GOP Keeps Trying to Buddy Up to Clinton

     It's been the constant theme today, starting with the WSJ this morning that claimed that Obama, unlike Clinton, hasn't learned.

    I would love anyone to find me that op-ed during the Clinton years where the WSJ had declared that Bill Clinton had learned.

   Supposedly, according to WSJ, the epiphany was the Republican victory in 1994. Not too convenient. Yet, I don't recall the WSJ recognizing this in real time. Four years later they were clamoring for the President's resignation based upon his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

   Yet that's been the theme for the GOP today, with Clinton's big speech tonight, doing anything they can to create this false idea of a wedge between the two most recent Democratic Presidents.

    Tonight we have  Lying Paul Ryan-always an entertaining read anyway with his creative approach to the facts-Damn those fact checkers! Damn all the fact checkers that ever was!-invoking the bygone bipartisan era of the late 90s.

     Can they really have so little irony? Ryan also repeated the discredited lie about Obama and the welfare reform work requirement.

     In a way, I wonder if the GOP strategy of driving a wedge between Clinton and Obama won't blow up in their faces. After all, they've made Clinton such an authority on correct governance and fiscal policy that when he appears at the President's convention, embraces him, and makes the point that the President has the right policies-hopefully he may even mention the false welfare attacks-this may have even greater force because of how much they've talked Clinton up.

    For his part Clinton says this about the President:

     "I'm actually more enthusiastic about it than I was four years ago when I said I thought he was ready to be president, because I've seen him dig in the dirt and fight for change, I've seen him make things happen, I've seen him criticized, demonized, knock[ed] down," Clinton said. "I've seen him deal with the fact that he's dealing with things for the first time he’s never dealt with before, learn and keep coming."

    "Clinton also alluded to a bond between former presidents who understood the challenges of the jobs.

"It is, from my point of view, not a transaction or a bromance or any of that sort of stuff. There's a few people who have been presidents," Clinton said. "He's the first Democrat to serve since I left office. He's had a very tough hand to play."

     http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/247787-clinton-on-obama-we-havent-been-close-friends-but-he-knows-i-support-him

     I actually agree with President Clinton. I too-though I may be in a minority-am more enthusiastic about President Obama than even last time. He has grown. Chris Matthews suggested that in a way the hope surrounding him now is more robust.

     What is also clear about what Clinton is saying is that he has deep respect for the current Democratic President.

     Obviously the personal source of a wedge between the two is the the primary in 2008. Still Clinton added this to show that there has been some healed wounds since then:

     "But during his answer, Clinton also alluded to the way Obama had interacted with his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton."

     "I'm very grateful also just as a person for the way he and Hillary have interacted," Clinton said. "He's treated her with enormous respect, he's respected her opinion, he' s— he’s run a national security operation that’s been really good for this country, I think. So I think, you know, I would say our relationship is good."

    I like this answer to the inevitable questions about his wife in 2016:

   "You know, she — we're not kids anymore. I don't have any idea if she'll ever run again," Clinton said. "She says she won't. Right now, I want to help him because I think it'll help my country. Because I believe America is going to do great."

    This is one gloss on Clinton that his enemies always repeated about him in the 90s, and though they all want to be his best friend now, they still imply with all that they say.

    It's the idea that the former President and his wife are totally venial. They don't care about the country, they don't care about their party. All they care about is their personal ambitions and if that destroys the party then so be it.

   This is actually a nasty lie much like the talk in the 90s that once Clinton was out of office they would have a divorce.