Marshall does good work as a blog journalist, but he has always been a conservative/centrist Democrat.  I've seen him pine for the Clinton days before at his blog, so his angst now is not surprising, as is his inability to fully understand what he is seeing.

Obama is a Patriot

Booman-

This is one of your best diaries ever.  Thoughtful, respectful tone, but you get your points across.  I agree with you completely.  This is the kind of fair and factual assessment we need of each of the candidates, but most especially the Clintons, given their long history and position in the party.

I think a lot of smart people spent an awful lot of effort in the 90's defending Bill Clinton from the attacks from the right wing that were, in fact, over-the-top, uncalled for and damaging to our country. Just like you did.  Just like I did.

I think it's easy and appropriate to blame Bill Clinton for doing things that were wrong AND that laid him open to these attacks.  At the same time we all know that nobody is perfect, there will always be some flaw and that the right wing was there to exploit ANY flaw and use it, to the detriment of our country.  

What I'm saying, not very well, is that for many people blinders were necessary during the 1990's. Multi-tasking is hard.  A lot of people understood that the real danger was from the right wing attacks because it was danger as an ideological matter, as a way to move the country further in the direction that Reagan and even more the neo-conservatives wanted.  The right wing wanted to make sure that the Clinton presidency could not move the country in another direction and therefore they needed to discredit and de-legitimize the Clinton presidency for their own purposes.  (They will attempt it again with the next Democratic president but they themselves are weaker now.) The effort it took to fight the right wing necessitated blinders for some people who felt they couldn't fight the right and be morally outraged at Bill Clinton at the same time.

We're in a different time now.  There is no need to defend Bill Clinton at the same level as before  because an attack on Bill Clinton by the right wing is not, in and of itself, harmful to our country.  (I would say that unjustified smears are harmful to our political process because they are an attempt to manipulate the political process - but they've existed since Adams ran against Jefferson.)

I think that's why the blinders are slowly coming off.  

I think it is possible to say that there are many fair accusations against the Clintons AND there are many unffair attacks that happen against the Clintons. I think it is possible to say, as I did last night, that the media narrative last night with regard to the Clintons was unfair - in the sense that anytime the media decides to impose a narrative it is inherently unfair because it is not balanced and thoughtful - it is superficial.  But that doesn't mean that many points underlying it are not true. And should not be acknowledged.

I too get frustrated reading bloggers who will not acknowledge or even discuss the possibility of the truth of these matters.

Good post.

Help me raise money for Jay Nixon, the next Democratic governor of Missouri

I've been amazed at the number of so-called progressive bloggers who have dismissed the recent behavior of Bill Clinton and other Clinton surrogates as "politics as usual." The backlash by the voters of South Carolina should tell us that at least the electorate has some sense of common decency.

Clinton - hmm, let's see. For a start, he maintained the sanctions on Iraq that wound up killing as many as a million people, half of them children, which caused three high-level UN officials to resign in disgust. The head of the UN Oil for Food programme, Dennis Halliday, commented:

""We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral."

When asked about this devastating toll, Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright replied:

"We think the price is worth it."

He bombed the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, a war crime which may have killed as many as "several tens of thousands" of people (in the assessment of the German Ambassador to Sudan, writing in the Harvard International Review). He supported the Israeli occupation throughout the period which saw a near doubling of the number of Israeli settlers, and then conspired with Barak to (falsely) blame Arafat for the failure of the Camp David talks. He increased military aid to Turkey just as its campaign of terrorism and ethnic cleansing against the Kurds was reaching its peak and supported Suharto's atrocities against the people of East Timor and West Papua.

After leaving office, he endorsed the Iraq war, an illegal aggression.

This is not a man worthy of anyone's support.

want to thank you booman for being clear about what s up with the clintons. i read josh's beginning horrified semi-realization with a little amusement and a lot of frustration. how can he be so sharp on so much, and not have been disgusted a long time ago. triangulation of the toe-sucking variety should have been enough way back when. how hard is it to see that the unhealthy governmental drama of the 90's came partly out of malformed personalities, especially in the chief executive. notice that obama slipped 'no more drama' (approx.) into his speech last night.

anyway, your writing on this has been almost a refuge in last few weeks as the repulsive hypocrisy of clinton-style politics (not to mention the return of the wagging finger, lecturing those interfering with what it wants) has gummed up the process that needs to turn our country away from what i think most would agree is a course to disaster.

