The Slick Genius of Slick Willie
“When your enemy is angry, irritate him.”
-Sun Tzu
There are differing versions, even different attributions, of that dictum, probably because of its timeless truth. An angry enemy makes mistakes. An annoyed and angry enemy will flip out. And nobody was better at annoying the angry than Bill Clinton — even if he had to first make them angry himself. While president, Clinton thrived on making conservatives and Republicans angry. Red-faced, spittle-covered mad. Clinton, written off for dead at the end of ’94, coasted to reelection just two years later, thanks in no small part to his ability to irritate the Right.
I watched him do it to the GOP — to me! — almost daily for eight years. I knew exactly what he was doing, and why. And yet I still fell for it. Every time. Almost all of us did. You gotta bow to the master.
You can imagine then that the West Wing must be reeling this week, after a series of irritating little shivs Clinton slid into their backs over the last few days.
It’s no secret that Clinton isn’t exactly a big fan of President Obama’s. Clinton might be the master of making other people mad, but he himself was red-faced pissed off after Team Obama accused him of racism during the 2008 primary fight. And for good reason, too. My personal take is, that was the moment the Race Card lost its trump. Playing it on Clinton, our “first black president”? Dumb move, Barack.
And now comes the payback.
Obama attacked Mitt Romney’s record at Bain. Clinton said his record there was “sterling.” Oh, Clinton said it ostensibly in the course of explaining why Romney shouldn’t become president — but the real message was heard loud and clear.
Obama wants us to believe that the economy is improving, that we’re on track, that we must move “forward.” So Clinton said we’re already back in a recession.
Obama wants the Bush tax rates for the wealthy to expire. Clinton wants to extend all the Bush rates for a year. He later “clarified” and explained he only wanted to keep the Bush tax rates for everyone but the wealthy — but the clarification never carries as much weight as the original statement. And Bill Clinton doesn’t make a whole lot of misstatements during an election fight.
After all that, Clinton is brash enough to claim ignorance. About that “sterling” comment, he had the chutzpah to tell Judy Woodruff, “I didn’t have any idea, when I was giving that answer, that I was wading into some controversy in the campaign, because I haven’t seen the ads, and I’m not following it, and I’m not really part of it.” The man who rivals Michael Barone for the breadth and depth of his up-to-the-minute knowledge of politics and policy doesn’t know of Obama’s main line of attack?
Puh-lease.
You forgot to include … the video The C made — saying that The O was “so gutsy” because if the Bin Laden attack had failed, and the Seals died, it would have been very, very bad for The O. Oh, the sneakyness of that was … just so … just so … (if he had just applied that “craft” to something good — he could have made something of himself!)
Of course, it was ole Bill who said it — but who was it that we all were ridiculing about it …?? Hmm??
[Hee-hee — just can’t help it — to giggle when you watch Slick Willie at work — (but I am ashamed of myself for the glee — really ashamed.)
Orville Redenbacher is dancing a jig right now.
Nice article. Don’t know how I missed it the first time.
I’ve had that chuckling thought more than once myself. Frankly, nothing else really makes any sense. Well, nothing rational, at least.
You know, the hardest thing I’ve ever had to learn to accept about President Obama and his supporters is that – they really do think this is working.
It’s working for them ’cause this SCoaMF – had to look it up, nice one, by the way – is slipping them tax money. Billions of it, from the lowest Witches at Planned Parenthood to the highest Warlocks at Goldman Sachs.
And everybody lay off Bill Clinton, he’s working for us, now! Or as Iron Man brags, “We have a Hulk…”
It’s actually been fun watching one narcissist take out another, especially when it benefits Romney.
Clinton is comfortable in hist post-presidency position as global leader via his Clinton Global Initiative. He’s got the CGI’s money to direct to various global causes; he’s got a greater purpose than just fixing things in the US. As a bonus, he gets to hang out with other world leaders, wealthy businessmen, and entertainers like Bono. If Obama fails, what’s it to him?
Clinton’s clearly doing Obama a favor by getting involved, and what a favor it is!
