A stunning post - really beautiful.  I've been so angry, I haven't thought much about how sad it's made me until now.  

Mr. Stern, I both sympathize with you disillusionment and wonder at your former credulity.

So fixated were you on what you saw as unjustness from the Right, that you failed to notice Bill Clinton (and, his wife, too, really) has been a duplicitous sneak all along.

Republicans cannot help that smile at Democrats finally discovering after 16 years what has been pointed out and backed up with evidence by the opposition to Bill & Hill since they first emerged on the national scene.

Now Channy please - gloating does not become you. People are sad, just continue being wise and let us be.

"I know what’s happened to my feelings about Bill Clinton, so I assume that the same change has taken place in others."

Pauline Kael: "I can't believe Nixon won. No one I know voted for him."

(Except she didn't actually say that. But she should have.)

And really, spare the world your efforts at psychoanalysis. They're wasted. Clinton knew exactly what he was doing, and he did it with his wife's blessing.

Wandreycer1, I am not gloating.  I am genuinely touched to see honest people taken advantage of.

The Clintons are enormously intelligent, enormously talented (Bill), enormously compelling (Bill) people.

If someone like that was championing things that I agreed with and believed in, I'd very likely be sucked into the maw as well.

But, for we who didn't agree with very much that the Clintons were saying, it was easier, in a skeptical mode to see all the hornswoggling these people have been doing.

Bill Clinton is one of history's great confidence men.  What finally gave him away-- and it took a long, long time-- when he was losing, he tried to cagily deploy race against an opponent who was getting in his way.

But, he wasn't as cagey as he thought he was being, and it finally turned powerful allies, and longtime supporters against him.

This is a classic, dramatic turning point.  It is playing out like in a movie.

The only difference is, although the Clintons have been exposed for all the world to see, that doesn't guarantee they lose.

Unlike in the movies, these bad guys could still win, could still take the White House.  And God knows what the consequences of that could be.

this isn't just about betraying honest people.  This is about the potential of a massive fraud to be carried out.  And have that fraud carry two people back into power they manifestly do not deserve.

He may or may not be deliberately tanking Hillary's campaign, but the guy obviously has a self-destructive streak. BJs in the Oval Office with a teenager, an inability to ever start or end a talk/project/assignment on time, an almost uncanny knack for sterring himself straight into the  crosshairs of his enemies' sharpshooters....

Then again, maybe he's hit upon the one and only way to purge his admirers of any last trace of Clinton-worship and thereby deliver the nation from the past. A far greater thing he does today than he has ever done

teplu, once again a novel analysis.  

It's beyond a death wish.  It's an expungement from history wish.

Lacking a Soviet apparatus to do it for him, he's going to delete himself from the national stage, right before our eyes.  And, all his old damning email with it.

I am simultaneously saddened by the spectacle, and hopeful that he will kill his wife's candidacy in time to prevent her being the nominee or worse, a Democratic deadlock between Obama and Clinton that lasts until the convention.

Well Channy, I appreciate your sentiments, but I had to laugh at the notion of innocents being taken advantage of by epic shucksters.  Very few Clinton fans had or have illusions about the man, we loved (and I guess till do - some of us a little) and deeply admired the man with full knowledge of his dark side.  Probably because we identify at some levels.  I'm hardly an innocent and I'll leave it at that.

As angry and disgusted as I am with Bill Clinton right now, give me his incandescent brilliance and political  expertise any day over the corrupt, hateful, childish, cloying religio-idiotic, narcissistic, unpartiotic neo-confederate morons who were after him in the 90's ANY day of the week.  

Thank God for Clinton's brilliant stewardship in many ways, especialy economic. He may lack class, but the idea that that matters more than his indisputable accomplishments is historical revisionism and a never ending argument, entirely partisan in nature on both sides and a waste of energy atthis point.

I'm not happy with Bill's recent contributions to the selection process, but President Clinton was the best President of the United States to serve in my lifetime of 52 years.  President Johnson achieved more in civil rights and social justice, but cannot be forgiven for Vietnam.  Nixon accomplished more at home and abroad, but Vietnam and Watergate weigh very heavily.

I don't blame brother Chan for wanting desperately to change the subject from the pathetic performance of the current President, but as disappointed as I was with the Clinton Presidency, I'd rather erase the past seven years than even one day of the Clinton years.  

Neil

Wandrey,

I'm sorry that Channy has managed to resurrect your affections for Bill.

