Are you suggesting that Bill crafts his own reality?

Michael Crowley-

I think there's only one explanation for the former president's repeated (and mysterious) attemps to sabatoge his wife's campaign: Bill has a thang for Michelle Obama.

Are there any doubts that  they played the race card as well as MaCarty card on Clintons?

How DARE you malign a good woman like Ma Carty. I picked up one of her peach pies just yesterday, and it is delicious! She is the salt of the earth and I will not stand for you badmouthing her, particularly while I am wearing a sweater she knitted for me herself.

Woody- awesome.  

Jacob, saying something like "is there any doubt" is not an argument.  You have yet, in the thousands of words you've put on these pages, made anything close to an actual argument.  Please do.

Woody, where the heck do you live that is cold enough to merit a sweater? I mean, I know Ma Carty makes a nifty sweater, but you should really save them for better weather so that you can fully savor their luxuriant softness.

Reading the original post, I don't think it was one continuous conversation.

I think the latter part of the quote ("No. I think that they played the race card on me...") is actually from the former interview. MSNBC was just quoting it again for context.

Woody's probably in Calgary.  17 below (centigrade) yesterday.  

Bone: training young litigation counsel, the most recurring problem is the introduction of an argument with "it is clear", "it is obvious", "there is no doubt" and "it goes without saying".  Invariably, what follows the "it is clear" is a string of assertions not supported by any evidence, none of which is clear and all of which is open to question and refutation.  Rule of thumb I use in Litigation 101: "if you have to say, 'without a doubt', it means you have not set out your evidence clearly.  Strike and try again."

Jacob is a master-parody of pointless, baseless assertions; to expect him to make an argument or provide evidence is like hoping Bill would keep it in his pants or Bush uttering a coherent sentence.  Ain't gonna happen.

JACOB: you're being VERY convincing dear.  Keep up the good work.  You're definitely converting a lot of Obama supporters into Clintonistas, making her look good, etc.  Now, don't fidget so, you're drop your milk bottle.  Good boy.

boneill ,

JUst for you:

www.tnr.com/.../story.html

Readers of Philip Roth's award-winning novel, The Human Stain, will be familiar with the race-baiter card and its uses, but so will anyone who has been exposed to the everyday tensions that can arise from the volatile mixture of race and politics. In Roth's novel, a college professor loses his job and his reputation after he asks one of his classes whether two African American students who have regularly been absent are "spooks." The context of the professor's remarks make it clear that he used the term to mean "ghosts" or "specters" and intended no racial disparagement--but that makes not the slightest difference, as his enemies on the faculty fan the argument that he is a blatant and incorrigible race-baiter who can no longer be trusted to teach young minds. An innocent remark becomes a hateful one when pulled through the prism of ideology, ill will, and emotional exploitation. One day, Roth's professor (who, ironically, turns out to be a black man passing as white) is a respected, even revered member of the faculty; then the race baiter card gets played, and his career is suddenly destroyed.

Brrrrrr!

www.weather.com/.../98103

It's itchy under my rain parka, too.

jacob,

Are you saying Bill is a black man who's been passing himself off as white all these years?

And don't you think Alexander Portnoy is a better Roth character comparison for him anyway?

icarusr: it is clear, without a shadow of a doubt, and certainly goes without saying that you are right.

Younger people (like me > 30) grew up with Bill Clinton in the White House. He was our President: Every “is” defining, brief wearing, not inhaling, finger wagging, pain feeling bit of him. I always assumed people older than Bill Clinton never liked him, those his age merely tolerated him, and younger people loved him. As the older generations started to die off, Clinton’s popularity would improve.

He screwed that up. During this campaign he alienated the younger generation voters. I’ve heard many Democrats under 40 say something like  “I used to love the guy, but now I can’t stand the sound of his voice.”

And while the damage to Bill’s popularity has been severe, it appears the Clinton legacy is taking a bigger hit. His presidency will have little lasting positive impact. Bush erased most of the good: Balanced budgets? Gone. Economic Growth? Gone. Bosnia? Yawn. We are left with Amiercorps, the Earned Income Tax Credit, Welfare reform--hardly the stuff of legends. But we’ll always have impeachment.

Hillary has to win for them to be remembered as important figures. Bill knows an Obama win would relegate them to the footnotes of history. So he has to spin every comment, offer any excuse, twist any fact in an attempt to help Hillary.

Unless the Clintons do something crazy--like decide sacrifice their place in history for the good of the party and nation--expect to see more and more of this: They have nothing to lose.  

Woody?  You can't be serious.  Bill was our first black president!