I think Bill Clinton still wants to see his wife run for president in 2016. She will be kind of old by then at around 69, but taking the Clintons out of politics would be like taking fish out of water. Yet I just don’t see how Bill Clinton can see his wife doing any better in 2016? If Romney wins, he’s going to be a lot better than Obama and a lot more successful. How Hillary will then make a case that the country should get rid of him and elect her is beyond me.
The other option could be that Bill Clinton just doesn’t like Obama and he’s coming in for some payback for how the Obama people treated him in 2008. I wouldn’t put revenge beyond Clinton. He always struck me as a nasty S.O.B. What better way for Bill Clinton to burnish his past reputation than by proving how terrible his Democratic successor was? For a guy with an ego the size of Yankee stadium, I wouldn’t put it past Bill.
What’s really funny is that Obama is so desperate he’s willing to take a chance on a loose cannon like Bill Clinton. Unless his (admittedly powerful) tendencies toward narcissism have finally triumphed completely, he must realize that there are many reasons why Clinton would love to sabotage his campaign. Mr. Green and the readers here have certainly managed to come up with quite a few that sound pretty plausible to me.
So why would he risk turning Clinton loose like this? I think Team Obama is really running scared.
The other possibility is that he simply can’t do anything about it. Clinton can’t be controlled because he has nothing to lose. Conversely, there is nothing Obama can offer Clinton that can shut him up, and no threat he can make successfully.
^This. He has as much money as he needs and no levers anybody can pull. The simple fact is that Clinton played the Republicans like a cheap fiddle for eight years, played his own party for 12, and gets to scoot off into the horizon doing whatever the hell he wants, because he’s just THAT good at the game.
Bingo. The delicious beauty of this is that there is NOTHING that The One can do about The Bill Problem.
I wanted to add that I totally agree with your second paragraph, but for some reason that part didn’t show in my post, below. I think Clinton just hates Obama, and he’s got plenty of reason to.
This is all the reason Bill needs. Forget Hillary’s career. I DO think that is in play, but it’s not needed for Bill to sabotage Obama.
Revenge is as much part of Bill’s character as philandering.
And he’s doing it beautifully! I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be cheering Bill Clinton!
Excellent article. Bill Clinton & Barack Obama: each of these narcissists think they are God’s greatest gift to mankind, so it’s natural for them to clash. Clinton has one agenda: anything that benefits him. He doesn’t care one iota what happens to Obama, just as he didn’t care what happened to OwlGore.
Here’s some alternatives Obama should seriously consider: 1. Dump Biden for Hillary as VP (no damage to Obama’s ego); 2. Decline the party nomination
(some damage to the Obama ego, but not enough for it not to happen), make Hillary the Presidential candidate and himself the VP candidate (this option could give Obama 4 years and possibly 8, as VP and 4 after that as President again; or 3. Decline both the Presidential nomination and a VP slot (huge blow to the Obama ego here), and let Hillary take the Presidential nomination, with an unknown as VP, then take the Sec of State gig, like Hillary has now. Odds on any of these happening: longshot at best.
You gotta imagine Billy Boy thinking that if Obama is re-elected that this would probably cancel out any chance of Hillary running in 2016. So Ol’ Billy is probably thinking taking Obama down this year and letting the bad ecomony falling in on Romney. I heard a rumor that Obama’s advisor really p/o’d Billy Boy and so he is on the war path. He does not cater to being talked to like he is the help.
Yup.
Even if Romney were as good as his mindless supporters think he is, he could not turn this thing around in 4 years.
I respectfully disagree with the author. Clinton is no genius.
Clinton knows Obama is vulnerable. He hates Obama. He slashes him with plausable deniability.
“Bush the First” is pretty smart. He befriended Clinton in order to mitigate Clinton from attacking “Bush the Second”. The sleazy Clinton needed a moral innoculation from a guy like Bush. Both sides benefitted.
Clinton is entirely precictable. He will always do exactly what is best for him.
Keep in mind that Governor Clinton is the only
Democrat to be elected for two terms since FDR.
He might feel it was good to maintain that
distinction.
Will
@10 Excellent Point. Billy Boy needs to build-up his legacy–the only two-term Democrat President since FDR. The worse Obama looks (doesn’t require much help) the better Billy looks by comparison. Note all the credit Billy gets for the surplus, ending welfare as we know it, etc., which never would have happened if Gingrich and the Repubs hadn’t taken back the house.