Economically I will give you stewardship inasmuch that Bill worked well with the Republican Congress while successfully bludgeoning them. Thus surplus. I am however of the opinion that Mickey Mouse could have occupied the oval office and benefitted from the sea change brought about by the tech revolution. It seems to me that this tide couldn't help but lift all boats. I think it did though the shorelines vista as always conforms to the real estate maxim,  location, location, location. Still he deserves credit for not screwing the pooch.

Hey. Martha Stewart did time for lying to the grand jury. Personally I didn't have the appetite for impeachment. That said, I never sympathized with his predicament.  It did give us the archetypal "Is" which I think is instructive. Juxtapose that with the cherry tree and there might be found a topic for constructive discussion.

For those of us that never admired Bill we simply see his latest activities as a perfectly logical extension of who he has always been. A manipulative achiever and survivor with the uncanny ability by virtue of prodigious charm and luck to do both. I've known people like this. There was a time when I could look in the mirror and suppose a nice resemblance. So goes my affinity with the phrase, " You can't bullshit a bullshitter."

He's not such a bad guy. But given large talents, appetites and station his propensity to provisional truth has a multiplied effect. Though I agree with nearly everything Channy has offered up I want to offer this up as a medicated goo on the degree of disillusionment you may feel. But realize that it is not an illusion.

The Presidency isn't really unlike any other 'office' be it King or Queen or God. We invest. We even attribute thought processes large and small in their ratification. The better angels of your attributions are valid. All in all, I think you agree with me that Obama offers up a more constructive way forward in pursuit of our collective discussions and ultimate goals.

Here is to common ground WandreyCer. I always sensed somehow that you were every bit as decent and upstanding a citizen that I am.

"Here is to common ground WandreyCer. I always sensed somehow that you were every bit as decent and upstanding a citizen that I am."

I just want to make sure that you know this is meant to be humorous. I'll happily testify self love as any objections are insignificant when measured to the full extent of grandeur. I sure the same is true of you.

The Clinton's being divisive isn't inherent to their being, not in the least, rather right-wing demagogues have and always will attempt to make fodder of any and all Democratic presidential office holders.  What pisses off Republicans is the fact the Clinton's withstood their best smears.  Unfortunately, as is most often the case, the major media players repeat conservative conclusions with out the slightest hesitation.  The deck is stacked against Bill Clinton.  A real shame those who ought to know better buy into it as well.

To the post: Word!

To the Clinton defenders, I think the point is that when Clinton was viciously attacked, we defended.  The attacks were unfair, unethical, fueled by rage, lies, underhanded dealings and incoherence rather than by any attempt at dealing with the truth.  Now, sadly, we seem to be seeing the exact same behavior FROM Bill.  So the very logic and outrage that was the source of our defense of Bill in the 90s is now the source of our disappointment, and sometimes disgust.  

His Jessie Jacksoning Obama was bad.

purcellneil, George Bush, whatever you think of him, faced the greatest challenge on our home soil any president had to deal with since Pearl Harbor.

Bill Clinton inherited a victory and a peace and the healthiest economy in our history.  With it came a peace dividend, along with an advance in technology and the economic surge that came with it, the likes of which we hadn't seen since the first thirty years of the last century.

With all of these advantages, Bill Clinton, who ought to have presided over an administration akin to Eisenhower's managed to have scandal after scandal, crisis after crisis, virtually of of which were self-fomented.

The luckiest president since world war two in terms of the landscape he inherited managed, drama queen that he is, to make it an all-about-him mess.

Just like he's doing during what is supposedly his wife's run for president.  But is really his run for a crypto third term.

I'd be glad to turn to President Bush's tenure whenever you like.  But, the subject here is Clinton, so I have been addressing it.

Meanwhile, Wandreycer, if your admiration for naughty Bill was eyes-open and not innocent, why then the poignant sadness you profess?

What is the surprise here in his behavior?  Did you ever really believe that Bill was for black people and not for Bill?  That Bill was for women and not for Bill?  That Bill was for liberal values and not for Bill?

Bill is and always has been a charlatan of the most malicious kind.  He is for everything good until it is against his interests.  Then watch out.  If he has to race-bait, destroy women he has already victimized, or indulge in corruption of any sort to get his way, Bill will and always has done it.

So, wanderey, if you have always known these sad facts, you are not disillusioned, you are complicit.

Oh dear God, I guess I'll join in this fight for one more for old time sake - it's "Ground Hog Day" with no Bill Murray.  We'll all be doing this when we're old and grey and our grandkids are throwing things at us for it.

