If I was a suspicious man, I’d think that Bill and Hillary Clinton have spent the past three months diligently working a campaign to destroy Barack Obama’s presidency.
Consider the following three events:
- In December, Bill Clinton essentially ‘jacked an impromptu press conference from the President in full view of the entire country, then dismissed the humiliated Obama like he was the hired help.
- About ten days ago, Clinton systematically undercut the President’s message that Muammar Gadaffi had to leave power by leaving open the likelihood that we could see a peaceful and stable Libya even if he stays.
- Then, less than a week ago, she destroyed the President’s contention that we know who some of the leading Libyan rebels are when she said that we had no “specific information about specific individuals” and that we weren’t sure who was leading the rebellion.
That brings us to today. The President has been very busy framing the rather paltry Republican budget cuts that might lead to a government shutdown as “irresponsible”. It is an echo to the “extremist” talking point the Democrats in Congress have employed and there are signs that his ploy was working.
But look who look who jumped in today to rain all over President Obama’s parade (via memeorandum).
A government shutdown might not have a “traumatic” effect on the economy, former President Bill Clinton said Monday.
Clinton, who faced a shutdown during his 1995 budget negotiations with congressional Republicans, said he wasn’t sure whether President Obama was giving too much ground to the GOP in current negotiations, but suggested that a shutdown could backfire against Republicans, much as it did in the ’90s.
That sound you heard was the President’s grand budget strategy groaning from a very serious gut shot.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Clinton made his statement on the very same day President Obama formally announced he will run for re-election. So he didn’t simply undercut the President’s message; he also stole his campaign thunder, too.
These can’t be coincidences. The Clintons are very shrewd political operators, perhaps the best politicians the Democratic Party has seen in a generation. I find it almost impossible that we would see them pop up so often in such a short period of time saying things that undercut the President’s positions so well. Oh, sure, it’s possible. Then again, it’s also possible that we could be hit by a planet-killing asteroid tomorrow, but I wouldn’t go on an all-night crack and hooker bender based on the possibility. Neither should the President assume that his Secretary of State and her husband are on his side.
