Lynne Duke acts like the Washington Post is not part of the media-industrial complex. She’s a disgrace. Stop her before she kills again.
Yes, Bill can deliver political superstardom. He’s a razor-sharp political strategist. He knows the institution of the presidency. His fundraising chops are unrivaled. All that is well and good — perhaps too good, according to a September CNN poll, which showed his favorable rating higher than hers, 60 percent to 50 percent.
But there’s the other Bill, the one who could be a massive and messy distraction. That Bill is the ex-president known for his outsize appetites and indiscipline, the Bill who still revels in the limelight, who runs with global jet-setters. He is prone to pop up in the press for even the smallest of curiosities, like being spotted at dinner with another woman — bad news for an ex-president already infamous for marital infidelity.
If she runs, will voters focus too much on him? Will they remember too much of the national trauma known as “that woman” (Monica Lewinsky) — and the presidential prevaricating, hair-splitting (what is”is,” anyway?) and impeachment that followed? Can voters look at Bill without thinking of sex? If they don’t think of sex, they’ll likely think the word: “president,” which may also not be such a good thing for the spouse who wants that title.
From now until Election Day 2008, the national fascination with the Clintons and their marriage will be central to the race. The media-industrial complex will again feed like hungry hounds on the Clintons, their past and future; on the Clintons and their mysteries; on power and politics as the Clinton lifeblood propelling her run against all odds.
She will face haters. She’ll face sexists. There’ll be folks who think she’s power-mad, including some still queasy about what she knew and when she knew it when it came to Bill’s marital indiscretions.
Look at the polls; opinions on her are strong and run the gamut. Gallup last month asked 1,003 respondents to state what comes to mind about Hillary. Thirteen percent said they disliked her. Ten percent said she’s qualified to be president. Nine percent said she’s riding Bill’s shirttails. Eight percent called her strong. Six percent called her intelligent, and another six percent called her dishonest and said they didn’t trust her.
With numbers like that, plenty of Democrats are asking: Can she win? So the last thing she needs is people asking, as they have in the media and at cocktail parties: Can Bill control himself during her presidential campaign?
Such a familiar circumstance, such a Clintonesque conundrum, which her supporters can only hope won’t lead to a Clintonesque spectacle: Bill, the management challenge.
I am not supporting Hillary for the 2008 Democratic nomination, but it has nothing to do with her electability (she can beat any of the pathetic Republican contenders) and it certainly has nothing to do with her husband’s penis. It’s not the job of the Washington Post to feed the lowest common denominator desires of a crass and superficial electorate. Their job is to educate that public, to elevate that public. It’s ridiculous for them to write stories like this and pass them off as inevitable. JUST…DON’T…WRITE…THEM. Set a goddamn standard.
I don’t need to know that Bill Clinton received counseling for sex addiction.
Idiots.