Whitewater was Clinton's doing somehow?  Whitewater is exhibit number 1 in the mostly made-up "scandals" of the Clinton years.  I guess there's probably hicks out there somewhere still trying to dig up poor Vin Foster's body, who Clinton supposedly murdered.  I always like the drug cartel stories too - the airstrip in some small town in Arkansas?  i could have done without Bill's zipper issue and the abuse of power that went along with it, not to mention Ken Starr (universally loathed to this day) and his desperate, grand jury leaking unAmerican gestapo - are you really ready to compare the two? And the rest of it was just silly and came to nothing of course.  Clinton poisoning.

The Deficeit Reduction Act of 1991 (when the Bush 1 deficiets that closed the money spigots from Wall Street were 4rth in the polls as a priority) is acknowledged to have been the spark that begun the Clinton boom by honest economists of both parties.  Remember how not one Republican voted for it and forecast doom - geniuses, those guys.  

The supposed monkey who could have managed that boom turned out to be Bush II, who was handed trillions in surpluses to finally pay down Pappy's s mess and instead gave it to rich people and tripled the size of government.  There's your monkey. Clinton was brilliant economically.

Bill Clinton never had a chance to preside over what he should have because he was surrounded by jackals with money trying to bring him down from Day 1.  They were open about it.  the waste was just as much their fault, the American people supported Bill Clinton and his agenda with full knowledge of his dark side.  The crazies and the jackals just never cared what the American people wanted, impeachment: exhibit A.

I give Bush II credit for no more attacks on our soil during his tenure.  He gets that credit, fair and square.  It wasnt pretty, but he never claimed it would be and I salute him for it.  But I, like 99.999 of the world, are counting the minutes until his godforsaken, corrupt, hick-ridden, bumbling joke of an administration is gone.

Ahh, that was fun - just like the good old days. But we do sound more and more like dinosaurs don't we?  No wonder Obama tapped into something big.  We ARE tiresome.

of course I would never suspect you but anything but decency boxofrox.

I'd have to give the edge to Chan's last post. Bill has made it manifestly clear that, good effects aside, his _motivation_ has always been nothing more than the Grandeur of Bill. He has great talents, sure (it would be interesting to speculate on how much better his economic team might have dealt with/would deal with the current financial meltdown than Bush's team has), but in moral terms the man's basically a precocious adolescent.

I guess I'm one of those rare folks who, on balance, actually was fairly neutral about Bill Clinton. I liked him but didn't love him, voted for him but with moderate enthusiasm and, while I thought the impeachment was garbage, believe that Bill could have spared us all the whole nightmare.

Even though my expectations from him have always been low to moderate, the way he's conducted himself during the campaign has been nothing short of appalling. To those of you who lionized him, however, I feel your pain.

Tep:

"BJs in the Oval Office with a teenager."

She was 22!  If that's still a teenager, then I'm going to start proclaiming myself to be "in my early twenties."

Her dress was blue, she was twenty-two... ah yes, ah remember eet well

purcellneil, Ralph Nader just blogged to his followers an appraisal of the Clinton administrations that mirrors mine to you above, and much embellishes on it.

It was reproduced in the Washington Times, to show you what strange bedfellows these times are making:

video1.washingtontimes.com/.../nader_rails_on_clinton_family.html

Wandrey, I can't help but agree that our youngers are quite tired bo the long Baby Boom feud.  but, it is hardly based on trivialities.  (But, believe me, I am know admirer of my own generation.)

I also agree, that Mr. Obama would indeed turn a new page in that people would not despise him from day one.  

As I've posted here several times, I don't agree with the man on any major issue.  I think he is naive, callow, and would put us at risk in the international sphere while deploying a long list of unaffordable and oppressive domestic programs.

But, for all that I think Obama is a man of decency, fair minded, and of good instincts.  He is not a divider, and even people who disagreed violently with him on policy would like and respect him.  Something like Reagan enjoyed.  Plus, he is the most eloquent major politician since JFK.

Clinton was the exact opposite.  Even when I agreed with him, I disliked and distrusted him.  I believe that mine will ultimately become the majority opinion of him (and her).  

And that Americans will be divided between those who loved him once but are now sadder but wiser.  And those who never loved him and feel exonerated.

Aww. This is so cute....

But seriously, guys, give me a break. I've never liked Clinton, because I thought he was an amoral, narcissistic scumbag.  He was also one of the greatest politicians I've ever seen, who ran the country pretty well. I never minded that he would sell his own mother to the Arabs if necessary, I'm far more interested in effectiveness than niceness in a chief executive.