Another theory for Clinton’s roverback style and agenda is that he may want to bring the Democratic Party back to the center from Obama’s further to the left assult. It would not go well for the future of the Dems if all that they had left after the election were Hollywood, unions, OWS, and the race card players. Two giant egos steering the ship of state gives an uncertain heading.
“It would not go well for the future of the Dems if all that they had left after the election were Hollywood, unions, OWS, and the race card players.”
And that would be perfectly all right with me. It would give us the generation or two we’ll need to clean up the mess.
Now the latest twist is Clinton’s own allies or even staff saying “Y’know, he’s 65, he’s old, he didn’t quite know what he was saying there…..”
THIS is weird wild stuff. Does Clinton want them to be saying this? One terrible downside to it is that Hillary (close in age) and he will be four years older in 2016 than they are now. And BTW, look at the Republican rising bench: Walker, Haley, Christie, Ryan, West, Palin, Daniels, and a host of new tea partiers and beyond, from the rich fallow of 2010. All young comers that any savvy politico has their eye on. And the Dems are gonna field…. 70 year old Hillary and Ole Man Clinton, that his own staff is already doddering out to pasture in 2012? 20th century-ers to the core?
Well, good luck with all that, I suppose.
Yup, that puts the last nail in “Hillary 2016″‘s lid. No way they’d use that excuse if she were thinking about running again.
The obvious takeaway–Bill Clinton is not doing this to get Hillary elected. My guess is that he’s doing it to save his party and to keep his gravy train coming. It’s also possible he’s doing it for his country. Sometimes operators do become statesmen when they no longer have so much at stake.
Whatever the reason, it’s all fun and games when Slick is on your side…
“Sometimes operators do become statesmen when they no longer have so much at stake.” Does that apply to “Peanuts Carter?”
1) I did say “sometimes”.
2) Carter wasn’t much of an operator.
It does, though in Carter’s case he’s as incompetent a statesman as he was a President.
I have to disagree. Bill Clinton is doing this for Bill Clinton. He always has, he always will. There is no goal more lofty, there is no reward he considers more desirable than to see Bill Clinton loved and adored.
He was the ultimate narcissist for his entire career, the present resident is just a weak shadow.
Our bench is inspiring, fresh, long, deep, and wide. The Dems look as old and worn out as the original cover portriat of “Das Kapital”
I never thought I could come to admire Clinton, but it’s the old “the enemy of my enemy” situation and you have to admire the way he is tweeking the Choomer. And you know Clinton is loving it. This is too sweat, you can only hope he isn’t done yet.
I think ole’ Bill is getting even for things that happened in 2008. Barack pulled the race card on him and he hasn’t forgotten. He sees Barack sinking badly, so he’s throwing him an anchor while fund raising. And Barack would do anything to raise money. Gotta love it.
Yes. Obama is desperate- there’s just no other reason compelling enough for him to risk Clinton shooting off his mouth. The most recent polls in MI and OH have got to have Team Obama feeling a bit queasy today.
Dick Morris made exactly the same point last night on The Factor. He said Slick Willie has a very long memory.
Watching Clinton go at Hussein is like watching Don Corleone go after Don Barzini. They both are so repugnant and despicable that there’s no satisfaction in it, whatever the outcome.
Clinton has one redeeming characteristic Obama doesn’t – intelligence. He’s got to know Obama is rotten egg. And Clinton did at least have a conceptual handle after ’94 of free market enterprise. Clinton realizes Obama’s a genuine sham.
I think a lot of this true – this is payback for Obama’s thugs punching Slick in the gut back in 2008. Clinton is many nasty things – but being a racist isn’t one of them.
Plus, I think Clinton has made the attempt to reform himself to a degree since he slithered out of office. The first paragraph of Clinton’s obituary is going to read Monica. He knows this. Clinton hasn’t been a bad former President.
Yeah, he’s a skunk.
But Clinton doesn’t spray the house daily like Obama and his entitled, angry black wife.
