intelligence, and his enthusiasm for outlining our choices. But it seems like his analysis of THIS choice is just plain wrong. He's just too eager to get back into the White House. Measure the candidates against the yardsticks of character, judgement, and vision, and what do you get? I get Obama '08!

[LeeFromVA]

Bill seems to be rolling the dice with his legacy. If Hillary goes down, like I believe she will, he may be blamed. Hillary failure may put a stink on his legacy.

[poopdeck]

There is a much more simple and fundamental reason why Senator Obama should never become our president or vice-president which everybody can understand. In plain English, Senator Obama has been one of the "paymasters" for the war in Iraq which makes him co-responsible for everything that happened and will happen in that war.

[thatvisionthing]

Rolling the dice, shmolling the dice, the best Clinton word quibble I saw this week was on cable news (MSNBC? CNN?) where the host and guest got into a quibble over whether Bill Clinton "blew it" (his presidency). Yes, no, yes (blush)

[longislandlol]

Time to initiate a move-on.cl­inton

[SamanthaJaneSalem]

In this metaphor, the House is the Clinton Machine, and of course the odds are in their favor. The dice may even be loaded.

People who want change are taking a chance that someone like Obama will help us prevail. We're rolling the dice (voting) hoping for 7 or 11 (Obama) so that we can win (have real change in America).

So in essence all that Bill is saying is that another Clinton presidency is another case of the House (the Washington system) winning instead of the people.

[linfar]

Cooper is too cute by half with this rehash of republican talking points. What's the matter? Is the heat which is finally getting turned up under Obama making him squirm? Hillary has been dealing with this sort of crap--or should I say craps--since Cooper was in grade school. It would be so nice to see something of substance instead of this smelly old tripe.

[David Guilbault]

I have now seen 'roll the dice' as a quote attributed to President Clinton, over and over, all over the Internet. He did NOT say those words. They were said by the interviewer, Charlie Rose. Get it right, folks.

[Ottovbvs]

If I didn't know better I'd say Cooper is starting to panic judging by the hysterical and rather sleazy tone of this hit piece. He may not like it anymore than Sean Hannity does but the fact is Clinton's overall approval rating is around 66% and amongst Democrats it's in the high eighties. Never mind it allows all the Clinton haters to emerge from the left and right (why are these people so alike?) and start bomb throwing. It's not going to make much difference to the final outcome because America is simply not where these people are.

[RuthieM]

You're rolling the dice for Hillary too, Bill knows that! For any candidate you're rolling the dice. Bill Clinton really oughta stop, doesn't he know the American people have brains and can see through this stuff he is spitting out. Nobody knows what they will be getting with any of these candidates when they become president, it's all a rolling of the dice. Of course, I knew what I would be getting with president Bush and agreed with Jesse Jackson while Bush was campaigning when Jackson said, "Stay out of the Bushes!" I knew Bush was waiting to get his hand on that attack Iraq lever, and he indeed pulled it. But with Obama, it will be the best crap shoot in U.S. history when he brings all of us the golden dream when he enters the white house.

[LeeFromVA]

What a headache it is to put up with all this Clinton drama. We certainly don't need it. There are several very well qualified Democrats to pick from, any of whom will easily beat the Republican. It's time to put the Clintons out of their misery as fast and as painless as possible. No sense dragging this out. Let's have a real race between Edwards and Obama, and any of the others that might do well in Iowa and the early states. Come on folks, we have to admit she's the worst possible solution for us, for many, many reasons. Let's move on.

[realitybase]

Edwards/Obama '08 trumps Billary and all republicans in the race.

[mhnicholson]

Craps, like roulette, offers no winning bets. A slow loser is still a loser. Playing against the house is like betting that the house has done the math wrong. They haven't.

The best bets in Vegas involve playing against the other patrons, like poker. Then you are betting someone foolish will sit down next to you. In my experience this is typically a good bet.

The argument between the media darlings seems to be a repeat of the false choice between different ways to play the house's game and lose.

[weslenforever]

In the beginning, I was ALL FOR Hillary Clinton. I liked Bill Clinton as president until he signed NAFTA, which was Bush's deal, and he also caved on the "Welfare" Bill, even after the trash talk from the Republicans about anyone unlucky enough to need Medicaid. But the thing that scares me the MOST about the possibility of Hillary being president is the deep friendship between Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush. And now Clinton has even gone so far as to say that if Hillary is elected she will receive help and advice from Bush. What kind of an "endorsement" is that?
On the other hand, Obama is no better. If you listen to him, he is very thin skinned. Sort of like Bush. He doesn't like being questioned about anything or put on the spot. He is immediately defensive. He doesn't stop to think before he jumps. That's why he reacted so badly to that trash article of Novak's. Now he's whining about people talking about drug use in his life even though HE"S the one who put it out there. He says something outrageous and expects no one to comment on it. He's the one who compared living in another country when he was in kindergarten with "foreign policy experience".
John Edwards is just a phony. He will say whatever it takes to convince whatever audience he's talking to that he knows what he is talking about.
Kucinich is the only one who had the guts to stand up to the party line and introduce articles of impeachment against Cheney and Chris Dodd is the only one who had the guts to stand up and filibuster the immunity for the telecoms. Biden is the leader on CIA investigations.
Unfortunately, every single one of them is an amnesty HACK for ILLEGAL immigration. Not one of them can understand the difference or listen to those of us who keep telling them that it is not right that American Citizens are expected to OBEY THE LAW while people who are in this country ILLEGALLY are NOT.

[laurenc]

Here's the really scary part. The media is overwhelmingly pro-Republican (listen to CNN if you doubt me). They want a sure loser as a Democratic candidate. If Clinton can't get the nomination, they want it to be Obama. They will pummel the Muslim connection as much as they need to in order to keep control of the Supreme Court, continuing global warming, destroying labor unions. Only John Edwards is the sure winner for the Democratic Party.
And finally, the Democrats will have a guy FROM the workingclass speaking for our Party.
You can't underestimate the effect! (remember What's the Matter with Kansas?) Hillary and Barack went to Ivy League schools, Edwards to a state university. That says it al.