The Note: Err Apparent
Lessons from Bill on how to keep a campaign from gaining ground.
April 11, 2008 -- As the saying goes, if you want political reporters to eat their vegetables, it helps if they have nothing else on their plate. The Clintons, meanwhile, are serving whoppers.
Former president Bill Clinton is the latest to hand out a juicy fib -- circling back to Bosnia to cram four falsehoods into 23 words: His wife, he said, "one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995."
Where to start? If his telling is accurate, it depends on what the definition of "one time," "late at night," and "immediately apologized" is. (And it was 1996, not 1995.)
"Hillary Clinton actually made the comments numerous times, including at an event in Iowa on Dec. 29, and an event on Feb. 29 and one time -- bright and early in the morning -- on March 17," ABC's Sarah Amos and Eloise Harper report.
"Sen. Clinton wasn't as quick with her apology as President Clinton may remember either. In fact, it took a week for her to eventually correct herself, first talking to the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board on March 24 and again apologizing the next day in Greensboro, N.C."
Politifact.com gave Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's handling of the matter the dreaded "pants on fire" designation.
ABC's Jake Tapper counts up a total of eight different misstatements/exaggerations in his telling of the tale on Thursday.
Maybe this whole Bosnia flap has gotten too much attention. Maybe Bill Clinton is right that his wife was wrongly treated like "she'd robbed a bank the way they carried on about this." Maybe he's also right that "when they're 60 they'll forget something when they're tired at 11:00 at night, too." (Who are "they," and why are they so mean to his wife, anyway?)
But for whatever reason, another "they" -- Pennsylvania voters -- have followed this storyline. (The word around Camp Clinton is that this story is the biggest factor in her Pennsylvania dip -- which is one reason Bill Clinton is trying to explain it away to voters in Indiana.)
It remains Sen. Clinton who's defending her credibility, honesty, and trustworthiness, keeping the spotlight away from her rival in the closing weeks before April 22.
The problem for Sen. Clinton is that one side of the double-edged sword that is her husband remains sharper than the other. The Clintons can explain away their differences (trade, torture, an Olympic boycott) but this is messy stuff for a campaign that can't afford too many more distractions.
The Boston Globe's Foon Rhee calls it "one of the central challenges of Hillary Clinton's campaign: How to take credit for the accomplishments of her husband's presidency and profit from his popularity while distancing herself from his past and present positions on which they disagree."
Former presidential adviser David Gergen sees the campaign "going sideways rather than forward." "She very badly needs to get back to the campaign message, what she would do in the next four years," Gergen tells Rhee.
Remember the quaint old days when we feared Sen. Clinton being overshadowed by her husband's wattage? Overwhelmed is more like it.
What of this portion of the legacy? Welfare reform -- still the target of liberal ire 12 years later -- is reemerging as an issue, Peter S. Goodman writes in The New York Times. Clinton "rarely mentions the issue as she battles for the nomination, despite the emphasis she has placed on her experience in her husband's White House," Goodman writes.
"But now the issue is back, pulled to the fore by an economy turning down more sharply than at any other time since the welfare changes were imposed. With low-income people especially threatened by a weakening labor market, some advocates for poor families are raising concerns about the adequacy of the remaining social safety net. Mrs. Clinton is now calling for the establishment of a cabinet-level position to fight poverty."
It could still be trade that moves the most moves in lunch-bucket parts of Pennsylvania. "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is pressing her claim that she opposed her husband's free trade push when he was president, despite her favorable words about it at the time," per the AP fact-check. "She spoke up for [NAFTA's] passage and early results when her husband Bill was president, years before Obama came to Washington."
This isn't as serious -- but will (unfortunately for the Clintons) generate more buzz. Coming to a right-wing talkfest near you: Clinton's "presidential retirement benefits cost taxpayers almost as much as those of the other two living ex-presidents combined," Politico's Kenneth P. Vogel reports. "The price tag for Clinton's federal retirement allowance from 2001 through the end of this year will run $8 million, compared to $5.5 million for George H. W. Bush's and $4 million for Jimmy Carter's during the same period."
(He did serve as long as H.W. and Carter combined . . . )
If not for all of this, it just might be Sen. Barack Obama's (possible) hypocrisy that would consuming the campaign oxygen. There's his dance on public financing, and this: "A mere five months ago, in Iowa, Obama didn't like it when outside 'special interest' groups sided with his rivals, pumped their own money into the campaign, and ran independent ads against him," Dick Polman writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
"Fast forward to the Pennsylvania primary, present day . . . and the news that SEIU and an affiliated health-care local union are pouring upwards of $1 million into an independent pro-Obama effort that parallels the official Obama operation.
"Nothing illegal about that, then or now. The issue here is the difference between Obama's stance, then and now," Polman writes. "He's a politician who is trying to win, and he will flip where he once flopped if that's what it takes."
Particularly because (Sen. Clinton's complaints to the contrary) the Democratic Party is showing no likelihood of suddenly behaving like Republicans, she needs to pitch something close to a perfect game between here and Pennsylvania (and beyond) to capture the nomination.
Jake Tapper does some math along with ABC's political unit and comes up with this scenario for when the Democratic voting is done: "Obama in June would still lead Clinton with 120 delegates. Almost two more months, millions of dollars, hundreds of attacks and counter-attacks between the two campaigns later," Tapper writes. "It all means that come June we could be essentially exactly where we are today, short of some serious movement by superdelegates or Democratic voters one way or another."
Slate's Christopher Beam does some math of his own: "Even if Hillary Clinton wins every single one of the remaining contests by 10 points, she still needs to win 70 percent of the remaining uncommitted superdelegates. Given that since Feb. 5, Obama has netted 69 superdelegates and Clinton has lost a net of five, it's fair to say the pendulum is not swinging her way."
And if she can't win Pennsylvania, the rest of the story is written. Salon's Walter Shapiro travels back to the site of Obama's bowling fiasco (and reminds us that he was actually bowling a 47 -- and working a spare -- when he quit in the seventh frame). "There are hints that Obama, who is narrowing the gap against Clinton in recent statewide polls, may be tapping into something even here in Altoona, where the 19th century offered more promise than the current one," Shapiro writes.
"What everyone remembered (including the clerk from the rental car company who insisted on driving me on Obama's route through Altoona) is the candidate who came to bowl . . . even if badly."
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