Two old Clinton reporting hands, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons, have weighed in on the question of Bill Clinton's role in the Presidential primaries (Conason, Hillary Must Get Control of BillNew York Observer 01/29/08, Lyons, Campaign has one too many ClintonsArkansas Democrat-Gazette 01/30/08).
Lyons is somewhat easier on the Big Dog. Referring to the immediate aftermath of the South Carolina primary, he writes:
On TV, the usual talking heads— Chris Matthews, Howard Fineman, Margaret Carlson et al. — were partying like it was January 1998, when the Monica Lewinsky story broke and the Clinton presidency was presumed DOA. So somebody sticks a camera in Bill’s face, asks him an insulting question, and he reminds them that Jesse Jackson won the South Carolina primary twice, but never the nomination.
That set off racial sensitivity alarms throughout the media and even certain normally more sensible precincts of the liberal blogosphere. Bill Clinton had played the race card ! Hands were wrung. Lamentations filled the air. Because as we all know, Jackson (who supports Obama ) exists in only one dimension, blackness; therefore, any / all references to his political career constitute bigotry. Everybody else can spend hours parsing racial demographics, but not Bill Clinton. Except Jackson himself didn’t object. Neither did Obama. I’m with Congressional Quarterly columnist Craig Crawford, who told Joe Scarborough: “I really think the evidence-free bias against the Clintons in the media borders on mental illness. I mean, I think when Dr. Phil gets done with Britney, he ought to go to Washington and stage an intervention at the National Press Club.... [W ] e’ve gotten into a situation where if you try to be fair to the Clintons, if you try to be objective, if you try to say, ‘Well, where’s the evidence of racism in the Clinton campaign ?’ you’re accused of being a naïve shill for the Clintons.” But I’d also say this: Somebody needs to put the Big Dog back on the porch. His attacks on Obama are unbecoming in a former president; people are tired of the Clinton melodrama; and the bigger he looms, the smaller Hillary looks.
Conason also defends Bill to some degree over the same incident, ...
... but his conclusions are more critical:
Nobody who knows the Clintons believes that they would intentionally deploy racial stereotypes for political gain, let alone that they harbor racial prejudice. Listening to actual bigots like Rush Limbaugh gloat over the divisive debate in South Carolina is truly sickening.
But in the aftermath of the absurd argument over the civil rights contributions of Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon B. Johnson, and the stupid “cocaine” remarks of Clinton campaign strategist Mark Penn, the former president’s remarks following the South Carolina primary were stunning. By comparing Mr. Obama’s huge win to earlier victories by Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988, he was making a factual point that could hardly be denied. Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Jackson are black men who benefited from the dominance of African-American voters in that state’s Democratic primary.
In some circumstances, Mr. Clinton’s statement would have been heard as harmless. After all, The Nation magazine dubbed South Carolina “the black primary” on its cover not long ago, and no one took offense. In the sensitive atmosphere of this primary season, however, when every utterance from either Clinton will be twisted and turned so easily, he should have realized that any such comparison would be heard as a “dog whistle” inviting white backlash.
Cynics have joked that Mr. Clinton was seeking to harm rather than help his wife’s campaign, while others have warned against his will to power (and the constitutional issues that might raise in a second Clinton administration). More likely he believes that his wife is the best candidate—and that he is deeply irritated by the press bias against her and for her current adversary. But if she doesn’t control him, then he will undo her, no matter what he intends.