Others may disagree, but I never felt Clinton, Carter, LBJ, JFK or FDR was trying to destroy our country.
obama is
They were all trying to make progressive liberal adjustments to the American meme. BHO is after fundamental change. He IMHO loathes America and all it stands for, and is driven to do everything in his power to turn us into a pale clone of the failed European states.
They ALL had the same end game in mind.
The differnces are just a matter of tempermant, and how much they thought they could get away with.
Bill tried to socialize medicine, too, remember. When it blew up in his face, he retreated.
Push 10, pull back 8, push 5 pull back one. Eventually you get a first down.
This is how the left has operated for a century, at least.
Obama has just pushed harder and faster than any of the others.
That may have been a tactical error, it may have been too obvious, but the design behind all of them has been EXACTLY the same.
I don’t claim to know what Mr Clinton’s motivation is. However…..I do hope he keeps this up.
This isn’t any more complicated than “Payback”. Bill got dissed pretty bad by O, and has nothing to lose to get even. And now for the next 5 months, he can do the most damage. I’m now a Clinton fan!
Agreed…. Bill has finally brought me around to being a fan. He is slick, which when not used against what I believe, is fun to watch. However, being a Clinton fan does NOT extend to Hillary or Chelsea.
Nothing is ever simple with Bill Clinton.
First, I hope Romney and the RNC are busy translating Clinton’s priceless observations (sterling career, recession, etc.) into a series of hard-hitting ads.
Second, this is Clinton. Mission accomplished, his negative comments are on record. He can pretend to walk it back, but … in his world, payback is better than payday. Slick Willie is running his own agenda, whatever that might be.
Obama is stuck with Clinton. Bill hates the racist charge but also what Obama’s people did to Hilary in the primaries. They cheated – not that cheating is exactly out of Bill’s playbook.
And Clinton is too powerful to silence. The more he talks, the dumber he will make Obama look, and the smarter Romney will seem. He may not cost Obama votes, but he won’t help him much if at all.
Clinton did make a bit of a tactical mistake over the past 10 days, which is likely why some of his own people were trotting out the “Aging, Forgetful Bill” explanation on Thursday.
Up until know Clinton’s been the Road Runner to Obama’s Wile E. Coyote at the start of all those cartoons — basically zipping past Wile E., spinning him around, knocking him down, etc., before he ever had a chance to react or know what hit him. Clinton would jab Obama here, then wait 3-4 months until any controversy died down, then zip back into public view with another zinger and dash away.
But by coming out with three statements in less than two weeks that basically kneecapped Obama, Clinton put his shots too close together, to the point that people can see what’s happening and make the case just from recent events that Bill is trying to sabotage Barack … Which he is. But he can’t have the bulk of the Democratic Party thinking that, if he wants to maintain his cult-like status within the party and at the same time keep Hillary viable for 2016 if she wants to give it one more shot.
If the rank-and-file in the party start thinking Bubba’s willing to cast not just Obama but them out of power for four years just to settle a score and to set up the missus for another run at the White House, he’ll ramp up the anti-Clinton hostility on the left side of the party by a factor of 50 (or, in Obama’s world, by a factor of 57). He can’t have that, which explains the extended pullback on Thursday, and likely, a period of circumspection until the next jab comes, probably sometime between the Olympics and the start of the conventions.
I can see you’ve thought through your analysis carefully, but I cannot buy the “Angry, Forgetful Bill” angle. History demonstrates that it’s much less likely than “Bill’s in it for Bill” and/or “Bill’s in it for Bill’s legacy” angle(s), or the “Bill’s in it to save the country/party” angle(s). Bill as President lied to us many times, but he never did so to screw over the country. Obama has (and does).
Clinton a genius?
Donnez-moi une break.
Bill Clinton may not be a genius anything else, but he is a genius salesman.
Yes, he’s a genius. He’s a genius politician, a genius campaigner. His kind of political savvy is rare. He rarely misses.
Underestimate him at your peril.
Nobody said he was a good President, or even a good man.
much is being made on the lefty sites of clinton’s ‘apology’ for his earlier comments. granted, he did say the words, “i’m sorry” but he also followed that up with (paraphrasing here): ‘gee..i thought the economy going off the cliff was an important enough issue to want to do something about it right away…but i guess it can wait until next year’ ZING!! don’t mess with bill.
