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By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in 2008 | Bill Clinton | Eye-Roll Inducing Speeches | Hillary Clinton — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

The only enjoyable aspect of this valuable column by Ron Fournier is that it reminded me of the days of my youth--days when I didn't need glasses and did need to have a comb in my pocket. Otherwise . . . dear Lord, is this what we have in store for the next four--perhaps eight--years?

As only he can do, Bill Clinton packed campaign venues across eastern Iowa and awed Democratic voters with a compelling case for his wife's candidacy. He was unscripted, in-depth and generous.

He also was long-winded, misleading and self-absorbed.

"Good Bill" and "Bad Bill" (his nickname among some aides) returned to the public arena Tuesday as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton brandished her double-edged sword of a husband to fend off rivals in the Jan. 3 caucus fight.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Clinton told 400 Iowans at the start of his three-city swing, "I have had a great couple of days out working for Hillary."

In the next 10 minutes, he used the word "I" a total of 94 times and mentioned "Hillary" just seven times in an address that was as much about his legacy as it was about his wife's candidacy.

He told the crowd where he bought coffee that morning and where he ate breakfast.

He detailed his Thanksgiving Day guest list, and menu.

He defended his record as president, rewriting history along the way.

And he explained why his endorsement of a certain senator from New York should matter to people.

"I know what it takes to be president," he said, "and because of the life I've led since I've left office."

I, me and my. Oh, my.

Indeed. One can certainly understand the need for a sitting President of the United States to work to ensure that he/she has the attention of the media or a particular gathering in a campaign setting, so I didn't not begrudge Bill Clinton's I, me and my-isms as much as some people did while he was President (though of course, there is something to be said against overexposure; people are like currency and the more available they make themselves, the more they cheapen themselves in the process). But there is something particularly risible about the fact that Bill Clinton needs to employ as many I, me and my-isms while campaigning on behalf of another Presidential candidate. Especially when that other Presidential candidate happens to be his wife. One naturally sympathizes with Senator Clinton, who has to be wondering what precisely she has to do in order to get top billing in her husband's speeches nowadays.

There is more below . . .

Late in his 50-minute address, Clinton told the crowd that wealthy people like he and his wife should pay more taxes in times of war. "Even though I approved of Afghanistan and opposed Iraq from the beginning, I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those soldiers," he said.

In truth, Clinton did not oppose the Iraq war from the start -- at least not publicly.

If the former president secretly opposed the war but did not want to speak against a sitting president (as some of his aides now claim), what moral authority does he have now? And did he share his objections with his wife? She started out as a hawkish Democrat but is now appealing to anti-war voters.

An excellent catch by Fournier, who is to be commended for the tenacity with which he keeps the truth securely in his jaws. And as for the claim that the former President opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, let's go to the tape:

You know, I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over. I don't believe he went in there for oil. We didn't go in there for imperialist or financial reasons. We went in there because he bought the Wolfowitz-Cheney analysis that the Iraqis would be better off, we could shake up the authoritarian Arab regimes in the Middle East, and our leverage to make peace between the Palestinians and Israelis would be increased.

At the moment the U.N. inspectors were kicked out in '98, this is the proper language: there were substantial quantities of botulinum and aflatoxin, as I recall, some bioagents, I believe there were those, and VX and ricin, chemical agents, unaccounted for. Keep in mind, that's all we ever had to work on. We also thought there were a few missiles, some warheads, and maybe a very limited amount of nuclear laboratory capacity.

After 9/11, let's be fair here, if you had been President, you'd think, Well, this fellow bin Laden just turned these three airplanes full of fuel into weapons of mass destruction, right? Arguably they were super-powerful chemical weapons. Think about it that way. So, you're sitting there as President, you're reeling in the aftermath of this, so, yeah, you want to go get bin Laden and do Afghanistan and all that. But you also have to say, Well, my first responsibility now is to try everything possible to make sure that this terrorist network and other terrorist networks cannot reach chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material. I've got to do that.

That's why I supported the Iraq thing. There was a lot of stuff unaccounted for. So I thought the President had an absolute responsibility to go to the U.N. and say, "Look, guys, after 9/11, you have got to demand that Saddam Hussein lets us finish the inspection process." You couldn't responsibly ignore [the possibility that] a tyrant had these stocks. I never really thought he'd [use them]. What I was far more worried about was that he'd sell this stuff or give it away. Same thing I've always been worried about North Korea's nuclear and missile capacity. I don't expect North Korea to bomb South Korea, because they know it would be the end of their country. But if you can't feed yourself, the temptation to sell this stuff is overwhelming. So that's why I thought Bush did the right thing to go back. When you're the President, and your country has just been through what we had, you want everything to be accounted for.

(Emphasis mine.) Hmm . . . doesn't quite seem that the former President opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, now does it?

Of course, the spin machine is out in full force--not that their words mitigate the damning (from the Clintonian perspective) excerpt above:

During a campaign swing for his wife, former President Bill Clinton said flatly yesterday that he opposed the war in Iraq "from the beginning" -- a statement that is more absolute than his comments before the invasion in March 2003.

Before the invasion, Mr. Clinton did not precisely declare that he opposed the war. A week before military action began, however, he did say that he preferred to give weapons inspections more time and that an invasion was not necessary to topple Saddam Hussein.

At the same time, he also spoke supportively about the 2002 Senate resolution that authorized military action against Iraq.

Advisers to Mr. Clinton said yesterday that he did oppose the war, but that it would have been inappropriate at the time for him, a former president, to oppose -- in a direct, full-throated manner -- the sitting president's military decision.

How very convenient. The former President opposed the war, but kept quiet to support his successor. Who believes this, especially given the fact that Governor Clinton said of Operation Desert Storm in 1992 that if he were in Congress, he would have voted with the majority, though he agreed with the arguments that the minority made? And again, the excerpt above makes clear that the former President gave public support--if qualified--for the Iraq war. Going back and saying that he was opposed from the beginning but just wanted to be nice and help his successor out is more than a bit disingenuous, as Fournier points out. And just out of curiosity, are we supposed to believe what the former President is saying now, or what he said in the excerpt above?

See how tricky all of this can get?

Back to Fournier:

The former president also put his own spin on the history of free-trade agreements under his watch, blaming President Bush for turning the accords into job-drainers. "Say want you want about my trade deals," he said, "but I enforced them."

We have been over this ground. Next?

Sen. Clinton benefited from her husband's verbal sleight of hand when he told a long story about a man who credited the former first lady for playing "an independent role in the Irish peace process."

While that may technically be true (Hillary Clinton did travel to Ireland and played host to the region's political players), an "independent role" is not the same as a "critical role," and Clinton didn't bother to explain the distinction.

What's next? Credit to Senator Clinton for having helped bring about the dotcom boom? (It was good while it lasted, let's remember.)

You might be wondering -- so what? Clinton won two presidential elections (and five terms as Arkansas governor) despite his "Slick Willy" reputation and habit of self-aggrandizement. He's not on the ballot next year.

His wife is. And she benefits from his popularity and rhetorical skills.

Can't really argue with that. Though I am sure that at a later campaign event, the former President may try to.