The Moderate Voice - Latest Comments in Hillary Clinton Says Love Pushed Bill Clinton Over The Line

Re: Hillary Clinton Says Love Pushed Bill Clinton Over The Line

PaulSilver — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:07:03 -0000

Kiwione,
Excellent historical perspective!
Thanks

Re: Hillary Clinton Says Love Pushed Bill Clinton Over The Line

StockBoySF — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:56:26 -0000

Funny how it took being pummeled in an election for Hillary to realize that Bill loved her and that they were all tired....

The last time the issue of Bill's love surfaced it was over a white woman in a closet. This time it's with a black man on the stump and in full view of everyone! :)

But to be fair, I'm sure all the candidates are exhausted and I don't know how they keep it up on the campaign trail, including Billary. I may not support her, but she does have a lot of energy, and so does Bill, after his surgery of a couple years ago.

Re: Hillary Clinton Says Love Pushed Bill Clinton Over The Line

StockBoySF — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:49:38 -0000

kiwione- but I loved your "tyrannicides"! I vote we keep it.

Re: Hillary Clinton Says Love Pushed Bill Clinton Over The Line

kiwione — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:43:28 -0000

Sorry, that should have read "tyrants" not "tyrannicides." Never have been able to get Booth shouting, "Sic semper tyrannis" out of my consciousness.

Re: Hillary Clinton Says Love Pushed Bill Clinton Over The Line

kiwione — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:37:28 -0000

Maybe within our memory no one has been quite as active in campaigning for his successor but simply put there are been many notable cases where the former President has indeed joined in the fracas. In 1952 after being defeated in the New Hampshire Primary Harry Truman decided not to run and subsequently endorsed Adlai Stevenson before the convention. From that point on till the election he campaigned by train throughout the nation giving what were described at the time as highly partisan stump speeches against Dwight Eisenhower.

An even earlier example would consist of James Buchanan being so unhappy at losing the nomination to Stephen Douglas that he bolted the Democratic Party and set up another faction who nominated John Cabell Breckenridge to represent the pro-slavery South. Buchanan was no shrinking violet in the few speeches he gave describing alternately Lincoln or Douglas as tyrannicides and (politley put) Negro lovers.

Theodore Roosevelt guaranteed the victory of Woodrow Wilson when he campaigned and railed against his succesor for one term, Howard Taft, as being in the thrall of of the Morgans and the Vanderbilts. He even led his own delegates physically out of the Republican convention and into another hall nearby to create and run as the nominee of the Bull Moose Party. Roosevelt described Taft as selling out the progressives and Woodrow Wilson as a Ku Klux Klan sympathizer. Hardly the gentility we assume to have the norm for ex-presidents.

As distasteful as some obviously have concerning Bill Clinton's campagining he does not represent some kind of break with American presidential politics. And as much as our memories assume that all our former presidents retired as represented by The Apotheosis of Washington the reality is that the dignified retirement is relatively rare and a recent phenomena.

Re: Hillary Clinton Says Love Pushed Bill Clinton Over The Line

Doc Häagen-Dazs — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:32:37 -0000

Love made him do it?