Dear President Clinton,
I am not voting for your wife.
I hope you do not take this personally, and as the former president I write this with the utmost deference to you and your current ceremonial position as an ex-president.
I watched you on Charlie Rose the other night and couldn't help be a little annoyed that you would enter the campaign to choose the next nominee for our party. You are in uncharted territory I grant you, in as much as no other former president has had the privilege of having their spouse contend for the nomination. But, while you do not have any precedents to guide your behavior, a quick examination of the role you now play for ALL Americans, of all political stripes, should reveal the conflict of interest that campaigning for your wife puts you in.
As the former president you have access to material on a daily basis that we ordinary Americans don't. When you go on TV and explain the dangerous situation America finds itself in we assume you are using the tools an ex-president has to make the informed opinion. When you then turn and say your wife is the only candidate ready to deal with these problems you cross an ethical line in the trust relationship we as citizens entered with you when we granted you access to information such as CIA daily briefings once you left office.
You are telling us to trust your secret knowledge and vote for your wife.
Then you move on to your wifes opponents. You were clearly speaking as an ex-president, one that has 'visited over 90 countries since leaving office', and you were clearly trying to use your gravitas to paint a picture of inexperience to hang around the neck of your wife's biggest threat.
It is unseemly and almost odious that you would claim the international image and experience you have(one we the citizen of this country helped you afford)should in some way benefit your wife now running for the same office. And to then imply that her competition was some how lacking these essential credentials is preposterous.
Are you saying the times we live in are so perilous that we need YOUR wife because only she has access to your critical experience?
Or, are you saying these desperate times now take a president that has the experience of having had an immediate family member in the office previously?
Because Bush was an example of the later, and the former I find terribly upsetting.
You are the former president of the United States and were elected by Democrats to lead the party in 1992. Ever since then the Democratic Party has stood by you thick and thin.
For you to imply that only your wife would benefit from your wealth of experience in the next Democratic administration, or for that matter on the campaign trail against the republicans, is to put it mildly, ungrateful and insulting.