What the Clintons are doing now to Obama is what they've done to their enemies since Day One. He hasn't modified his behavior one bit, it's the same schtick they've always done. The only difference, as far as I can see, is that now he's attacking someone that Richard Stern can't bring himself to hate, or even dislike.

Mind you, I don't mind that the Clintons do this. I'd love for Hillary to be president. I don't want a "nice boy" or "nice girl" as the head of state, I want a mean SOB who will get things done.

But still, I honestly wonder how people think, who see this as a change in their behavior.

Well, I tried for old time's sake.  I like old Bill even if I hate hi sometimes - I'm certianly not going to defend his dark side.  But it all came out in the wash with the guy (until now).

Canny - complicit in balanced budgets and rising incomes across all income sectors?  Thank you!

Chan,

You and many other Bill-haters go on and on about how self-centered the man is.  I suppose you liked Reagan, a highly paid actor and liberal who resented paying high tax rates on his Hollywood income - and so became the icon of conservatism. No doubt Reagan's motivations were purely selfless - I am sure he had nothing in common with Bill Clinton.

Then you mention Ralph Nader - whose limitless ego and self-centered political campaign in 2000 are remarkable for resulting in the Bush presidency.

You don't like Bill. I don't like him much either. I still would trade the past eight years of your president for one more day of President Clinton's.

Neil

purcellneil, you're right, Reagan was a selfish son of a bitch who wouldn't even pay 90% taxes when his government asked him, too.

But, you, being a patriot and a happily tax-paying liberal, no doubrt donate the extra 60% in taxes the Federal government no longer asks for.

Actually, Chan, I have no problem paying my taxes and it is not reasonable to suggest that anyone would be selfish to pay only what is required by our tax laws.  To be fair to Reagan, I agree that top rate was too high - he had every right to object, but changing party affiliation speaks to a powerful personal motivation, no?      

I notice you don't dispute my point that Reagan's self-interest was at least as significant as Bill Clinton's.  After all, Clinton opposed the Bush tax cuts and opposes extending them - even though they very heavily benefit high-income folks, like himself.

Of course, you don't really have to have a reason to dislike Clinton, or to revere Reagan. But reason is generally considered a good thing.

Neil  

Actually, Neil, I do dispute, and find it pretty far fetched, that Reagan the long gauntlet for the presidency just to get his tax rate down.

I'm not a Reagan buff and haven't read his biographies.  But, I suspect his main motivation for changing parties was disgust at Leftists he saw up close in Hollywood and making a run at the Screen Actors Guild and other Hollywood unions.

I think he came to think that after the war, the Left was both taking over the Democratic Party and that the Left was sanguine if not sympathetic to the Soviets.

You know Churchill was a liberal in his youth, as well, and famously switched from the party he had once served in.  

It was also Churchill who spoked the old saw, "If you are aren't a Socialist when you're young, you haven't got a heart.  If you're still a socialist when you're old, you haven't got a head."

P.S. Neil, people in Clinton's new income bracket don't pay onerous taxes, and never did.  They have plenty of ways to get around them, no matter who's president.

It is the middle class and the upper middle class that takes the biggest hit as a percentage of their income.  The problem is having income as opposed to capital.  That's what screws you.

Why is anyone comparing Bill to Bush? Is it because Chan is a Republican? Bush is horrible, snore snore, we all know that, and it has exactly nothing to do with Clinton's virtues or vices.  This should not be a partisan issue because it ISN'T. So stop it.

I'm late into this discussion, but firstly, Mr. Stern, please don't quote Roth as an expert on American manhood.  I have no idea of what he's like, but if you've read any of his books, or Claire Bloom's autobiography, for that matter, he doesn't come across as the most psycho-sexually healthy specimen of manhood.

We elected a "man" into office.  As opposed to what, exactly?  I don't care whether a man chooses to cheat on his wife.  Just like I don't care if you feel like getting dead drunk on a Saturday night.  But it's those non-stop binges that end up with you in a dirty alley behind a whorehouse.

Oh, yeah, boys will be boys.  Except that this boy is a 60-year-old male who happened once to have been the leader of the free world.  And in this role, as leader of the free world, he couldn't help himself; he took advantage of a 22-year-old girl whose brain, as science has proven, had not fully developed.  He ruined her life.  So laugh all you want about that silly blue dress with the stain.  Had I been Monica's mother, I'd have assassinated him by now.  