From Slate this morning:

What increased the impact of the trouncing is not just that it's a more than 40-point swing from polls in November where Clinton led Obama by 20 points but that the Clinton campaign worked so hard to knock Obama down in the previous week. Clinton surrogate Robert Johnson introduced Hillary at a South Carolina event two weeks ago by slinging mud at Obama and challenging his blackness. In the debate last Tuesday, Hillary Clinton was thoroughly aggressive and effective in raising questions not just about Obama's record but about his character. Clinton's campaign stayed in Obama's face in every news cycle in a way they hadn't before, raising a series of ethical questions about his ties to former backer Tony Rezko and trying to hang him with his own praise for Ronald Reagan and Republicans. Bill Clinton was unleashed across the state taking on Obama and the press, which he upbraided for giving the challenger an easy ride.

Dirty tricks ala the old Republicans will no longer work on Democrats.....Bill.

The self-righteous morality of the repugnants and wingers was very repugnant and I stood by Mr. Clinton in my thoughts because he was set up and pilloried for no evident reason. He lied, good, so did everyone else. I tuned out on him completely when he went hobnobbing with Mr. Bush, Sr., as he tried, in my opinion, to let the splendor of U.S. aristocracy shine on him. Then he decided that his wife would send Bush, Sr., and himself on a world tour to bolster U.S. prestige. Well, everyone can tell him that the sight of Barak Obama taking the oath of office on January 20, 2008 will do more to transform world opinion than any vain ploy he could dream up.

Josh Marshall did extremely laudable work when the repugnants were threatening Social Security. He got the Iraq war wrong, if I'm not mistaken, and he is much less cogent and convincing when discussing people's motives, in fact, the emotional substratum that determines many decisions, big and small. His cautiousness verges sometimes on inhibition.

It is striking and ridiculous how Mrs. Clinton is again being portrayed as the victim, as sorely mistreated by her husband who now goes around antagonizing people and putting himself right in the middle of the show, while she obviously approves of what he's doing in her name. These people are involved in one of the most intimate relationships imaginable, marriage, and their pillow talk must be astounding. Of course, as she said, 'I never discuss private conversations with my husband.'

It's long time for these people to vanish and take their pyschodramatical soap and self-serving power grabs with them. I'm still trying to find out how she ever, ever got to be the Democratic senatorial candidate for New York State when she had never lived there until it was decided that she would run. Friends and business relations, I suppose, clinched the deal. Her show of emotion just before the N.H. primary was far from the first time she has played the sympathy card.

Fine post BooMan. John Edwards or Barak Obama for president. Not Mr. and Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton, better known as the Clintons, Billary or Bill and Hill.  They are our friends and care deeply for everyone of us!

It's actually freeing to see someone say exactly what I've been thinking.

I hate seeing her being overshadowed by her spouse

But you simply cannot blame it all on Bill Clinton. If Hillary cannot manage him, she cannot manage the cabinet.

And more and more, I think that the only true thing Romney has said in the past months is "Imagine Bill Clinton wandering around the White House with nothing to do."

Michaela

Great post BooMan.  One additional point:  I think a lot of people (certainly me) became very nostalgic for the Clinton years since Bush has been president.  Such an incomparably awful executive made us forget a lot of the garbage.  His competence in governing is impressive but having to constantly put up with and defend the way he wielded his power and his sense of entitlement.  

You're right about the deference of bloggers too.  Keep it up.

Josh Marshall fought the good fight on social security. So did a lot of Democrats. But let's imagine that Clinton was President with a Republican congress ... and triangulated his/her way towards partially privatizing it.

Clinton would claim a win, marginalize any Democrats who stood on principle, and move the nation one step farther away from FDR.

Would a Clinton with a D congress act much differently? If history is any judge, no ... the successes in first two years of Bill Clinton's administration were mainly thing that Bush I had vetoed.

Bill Clinton to Rove: "Hey, you did a marvelous job, it was just marvelous what you did!" ... just days after the November 2004 election.

Boo Man,
   The first time I felt betrayed by Clinton when he rammed NAFTA through. I was actively working with anti-NAFTA groups and I can still remember when, just before the vote, Bonior's aide told me over the phone that they thought they had the votes to stop it. What happened next taught me something about how Clinton politics worked.
   And Bonior's now managing Obama's campaign.
   Well, that was the first betrayal, but it sure wasn't the last. The guy was impressive, but I never warmed to him. He never seemed to have any qualms about walking all over his supporters.
   I've been supporting Edwards, and I'd think he'd make a great president, but I'm fine with Obama too, and I hope that Edwards would continue playing an important role within the party and hopefully, the administration.
   The Bush years have been terrible. I have no doubt he is the worst president in American history. And yet, unlike the commenter above, I have never felt the slightest nostalgia for the Clinton years. Asking myself why,it can only be because I think this country deserves a lot better. You've expressed my own feelings exactly.