An hour or so ago, in Florida, Bill Clinton let go of his nose and gave a rousing stump speech for Barack Obama. I’ve been seething with anger at Clinton’s tepid support of Obama during his many recent interviews and at the CGI in New York. Furious with his all but lavish praise for John McCain and his words of admiration for Sarah and, even, Todd, Palin.
I’ve been angry at Bill ever since his zipper malfunction. Not because I care what he does on his own time, but because he basically handed a stink bomb to Gore to launch his presidential campaign. We all know how that turned out. Now Clinton is so pissed off about not having another Clinton presidency, through Hillary, and so worried about what a threat an Obama presidency might be to his legacy, that he has seemed (other than with his convention speech) ready to let the rethugs win rather than whole-heartedly support Barack. Basically, it’s all about his ego.
But, the thing is, since it is about his ego, I had to wonder that, once he was out on the stump, the competitive nature of the beast would take over. And it appears it has. You got to hand it to him, the man is not a good politician, not just a great politician; he is one of the best of all time. And he delivered the goods today in Florida. If you didn’t see the speech (and MSNBC only showed a portion of it), you won’t have to take my word for this. Clearly the talking heads were waiting to see which Bill Clinton would be on the stump: Clinton the Democrat or Former President Clinton, bipartisan friend of the candidates and, well, personally, a you-know, tends to vote democrat. As soon as Clinton started speaking, the cameras were set and the host made the introduction.
It didn’t take long to see that Bill Clinton the Champion of the Democrats was back. Morphed back into place in just a few moments. He was not just strong in his praise of Obama and Biden, he was all but over the top! It’s not that often that a cable channel does just what I am hoping for, but this time MSNBC did. They obviously had exactly the same question I had, and were impatiently wanting to know the answer. The speech wasn’t over when they returned to the studio, but I had heard more than enough to be really happy . Now I’m not sure how happy the host of the hour was with what Clinton had delivered. There would be no more discussion of Clinton-friend-of-McCain-no-friend-of-Obama today, darn it. Though there was a weak attempt to start a new controversy: Was it possible that Clinton’s lavish praise of Biden was stronger than that for Obama. No, by an hour later the theme was sorted out. Andrea Mitchell, host of the next hour, said "you’ve got to hand it to him, the man is brilliant on the stump." (Or close enough to "quote.") I am sure the return of the old Bill Clinton will be a subject for pundits on the networks and on the cable channels.
And he even used the phrase: "Hillary sent me." As instructed.
I'm still mad about 2000, but I am glad to have the old Bill Clinton out campaigning for Barack Obama. Aren’t you?