"What About Bill?"

Hillary Clinton is running in 2008. This much is certain. Here's the question. What is she going to do about Bill? If you thought the Kerry campaign had trouble getting Teresa to put a sock in it, what do you think Hillary's team is going to have to contend with dealing with the former president, with all the charisma you can pack into a frame that is physically incapable of telling the truth.

If she has a chance at winning, she has to be in the limelight. The problem is, he still sucks all the oxygen out of the room. And he still has an agenda. Rewriting history. He had a heart scare last year, and he's starting to act like he doesn't have much time left to leave historians with something positive to write.

Every day, when I come into the studio, I go through Tivo to see what audio might be available for the day. It's like commercial fishing, really. You throw the net out every day, drive the boat for a while, then reel it in and see what you get. Some days, it's bonita. But once in a while, like today, you catch a marlin.

Bill Clinton was in Davos, Switzerland, and conducted an interview on stage with PBS' Charlie Rose as part of the World Economic Forum. The fawning audience hung on every word. The first shot into the audience that I saw showed a grey-haired Richard Gere. I swear he's taking notes. Someday, the Bill Clinton story is going to be told, and Gere is studying up for the role. By the way...did you know Bill Clinton is an active blogger? Check this out. It's truly weird.

The satellite dumped out after a while, but the damage was done by that point. Clinton was on tape lying his way through the last 50 years, including slams at Reagan, Bush, instant 9/11 analysis, and offering up his own reason for the election results last November. Here's three samples of what he said, followed by the audio.

If you are from another radio show and use this for show prep, speak well of me. I'm probably going to have to eat the bandwidth this month.

BC: Iran is a whole different kettle of fish. But it...it's a sad story that really began in the 1950's when the United States deposed Mr. Mussadiq, who was an elected parliamentary democrat, and brought the Shah back in.

BC: And then he was overturned by the Ayatollah Khomeni, driving us into the arms of one Saddam Hussein. And most of the terrible things that Saddam Hussein did in the 1980s he did with the full, knowing support of the United States government. Because he wasn't Iran, and Iran was what it was because we got rid of their parliamentary democracy back in the '50s. At least that's my belief. I know it is not popular for an American ever to say anything like this, but I think it is true. (applause) And I apologized. When President Khatemi was elected, I publicly acknowledged that the United States had actively overthrown Mussadiq, and I apologized for it.

I will never forget as long as I live September 11. I was in Australia, and two people who worked for me in the White House called me from lower Manhattan and talked me through the second plane hitting the second tower. I'll never forget it. And I said, "You know, bin Laden did this." The minute the plane hit the tower. They said, "How do you know?", and I said, "Because only bin Laden and the Iranians could have done it. And the Iranians didn't do it, because they have a country. They have targets. We'd have to level Tehran if they did this. Bin Laden lives in a cave in Afghanistan."

But they are not without means, in other words. They're very smart. They're very well funded. They funded my old friend Turkey Feith(?) was out there, and all the Hell we went through at the Khobar Tower, in Saudi Arabia and all the 19 United States Airmen that were killed. This is something...I still hope there is a diplomatic solution. This is madness.

But a lot of this involves how you define national greatness. Well, I think every country's image of itself is rather like a person's image of himself or herself. It's the product of the accumulated dreams and nightmares of your family. Think about it. I remember I had a screaming match with Boris Yeltsin one time when he was telling me I couldn't expand NATO. And finally I grabbed him, said, "Boris, look at me. All the time we spent together, you really think that I would send American jets to an airport in Warsaw, and use that base to bomb Russia?" I said, "Look at me. You believe that?"

BC: He said, "Look. It's irrational. Of course it is. It's irrational to you, because you live in a big country protected by two oceans. You were never invaded by Napoleon and Hitler. Everything we do is affected by these nightmares." Similarly, the Chinese, with whom I worked, was very close, got 'em in the World Trade Organization, they did things that I thought were nuts and self-defeating. And fighting political dissent, and stifling debate, and, you know, having no dialogue with the Dalai Lama, which I thought was not only morally wrong, but didn't make sense. You know, to crush the Tibetan culture and do all that. I didn't get it, you know.

This is Bill Clinton doing his finest Baron Von Munchausen impersonation to be certain - riding cannonballs, travelling to the Moon, pulling himself out of a bog by his own hair, manhandling Vladimir Putin, toking and jawing with the Dali Llama. Others have compared him to Uncle Rico from Napolean Dynamite, and I can certainly see the similarity, although Bill seems a bit more like the Hercules doll on a string relative to the current administration. Old Peachy comes to mind as well, rambling about The Man Who Would Be King. Either way, Clinton comes across as a delusional neurotic searching desperately through the fantasy of recollection for the figment of a legacy... and still coming up short. Trapped inside the whale of regret at his squandered moment in history, Baron Bill might find a pinch of penitence to be most efficacious.

By the way that Slick Willie looks nowadays, I predict that Hillary will be a widow by 2008 and will use that sympathy for all that it is worth. It is the perfect campaign that the DIMs can hope for. I hope I am wrong...

Make no mistake. If she is in the WH, the former 'Mr. No-Pants President' will be appointed as the US ambassador to the UN or to some other prestigious or highly visible post. His appointment will virtually assure that we can be made to endure yet further and equally embarrassing assaults upon our integrity as individual Americans at the hands (or other member) of the former 'Mr. No-Pants President'. In any case, she will certainly position him to take full advantage of the 'spoils', because the two of them will pass up NO opportunity to GRAB what ever is there for the taking.

I realize why this story was been relocated to Bloggers Row. But, I believe this qualifies as Extended News. Are we to assume that just because MSM chooses not to report on an event, that it doesn't qualify as news? These statements by Bill Clinton are extraordinary. And as far as I can determine, no one other than RadioBlogger has made the transcripts and audio available. I could understand if I were posting an entry from my own Blog. But, at some point, FR needs to recognize that Bloggers are breaking real news stories. Please reconsider.

Hillary will morph into a consevative southern democrat and Bill will take on the roll of elder, reserved, distinguished statesaman.

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