Woody, I don't think that's what jacob is saying. However, I'm sure that just as soon as pccostello prints out today's Stump comments for her colleagues at Hillary HQ in Ballston, VA, Bill is gonna slap his head and kick himself for not thinking of that sooner. It would be so easy for a man from that part of the country to invent a story about his father's family, claim a one-eighths black ancestry, and "come out" as a black man. Coulda put Hillary over the top back in December.

Jacob, thank you for posting an argument based on a) a very bad article by a FOB, and b) an annoying analogy to a seriously over-rated writer.  There is no doubt Phillip Roth, as a writer, is inferior to Joseph Roth.  Beyond a shadow of a doubt.  

We all read the Wilentz article, which was based on insinuation, specious reason, and allowing his arguments to come from opinion, rather than basing his ideas on facts.  It is a terrible article.  Bill said "Obama ran a great campaign.  So did Jesse Jackson."  This isn't idle musing.  Why didn't he pick other winners of South Carolina?  

boneill,

I understand  that any argument that is not based on unconditional love and admiration of Obama is based on "insinuation, specious reason"

On another hand, any argument that is  based on unconditional love and admiration of Obama is based  on "ideas  and facts"

."Bill said "Obama ran a great campaign.  So did Jesse Jackson."  This isn't idle musing.  Why didn't he pick other winners of South Carolina?"

What did  Obama tell you in the last debate about taking words out of context?

The irony of ironies though is that Bill, by focusing on Hillary to begin with, helped undermine his legacy. Just as Bush has undone most of his positives, Bill by turning the White House into the Hillary for Senate campaign HQ instead of the Gore for President HQ let him right in!  Remember his lousy self involved speech at the 2000 Convention?  Should read the Vanity Fair piece on the Clinton/Gore breakup: prioritizing keeping the White House behind winning her a Senate seat was a big part.  Now, to rescue his legacy he turns to the one thing that helped ruin it in the first place! Classic...

Adam: nice post.

Jacob: no one on Talkback has an unconditional love and admiration of anything - except perhaps for reason itself, but even that is questionable.  Some of us started the campaign on Hillary's side, even as we were trying to forget the nightmare of her husband's presidency (well, the last eight years have certainly put things in perspective ...).  I was rooting for Hillary in NH and was genuinely happy about her win.  Things changed after that, and one of those things, was Bill's comment in SC.  Out of context?  That's the problem - if indeed they were out of context, the words would not have hurt.  It's the context that matters: Jesse Jackson, South Carolina.  That's the context.  It's kinda like saying, "Joe Lieberman bargains strongly for his rights; so did Shylock."  In Ann Arbor.

Stop making assertions and start making sense.

Jacob, did you read the autism thread?  No?  Because there was a lot of ripping of Obama going on.  And this:

"I understand  that any argument that is not based on unconditional love and admiration of Obama is based on "insinuation, specious reason"

On another hand, any argument that is  based on unconditional love and admiration of Obama is based  on "ideas  and facts""

Is just juvenile.  Really, really juvenile.  How were the comments taken out of context?  I want you- not Wilentz- to explain that to me.  Persuade me.  Do so like a grown-up.   What did Bill say before or after that to show he wasn't subtly invoking the specter of Jesse Jackson?  The fearsome black candidate before whom whitey trembles?   Explain.  Tell me every last detail.

icarusr: thanks.

Jacob,

The question posed to Bill Clinton when he made the Jesse Jackson comment was "what does it say about Sen. Obama that is takes two of you to beat him." Clinton said that's just bait, and then said the infamous quote.

www.youtube.com/watch

How is the statement taken out of context? What is the context you believe the statement was made in? How does that context make the statement different?

bone, jacob has Asbergers syndrome, he already knows all about it.

boneill ,

What do you want me to explain?

What did that comment mean to you? What problem do you have with that comment in the first place?

Holy mother of god, jacob.   We explained in great detail why we have a problem with what Clinton said.  His words, and their context, were explicitly to paint Obama as just another black candidate who merely does well with black voters, just like Jesse Jackson.  He could have mentioned anyone who has ever won SC, but he picked Jesse.  There is really only one rational explanation for that- because he wanted to create the association between the Obama candidacy and the impossible, whitey-frightening Jackson one.  We have asked time and time again for you to explain his remarks in such a way as to bring about another way they could have been interpreted, and time and time again you have refused, dodging the question.  You are like the irritating college girl who is both vapid and haughty- "well why do youuuu think it is ok?".   I and others far more eloquent have told you how we saw the remarks.  You haven't.  Do so.  

"Obama as just another black candidate who merely does well with black voters, just like Jesse Jackson"

Is this not true? Did he win majority of any other group, Whites, Hispanics, Jews, Asians? Is this not obvious point that even Jesse Jackson won SC therefore it's obvious that it takes two of them  to beat Obama in SC.

When I blogged about Bill Clinton's "race card" complaint yesterday, I hadn't realized