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Crazy to invite Hillary and Bill

By Katy Burns

How many reasons are there for Barack Obama not to choose Hillary Clinton as his running mate?

How many ways are there to say "Bill Clinton"?

The larger-than-life ex-president has always had a problem with, ah, self-control. During his wife's presidential campaign he proved that age has not made him more cautious. Time and again, he inserted himself into her campaign, whether by hogging the TV cameras during a grocery store visit in Iowa, by injecting the toxic subject of race into the contest or by keeping alive perhaps the most embarrassing incident of her campaign, Senator Clinton's bizarre fiction of landing in Kosovo under enemy fire.

After his intemperate remarks in North Carolina and, later, Pennsylvania, he single-handedly permanently tarnished, if not destroyed, his and his wife's once-sterling reputation in the black community. Now memos obtained by The Atlantic Magazine show he even ran a shadow campaign, at times personally issuing orders to run controversial ads.

Does anyone seriously believe for one minute that the Big Guy would just sit out the general election contest? Or, should Hillary Clinton actually become vice president, is there a person on this Earth who genuinely feels that Bill would be able to keep himself from meddling in the affairs of state, both large and small?

With Hillary's obvious deeply held belief that she, by rights, should be the presidential candidate, we would face - should an Obama/Clinton ticket succeed - the unnerving spectacle of not one or even two but three presidents in the White House.

But the problems posed by the former president go far beyond his famed penchant for meddling. His sins in office would be revisited endlessly in the campaign. Pardons, anyone? Want to hear more about that blue dress? Or that cigar? And what about that little matter of furniture that mysteriously migrated from the White House to the Clintons' Chappaqua home?

And then consider Bill's activities since he left the Oval Office. He has solicited hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions from perhaps thousands of unknown contributors. He steadfastly has refused to say who the generous folks who built that splendid Little Rock temple to the greatness of Bill Clinton are, but the inadvertent release of a partial list a few years back showed that among his most generous financial backers are a host of Middle East powers and potentates. The potential for conflicts of interest is mind-boggling.

He has also shown a real lust for the high life, jetting around the world with (and accepting lucrative employment opportunities from) characters of dubious distinction. Ron Burkle, called "the billionaire party boy," comes to mind here. Another odoriferous connection is with Frank Giustra. Bill traveled with him to Kazakhstan to introduce him to that country's notorious dictator, a man who for 19 years has presided over a brutal police state. In short order Giustra - who had no background in the business - received contracts worth multiple millions to mine uranium in that country. And within months of that, the William J. Clinton Foundation had a $31.3 million donation - and a pledge for $100 million more - from his buddy, Giustra.

Plus - and this is, I know, a delicate subject but it must be raised - the Dems just dodged a bullet by not giving the nomination to now-revealed philanderer John Edwards. The Obama campaign has enough on it hands without having to worry about what a close Clinton aide years ago called "bimbo eruptions."

Now I must ask: Is there a sane soul in the country who doesn't believe that all of Bill's misadventures, old and new, are not thoroughly documented in Republican files? It was not for nothing that for years GOP operatives all but literally salivated at the prospect of being lucky enough to run against Hillary Clinton.

Would Hillary on the ticket bring in angry women voters who now threaten to boycott the election or, worse, vote for John McCain? Probably. But her presence could also drive away as many potential Obama voters who are repelled by the notion of political dynasties or who just plain can't stand the Clintons and all they stand for. Check the online comments following any political story.

And what else would the New York senator bring to the ticket? She ran a campaign of stunning ineptitude which squandered millions of dollars while her once insurmountable lead vanished and which was characterized by back-biting and leaking by advisors who detested one another. She had the exceptionally bad judgment to throw millions of her own into the effort when everyone around her knew the contest was lost. She cheerfully allied herself with the likes of the odious Mark Penn, whose eagerness to challenge Obama's fealty to this country and to American values were right out of the Karl Rove playbook.

It is bad enough that her attempts to diminish Barack Obama as a candidate and as a person were unrelenting and will be replayed endlessly in GOP campaign ads during the fall campaign. It would be infinitely worse if they could attribute what she said to the actual Democratic nominee for vice president.

Source:  Concord Monitor

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