There is only one politician in the country who is more popular than Bill and that is Hillary. They are currently untouchable. Bill recently got his picture taken with porn stars and nobody cared. Hillary let her hair go gray and quit wearing make-up and her approval rating when up.
They are honey badgers, and honey badgers don’t give a f**k.
WHAT’S BILL CLINTON UP TO?
Don’t be fooled by Bill Clinton’s wandering off the reservation and gifting the enemy with ammo. He’s neither old and senile as some advisors have allegedly said, nor a bull in a China shop seeking revenge for Obama playing the race card on him in 2008. Clinton is one old savvy political fox and knows exactly what he’s doing. In praising Romney and his Sterling record at Bain; in urging that the Bush tax cuts be fully extended; and in saying that the economy is still in recession (meaning Obamanomics has failed) he is telling Obama in so many words: “If you want to shut me up then dump dumb as bricks, gaffe-a-million Joe and replace him with Hillary. Unless she’s your running mate you’ll lose in November and go down in history as a one term failure.”
For Obama to stir up his disillusioned despirited Democrat base to levels of enthusiasm approaching 2008 now more than ever he needs Hillary, and Bill Clinton knows it. Hillary won 18 million votes in the 2008 primary race, and her approval rating towers over Obama’s at 65% versus Biden’s pitiable 41. If Obama wants to reinject Hope, Change and Yes We Can into his flagging campaign he needs indispensable Hill.
If Hillary wanted to be VP she already would be. She chose SofS instead.
The VP only has two jobs – break ties in the Senate and wait for the POTUS to die. SofS runs foreign policy.
Bingo.
She (and Bill) knew that Obama could be major poison. She took the SecState job to improve her résumé. If she runs in 2016, NOBODY can say she lacks experience.
But have you noticed that she keeps her distance from Obama? They are rarely seen together, they rarely talk about each other. Only when absolutely necessary.
She’s keeping her distance so that, if he loses this fall, she can run for the 2016 nomination and election without being tarred with his brush. She has remained aloof from him on purpose, NOT just because of bad feelings between them.
All that hoorah about her being done with politics is merely stage dressing. She’s going to run on the, “I want to retire, but my country NEEEEEEDS, me!” theme. Count her out when you’ve seen the body.
If Obama wins and has a good second term, she’ll run on the “Continue the progress!” theme. If he goes down, or has a bad second term, it will be the, “I told you so! Now correct your mistake!” theme.
Bill & Hillary want her to run against and defeat Romney in 2016, so Bill is trying to shoot down Obama now. They don’t want to wait for 2020, because her age WILL be a problem then. THEN she might be too old. Too old in 2016? Not even.
Good post, I tend to agree 100% with your summary of Bill Clinton’s intentions. He’ got to push her to the forefront now lest she becomes too old to be viable in 2016.
I think Biden is toast.
“But Obama has already pissed away “the permanent Democratic majority.” He’s caused millions of voters to stop identifying themselves as Democrats.”
I wonder how long before big-government fake conservatives realize this is what Bush and a big-spending, endless war, NDAA Congress has done, and what Goldman Sachs Romney will continue to do. First they run big-government McCain who gets whupped by a guy with basically no history and no credentials, and now they push “moderate” gun-grabber Romney against the same guy.
The Republican Party would likely be much better off if Obama wins. Whether that would be better for the country is a different argument, but Romney is so lousy and can get away with more crap because he has an R in front of his name and would have a good chance at 8 years instead of 4 that whether the country would be better off is indeed arguable.
Look at the blatant cheating the establishment GOP did in places like Athens, GA, St. Charles, MO, and recently in Oklahoma and Louisiana. All on video. The Democratic Party may not be able to last four more years of Obama, but the Republican Party may not be able to last 4+ years of their current tactics and Romney.
Clinton is the master at this. “Oh, you mean I said a bad thing? I’m so sorry…I didn’t know…”
Now, everyone is watching Clinton to see how he jabs Obama next time.
Bill is indeed a genius at this kind of thing. He has a gift that few have.
I have to wonder what might happen to the world if Bill were converted. If he became a genuine Christian and put that gift to good use, what amazing things might he accomplish?