That title to an opinion piece in this morning's Wall Street Journal caught my eye as it did yours. The complete piece can be found on the Wall Street Journal website's public opinion page if you want to read it.
This piece traces the rise and fall of the Clinton machine within the Democratic party. That rise and fall encompasses more than a decade of our country's history and includes discussion of things such as the technique of 'triangulation' that was used to occupy all sides of particular issues, the blaming of their own foibles and shortcomings on the Republican 'attack machine'. It discusses the lost billing records, the cattle futures, the illegal foreign fund raising, the definition of the word "is", Paula Jones, and the Lincoln bedroom. And, it reminded me of the pardons that President Clinton issued in his last days in office. Those were so bad that even Representative Barney Frank (D) who had been a staunch defender of the President called them a "betrayal" and "contemptuous".
David Geffen, a major Hollywood Democratic contributor and king-maker was recently quoted saying, about the Clintons' ability to lie, "everybody in politics lies", but the Clintons "do it with such ease, it's troubling". What a damning statement.
This reminded me of all that we've lived with and through when it comes to the Clinton family since their rise to national politics from their start with Arkansas politics. It also presented the trouble that the Democratic party has today in trying to convince Hillary to just give it up and go away as a presidential candidate.
All this is happening because a rising star named Obama has arrived on the scene. The Democrats seem to have found their next Clinton. That he has virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve as our President seems to matter little, if at all. He is a gifted orator and his populist message seems to be getting the job done. 'So be it' seems the Democrat chant. Get the office and then we can worry about how he governs and leads.
So it appears that the Democratic party is in the process of more than a separation from the Clintons...but...they've been counted out before and have, so far, managed to return each time. Maybe it is a bit too soon to count them out. Hillary has very likely planned to run again in 2012 if Obama loses to McCain this year. She'll still have a 'bloody pulpit' in the Senate from which to rebuild whatever she has lost in the current campaign.
But, what an amazing thing this has been to see the story of this past decade plus laid out so vividly to the detriment of the Clintons
