Bill Clinton Fights for His Place in History

Bill Clinton owes his political life to the liberal Democrats who supported him through scandal after scandal. So why would he risk alienating them by his relentless attacks on Barack Obama?

To preserve his place in history.

At the moment, Clinton is -- per Toni Morrison -- America's first black president. He's out to preserve that title at all costs, but of course he'll lose it as soon as we elect someone who is, well, actually black.

If Barack Obama were elected, Clinton would instantly be demoted to America's forty-second white president (which sounds like a premature ejaculation joke). As we've seen, he'll do anything to prevent that, even if that means getting Hillary elected. She should just be glad no one ever called the teary-eyed lip-biter the first woman president.

Comments

[May2002]

Mr. Frank's piece is so simple-minded. It is just a hearsay, created to echo in this mass echo chamber, which is in vogue at this very moment.

Clinton was a President of United States.

Clinton was not only a black president, which was only causually called by one black writer.

Yes, during his tenure he was popular among black voters. And he deserved it because he took black votes seriously.

Now, the tide may change, but saying Clinton's effort for his wife is stemming from he wants to continue to be the only black president sound childish.

This is just a meaningless hearsay.

[mellene]

He made his place in history and you usually don't get a second chance to do that. Give it a rest, Bill. You were an amaazing president in the late 1990s and now it's time to turn it over to another family other than Bush & Clinton. We don't need another dynasty regime.

[partyofone]

Bill Clinton earned his place in history with irresponsible personable behavior, a red-faced fnger wagging lie to the American people, and becoming only the second president in history to be impeached.

As one biographer has noted: "Bill Clinton's behavior pushed an unfortunate human tendency to a pathological and blatant extreme. [He] seemed to tempt fate about what others treated with some degree of discretion, necessitating a first ever presidential 'bimbo eruptions unit'", a function now transferred to the 'Hillary for President' campaign.

Can the nation really expect Bill Clinton to behave more responsibly as First Spouse?

[FogBelter]

I think Bill Clinton found Toni Morrison's observation to be a valuable cover for him to go about the business of dismantling Welfare and sending manufacturing and textile jobs abroad through the passage of NAFTA and the joining the WTO.

I don't think Clinton ever viewed himself as anything but a politician.

What Clinton is about right now does have to do with his place in history, Mr Frank. I think that Clinton has been blind-sided by the fact that people paid more attention to the substance of his Administration than he thought. I think it disturbs Bill to hear people criticize him for using his term as President to ratify Republican agendas of Reagan and Bush, while portraying himself as a Liberal that feels other's pain.

Bill Clinton is a fraud and his Presidency was a Republican Trojan Horse ... even the current Credit strife in the US can be tracked back to his signing of the GLBA in 1999. The thing is, no one was supposed to notice what he was REALLY about ...

Clinton's place in History is well defined for anyone who bothers to seriously review his record ... I don't think Bill likes the scrutiny, he'd rather have people discussing Monica or White Water ... those things he knows how to deal with.

[alkamm]

The subtlety that led Morrison to call Clinton the first black president is a testament to overintellectual minds who stretch analogies too far, like unethical scientists who feel that anything they conceive of should be built.
Such a small step from being the first black president without color (except for what used to be called flesh color) to being the first female president without the primary and secondary sex characteristics. Oh, maybe he has tits, I don't know.
There's definitely something to the idea that the Clintons want redemption as well as validation. They know their circus was a, forgive me, a blow to our national self-esteem and our image abroad. They know they made so many mistakes that, rightly or wrongly, overshadowed their accomplishments, so they want another chance.
We do not need to elect them so that they can right their old wrongs. Look what happened when Bush decided to attack Iraq for trying to assassinate his dad.
We need to work on righting Bush's for him, and further, having the vision to demand change and clarity on day one of Barack's new stellar administration.

[lifeinfullcolor]

I think Bill Clintons presidency will be overshadowed by his personal lack of judgement. I remember him because I was in North Vietnam in 1999, sitting in a small hotel restaurant, in Halong Bay. I was sitting there watching CNN discuss the President of the United States blow job. If CNN could discuss whether or not the president got a blow job in the Oval Office, I can use the word on this post. I thought, how surrealistic, to be sitting in North Vietnam, listening to commentators, western commentators, talk about the President of the United States in that manner. When I went to North Vietnam, I wondered how in the world we could have lost to a country who still were using water buffalo to plow the fields 30 years later. Sitting there, I could see the Vietnamese still laughing at us, represented by a man who couldn't keep his zipper up.

[LoRiseAntlers]

Um,okay.