Bubba Fatigue
Michael Godwin has experienced an epiphany. It has suddenly occurred to him that he is utterly sick and tired of Bill Clinton.
Something was bugging me, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Then it hit me. While I was reading about the campaign, the realization came like a thunderbolt: I'm tired of Bill Clinton.
Tired of his half-truths and full lies about where he stood on Iraq. Tired of his bull, as when he says he'd campaign for Hillary "if we weren't married" and calls her a "world-class genius." Tired of his whining, as when he says the media has been too tough on her and too soft on Barack Obama.
All of this is as real as the lovey-dovey, hug-and-smile photo ops of them in Iowa. It's theater, staged for maximum political impact. We're being played again on the two-for-the-price-of-one angle.
But, as always, the game for him is about him. A vote for her is a vote for him. Vanity is a big part of it, with her victory the succession legacy he was denied when Al Gore lost.
All true, but I fear there is more to it now. He wants to be The Man, again. He wants it so much that it's not clear which President Clinton would be the President. The way he hogs the spotlight, the way he's trotted out to rescue her when she's in trouble and the way he sets the talking points mark him as the lead dog in the Clinton pack. Would he also make the decisions in the White House? All of them? Some of them?
One day he uses the phrase "roll of the dice" to warn against Obama, and soon she's using "roll of the dice" to warn about Obama. The echo chamber happens often enough that if she wins, Hillary could end up being No. 2 in her own administration. Maybe that's the plan.
That makes me really tired. I suspect I'm not alone.
That is precisely why a lot of people are feeling the way they do about the Clintons, I suspect. I also suspect that the campaign was worried about that too, at first. Remember that Hillary's campaign tried to keep Bill out of the spotlight until she started to slide in the polls. But pushing him out front the way they have now starts making people wonder who is actually being voted into office. Godwin isn't sure that this all isn't part of an engineered, Clintonian plan, however.
Even having to ask that question exhausts him, he says. Maybe enough people will experience Bubba fatigue to well and truly derail Hillary. We'll see.
By feeblemind, Sunday, 23 December , 2007 @ 9:05 am
Nice to see Clinton fatigue is contaigous. I have only had it for 15 yrs.
By Sam L., Sunday, 23 December , 2007 @ 9:17 am
Even Mo Dowd is unhappy with him–Instapundit linked to her 12-23 column. I’d thought she was a fully-committed member of the team.
By McGehee, Sunday, 23 December , 2007 @ 11:20 am
The Clintons’ problem is that they’re very, very clever — while otherwise not real bright.
If they were really bright, they would have figured out by now that cleverness has a shelf life, and that once people figure out the trick, they lose interest. And then they lose patience.
Guess which part of the curve they’re on now?
By martian, Sunday, 23 December , 2007 @ 1:54 pm
I was sick of Bubba and the missus on Jan. 31, 1993. My Clinton fatigue has only grown since that time. Now it’s growing into loathing rather than just fatigue.