You probably didn’t see Bill Clinton on Meet the Press Sunday. Given the number of televised sporting events to choose from — the Mets and the Jets and the Giants and the Yanks were all on TV, at the same time! — it was hard to fit him in. But for a president with a famously low opinion of reporters, he treated the all-too affable David Gregory mighty kindly.
Most journalists offer only slow pitches to ex-presidents (though they might start getting a little wary of Jimmy Carter) and the only real headline-maker here came when Gregory asked Clinton if the “vast right-wing conspiracy” Hillary famously limned was still out there. “Oh, you bet,” Clinton replied. “Sure it is. It’s not as strong as it was, because America’s changed demographically, but it’s as virulent as it was. I mean, they’re saying things about him–you know, it’s like when they accused me of murder and all that stuff they did. He–but it’s not really good for the Republicans and the country, what’s going on now. I mean, they may be hurting President Obama. They can take his numbers down, they can run his opposition up. But fundamentally, he and his team have a positive agenda for America. Their agenda seems to be wanting him to fail, and that’s not a prescription for a good America.”
Pretty good answer, I thought; when he wasn’t obfuscating Clinton was always one of the best politicians in the US when it came to straightening bent facts. (He even made John Kerry’s famous avowal that he was for the Iraq war before he was against seem sensible.) And even if he managed to twist the knife a bit in the end, he has always understood that politics is a knife-fight. What has been surprising since then is the reaction of some on the left. Take Lawrence O’Donnell, subbing for Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s Countdown last night: “Mr. Clinton,” he said in reaction, “we have some 21st century news for you here. The vast right-wing propaganda machine is not shrinking; it is growing.”
Then, with the help of Crooks & Liars‘ Dave Neiwart he enumerated all the familiar evils out there: Rush, Beck, death panels, birthers. No doubt, a smoldering cauldron of BS is a-brewing. And you don’t have to look far to find it. But you don’t have to look far to find it refuted, either (hence Countdown, Rachel Maddow, Huff Post et al) — a more emboldened liberal counterpoint-machine than existed in Clinton’s time. And remember, this ex-president who generally chooses his words very carefully was talking about demographic change. The ground is moving under the right — where the people are and what colors they be — and those shifts leave some on the right sounding slightly unhinged. He’s just saying they’re not as potent.
Clinton saw his administration grievously wounded (though not capsized) as much by his own foolishness as the VRWC. (And where do you put papers such as the NY Times in the spectrum of his enemies?) He knows the difference, I think, between a white whale and Whitewater, and he sees the tide a-changing…