Posted on 11/24/2007 10:15:19 AM PST by CT
Just when every poll has Hillary Rodham Clinton slipping, she has gotten a shot in the arm from a very unlikely source: President Bush.
In an interview on Tuesday featuring the first couple and Charles Gibson, the president said of Hillary: "No question, there is no question that Clinton understands pressure better than any of the candidates, you know, in the race because she lived in the White House and sees it first — could see it first-hand."
By saying that she “understands the klieg lights,” Bush lent credence to Hillary’s campaign assertion that she could “hit the ground running” if she were elected president.
Would somebody please explain to us what Bush is doing, touting Hillary just as the rest of America is finally catching on to her artificial, evasive and contrived campaigning style?
This is not the first time Bush has rescued the Clintons. After they left the White House, both the former president and the new senator had low ratings in the polls. Beset by scandal — the White House gifts, the pardons-for-sale, the payments to Hillary’s brothers for pardons, the Hasidic vote-for-pardon scandal, and Bill’s nolo contender plea to obstructing justice — Bill and Hillary were sucking wind.
But, Bush swept in for the rescue, picking the former president off the ash heap of history and elevating him to parity with his father in a two-former-president effort to raise funds for the tsunami victims. By giving him a respected place alongside a former president of unquestioned integrity, Bush gave Clinton a tremendous way to climb out of disgrace and into the limelight.
Then, when the tsunami relief effort was winding down, he re-enlisted former President Clinton to work with his father again on helping the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Not only did Bush help the Clintons in positive ways, but he let his justice department drop the investigations of the pardons, the gifts, the payments to Hillary’s brothers and the Hasidic vote scandal with no prosecution or plea dealings.
Then Bush let Clinton off the hook another time when the former president’s former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger was caught smuggling classified documents relating to 9/11 and the war on terror out of the National Archives in his pockets and socks. The Bush Justice Department accepted a plea deal with Berger which did not require him to say what documents he had taken and why he had swiped them. As a result, we never knew what aspect of the Clinton record on terrorism Berger was so anxious to cover up.
All of this kid glove treatment of the former first couple led to jokes about how George W. and Bill are the two children of President George H.W. Bush. Now the president is going easy on his putative sister-in-law, Hillary.
The fact is that Hillary has no idea what it is like to be president. Unlike Bill, she did not have to face the media daily and could keep them at arms
length as she toured the world, acting like a tourist, in carefully contrived photo opportunities. When she was really involved in public policy — during the health reform debate — her insistence on the secrecy of the proceedings led to a federal court order and judgment against her.
Is President Bush deliberately helping Hillary to win the nomination because he feels she would be the easiest one of the Democrats to beat? If he is, he’s making a serious mistake. She is the only Democrat who can bring 10 million new single female voters out of the woodwork to sway the election.
Or, is it an ex-president thing? A kind of exclusive club of former chiefs who treat one another with kindness, civility and bend over backwards to show respect? Whether it is through political miscalculation or elitism that Bush caters to Hillary Clinton, he should stop it. Every day, she bashes him full time on the campaign trail. His kind words for her are so out of place, they are jarring.
President George W. Bush has done quite enough to aid the election of Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States already, thank you. Without his generosity to Bill and his refusal to prosecute matters that could embarrass the Clintons, he bears a great deal of responsibility already for Hillary’s rise to front-runner status in the Democratic primary.
Your tag line is an outright lie. Thompson -did- vote to impeach Clinton on obstruction of justice, so your claim that he “refused to convict” him is complete bull. Such classless mendacity is the sort of thing I expect from liberals, not from Freepers.
Qwinn
“..Hillary Clinton has the most chance of winning the democrat nomination ..”
Of course. But look at the opposition.
She’s HARDLY suitable to hold any elected office in the Country and has ZERO executive exerpience.
Just another dumb Bushicism.
Carolyn
Hillary Clinton is one of the meanest, nastiest, most arrogant, most fake, most dull, most uncharismatic people to ever run for President. Even if she becomes the democrat nominee in the general elections the majority of real voters will realize this many fatal flaws in her character at an early stage of the campaign and before they know anything about her socialist politics, her huge flips flops, and her extreme left wing stand on social issues. The majority of voters will be turned away by her horrible character, her very annoying unbearable to hear nasty and screeching voice, her bitc** laughter, and her scary wide open mean eyes. She cannot change her character no matter how hard she tries and the liberal media cannot cover it for her no matter how hard they try.
It’s like the Mad Hatter party.
Also, i’m not convinced that a voice of support from bush is a good thing for any candidate.
That is why “end the Clinton-Bush Diarchy” would be a good campaign slogan for a conservative or third party candidate if Hillary gets the Dem nomination.
I understand all that. And the point of this post isn't about what Morris thinks. In fact I think he doesn't make heads or tails of it either. Just speculates.
My point, and the central question, and it isn't exactly conspiratorial, is why do the Bushes give their political enemies any breaks. This goes to Bush I agreeing to the tax increase. Letting Kennedy write the Education Bill. George W. saying all those glittering lies about the Clintons when they unveiled their portraits. And now this soft ball about Hillary.
Nothing wrong with being nice and having class, something some Freepers could learn here. But helping someone as bad as the Clintons - any Clinton - is where one should draw the line.
Now now. You don't know if they are, as individuals, pathetic idiots just because their viewpoints are pathetic and idiotic.
This is just one news sources interpretation of what was said, however:
Things like this, and there are quite a few, push me towards the conspiracy theory that there are only a handful of behind the sconces people running the world. If a favorite starts to lag, someone gets pushed into saying things someone loyal to their party wouldn’t.
As someone up-thread pointed out, these aren’t the words of a person with class.
The biggest mysteries Bush has pulled surround Sandy Berger. Why he would let him skip out of that blatant breach cannot be explained.
Read Ann Coulter more completely, then get back to me. It's why she won't vote for Fred either.
Agreed. Thus my comment on the conpiracy theory that a handful of behind the scenes men run the show. That would explain it.
Another attempt by Bush to show his contempt of the American people.
I know it’s not “We the people” who run things any longer. If we ever did.
Regards
Bullcrap
What if President Bush had said he didn’t think Hillary would win the presidency. That would also give her a ‘boost’. It’s hilarious that this article was written at all about the man the dems love to hate, the stupid, brainless, chimpy mcbushhitler.
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