So this is what I don't get about you guys here:  Is it that you're all male that you find humor in  his exploitation of a young woman (remember--he was the most powerful man in the world, but hardly potent if you consider he always had to fuck underlings) while in office--which would have gotten any CEO fired, no matter her age?  It really isn't funny.  Just imagine, if you can, that you are the father of said woman.  Would you have laughed off the old devil?  Ah, he's just a horndog, honey.  And so what if he took advantage of his position?  You should have known better than to be seduced.

Wandrey, I pose the same question to you, and can't understand how you, as a woman, don't take offense?  Boys will be boys, but men know enough not take fuck a 22-year-old woman who works for them AT THE OFFICE.  Aside from the fact that it's just plain wrong, do you see any kind of rational behavior there?  Because there is no separation between the psychosexual and the rest of life, does it not frighten you that he could have been so out-of-control?  Does it not disgust you that Hillary would stay with a man who publicly humiliated her all these years?  HWBush had a mistress, but he somehow managed to avoid letting all 6 billion people on the planet know that fact.  

Stern, I forgive you.  You're older so maybe it's just generational.  And by the way, quoting a woman in this regard doesn't really make Billy boy's behavior any more acceptable.  It just means you know a woman who'd say something that dumb.  

Molly, I like your posts a lot.  You put a lot of right brain and interesting psycho-sexual stuff into the mix that the guys rarely do.

and when you think about it, how can you not be focused on the psycho-sexual when trying to 'splain The Clintons, most especially Bill.

You can be our own Camille Paglia.

"What happened to Bill Clinton?"

Apparently, nothing new. He was always slick Willie, still is. What  changed, as noted by chan and other Right of the aisle folks, was that many of us Democrats shed our Clinton blinders when a beloved one became his target. Shame all around - to him, and to us as enablers.

BTW, great post as always, molly.

Oh, Chan, you are so sweet.  Sorry I blasted you in another post over at Spine.  

And thanks Scrubby.  

Especially tonight, when I've been home--and will be home all week-- with my sick daughter.   Get flu shots, people.  

Anybody turned fifty? He's an aging satyr, or in Hollywood parlance, Warren Beatty. He doesn't light up a room, or women, like he once did. The only thing more painful than being an aging satyr is being married to one, well, perhaps campaigning with one is more painful. He's not aging gracefully.

Richard, I don't think we need to delve for any psychological explanation of a deep change in Bill

Blast away, Molly.  That's what friends are for.

molly: thin slices of raw garlic on peanut butter on toast.

wait, first of all, Bill Clinton didn't "fuck" anyone in the Oval Office. He received fellatio. I would assume we all know the difference between the two acts?

So why do you choose to use that word instead of the accurate one? And what's this about poor Monica, she of the "I'm going to Washington to get my Presidential kneepads"???? Her brain is "not fully developed"????? How many 22 year olds are in the workforce, molly?

Look, I have no sympathy for what Bill is doing in Hillary's campaign. I never voted for the guy and don't think that he was that great a President (kudos to whoever noted that the tech boom deserves more credit than he does).

But, come on, Monica Lewinsky was an adult, not a kid. She knew perfectly well what she was doing. She wanted what she wanted, he wanted what he wanted: to my last day I will never understand what people find objectionable in their moments together.

As for Chan Robert, bah. Sitting back preening himself that so many Dems have "discovered Bill", is he? Enjoy it for the ten minutes you have it, chan. When all is said and done, Clinton, sandwiched between 2 failed Bush presidencies, will look far far better than either of them.

And at least Democrats have the intellectual integrity to admit to Clinton's failures--which is a hell of a lot more than can be said for the 33% of Republicans that still think, idiots that they are, that Bush is doing a good job.

Go ahead and preen your feathers, chan. And then, like the rest of the Republican ostriches, go back to burying your head in the sand in respect to Bush.

What we are overlooking is how "strategic" what Bill did in South Carolina was.  Since they lost the Black vote, go and try to get the bigot vote... and now we see her surrounded by nothing but white females over the age of 45-50...

Do we really need this?  Is this really the way the Democratic party wants to go forward?  By pissing on its most loyal portion of the electorate and telling it, nope, boy, get in line.  It is not yet your turn, however, bright and charismatic you are.  

Can you really wonder that a man who is at least his own and one of honor should appear appealing to some long term Democrats if that becomes the only alternative to 4 or 8 more years of the The Dynastic Duo.... with a solid Democratic Congress we could indeed do much worse.