Can anything be more obvious?
Obama in trouble on health care for weeks, can’t explain his way out of it while stepping into “stupidly,” yet won’t reach out to, perhaps, the one man who could put it over the top. If only to get down into with the Blue Dogs. Of course, I’m talking about the great Democratic salesman, William Jefferson Clinton.
Hey, but since the Obama administration won’t use Howard Dean on health care, who is an actual doctor, no one should be surprised.
Got ego, Prez? In excess, if you ask me.
Of course, even daring to write this I can already hear the squealing from the Obama choir, emphasized by the Bill Clinton is Bad orchestra. Because, you know, William Jefferson Clinton can never be utilized by progressives or libs, even on health care after the “Hillarycare” fall. Ack! The bad memories.
Never have Democratic assets been so under utilized.
Tina Brown, thank you:
Surely it’s the former president who got it wrong once who has spent the most time and lost the most sleep thinking over how he would do it again. More important, wouldn’t Bubba do a better job than the professorial Obama at sweet-talking, arm wrestling, hugging, and head locking such obstructive Blue Dogs as Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross, who used to run a family drugstore just like the one Bill remembers from his years growing up in Hot Springs? Or North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler, who’s one of that class of moderate Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer promised not to push around too much when Rahm persuaded them to run for a seat in the House? Obama needs to get himself dirty, and be seen to get dirty.
It looks like Obama would rather live on cheeseburgers than let Clinton get into the act on health care—or on anything else, for that matter. Maybe he thinks there’s no stage big enough for both these two Mount Rushmore megastars and never will be. Despite surface cordiality and self-restraint for Hillary’s sake, the former president’s wounds from the harsh charge of racism on the campaign, a falsehood on which Obama created his “post-racialism” campaign, remain deep, and they are not assuaged by the coolly minimal lip service a still mistrustful Obama pays to Bill’s presidential wisdom. “Sure, he calls me every few weeks,” the former president told a person I know. “But it feels as if, you know, he’s just checking a box.”
We all know what an aversion Barack Obama has to all things relating to the Big Dog. But considering he’s the best salesman we’ve got, you’ve really got to wonder. Lots of people are asking why not, including original Obama supporters.
It all gets down to Obama not wanting to have to give Bill Clinton credit. Even at the presidential level we’re seeing pettiness and spiteful professional jealousies. An attitude that permeates the Democratic layers all the way down to the grass roots, even though it was Clinton who dragged us out of the financial mess Ronald Reagan and his deregulating Republicans got us into. You’d think after the financial collapse of 2008 Obama would appreciate former Pres. Clinton a little more. Find a presidential kinship of sorts. That Bill Clinton was able to do that with George H.W. Bush, through the son president George W. Bush no less, illustrates how grown men can act when larger goals require it.
Ego is a tough master.
TM NOTE: As expected, this post generated a lot of discussion, though the downturn into male… um… endowment insults was definitely not a high point.
