Friends Close, Enemies Closer, Rivals At Mid-Distance

Hillary for VP? 

While Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her advisers insist that she is determined to win the Democratic nomination, friends of the couple say that former President Bill Clinton, for one, has begun privately contemplating a different outcome for her: As Senator Barack Obama’s running mate.

I can think of two reasons for Barack to contemplate this insanity - one is the Godfather's advice to keep your friends close and your enemies closer; the second is the Lincolnesque "Team of Rivals" scenario.

However, the key concept with Lincoln was "team" - he had a number of rivals jockeying amongst each other as well as (potentially) against him, so he could play the shifting alliances against each other (I say this not having read the book, but I did hear Ms. Goodwin discussing it with Don Imus, so I am practically an expert). 

The idea that Obama wants to spend four or eight years (or even eight minutes) trying to keep tabs on Hillary's endless machinations as she grooms her own base and tries to claim credit for the accomplishments of the Obama Administration while distancing herself from its failures, all with Wild Bill prancing about doing his satyr dance, defies credulity.

Surely the Democratic party does not lack for boring, reassuring white guys who will bring along most of Hillary's supporters and none of her baggage.

WELL, IF HE IS WILLING TO MEET WITH MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD:

Formal Talks

CNN is reporting this morning that the Obama and Clinton campaigns are in formal talks about ending her quest for the Democratic nomination and possibly giving her the VP slot.

These apparent talks are described by CNN as being in a ``very preliminary'' stage and as "difficult."

Presumably they met with no preconditions, but plenty of preparation.  In fact, the Obama's campaign had detailed preparations covering A to G and beyond.

Comments

[kim]

Watch him pick Gore just as Hell freezes over.
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[centralcal]

Good one, Kim.

In other news Tucker Carlson may enter the ring . . . the Libertarian ring, that is. Take that Bob Barr!

[Bill in AZ]

I thot it was McCain contemplating Hillary as VP... dang, I can't keep up...

[Cecil Turner]

One interesting dynamic of the unsettled nomination process is that the critical delegates (read: unpledged superdelegates) can force modifications of the ticket. B_O might not be the final authority on who his running mate is.

[clarice]

(I'm always happy when my typing and proofreading deficiencies prove contagious,TM.)

[Buford Gooch]

It would be akin to Cleopatra holding the asp to her breast.

[Rick Ballard]

Buford,

On a Shakespearean basis, wouldn't it be closer to Julius Caesar declaring a desire to spend more quality time with his friend Brutus? I do like the casting of RW as an asp, though. Good fit.

[Neo]

If Ted Kennedy could oblige by dropping off early, they won't have to make any excuses for his comments that Hiliary can't be Obama running mate. Or, better yet, maybe they could claim that he was already comatose.

[Appalled]

I have tended to dismiss those who claim Hillary wants a President McCain to preserve her 2012 viability. But, by trying to force her way on the ticket, I begin to think those folks might have a point. All Hillary brings to the ticket is her collection of negatives, and the Big Bill show. The right answer for Obama is to make a big Hillary supporter (Wes Clark, maybe)his Veep, and let Hillary cling bitterly to her guns and her religion (which I think has soemthing to do with graven images found in Michigan and Florida).

[Soylent Red]

No way Obamessiah accepts her as a running mate. No frickin way:

1. What does she truly bring to the ticket? Poor white people? Hardly. They were looking for a handout candidate who wasn't black. She was all they had to choose from.

2. Obamessiah is already going to be a Secret Service nightmare. Every racist cracker on earth will be plotting. With the Clintons in there, he'll have to worry about an inside job.

3. She ruins his whole illusion of "change". She's about as far from idealistic dreaminess as a person can get.

4. She won't accept it. Too much ego, and too long a wait until her turn. Which would tend to exacerbate #2.

[Soylent Red]

One thing that does come to mind, thanks to Neo, is how an Obamessiah campaign will treat a Kennedy funeral.

Another Wellstone memorial? I don't think that's out of the question, especially if the race is close and the base is shaky.

[Danube of Thought]

If she wouldn't accept it, how come Bubba is openly hustling for her to get asked?

[Mitch H.]

Goodwin aside, Lincoln's cabinets were chaotic lunacy incarnate, with cabinet secretaries running wild in each other's bailiwicks. The Secretaries of State and the Treasury (who both thought they should have been president instead) meddled destructively with military policy, the Secretary of War tromped all over the Attorney General, and Lincoln himself often ignored his own secretaries to indulge in direct interference with their departments, in total disregard of any sort of chain of command.

[kim]

Thanks, cc, I appreciate that. I'm better when I stick to my own jokes, rather than repeating someone else's.
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[richard mcenroe]

President Andrew Johnson. Any further questions?

[Pagar]

Has anyone asked Vince Foster what he would recommend?

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

It's Barack to the Future. Specifically, 1960 when a callow, but charismatic Senator needed gravitas and added the Senate Majority Leader to the team. With nasty consequences.

Michelle plays Bobby Kennedy.

[Danube of Thought]

Bubba ain't gonna be no Lady Bird.

[Bill in AZ]

Watch him pick Gore just as Hell freezes over.

Pretty close to that right now... Gila Bend, AZ is a screen door away from hell, and it's snowing less than 100 miles from Gila Bend right now. Prolly a warm snow, though, with GloBull Warming and all...

[Neo]

Jonah hits a homerun with this beauty ..

The country is being forced to subscribe to a modern version of transubstantiation, whereby corn is miraculously transformed into sinless energy even as it does worse damage than oil.

Al gore call your ministry.

[SteveJ]

Hillary lived for eight years in the shadow of a popular man -- her husband. I doubt that she's game for another time around, living in yet another shadow.

[Neo]

And where do you keep this guy ..

"I'll tell you my impression. We really in this last election, when I say we...the Democrats, I think pushed it as far as we can to the end of the fleet, didn't say it, but we implied it. That if we won the Congressional elections, we could stop the war. Now anybody was a good student of Government would know that wasn't true. But you know, the temptation to want to win back the Congress, we sort of stretched the facts...and people ate it up."

Woof.

[Thomas Collins]

If B57O ends up with the nomination, Hillbillary gets the VP nod. The long used phrase "politics makes strange bedfellows" is applicable here. B57O in bed with Hillbillary is actually a more plausible sight than the JFK/LBJ 1960 pairing for the Dems.

[Porchlight]

Thomas Collins,

On that topic, check out the Hot Air thread about a possible Obama-Clinton negotiation deal in the works:

An end to Chaos?

The reported deal is that she wants him to publicly offer her the VP slot so she can respectfully decline, a face-saving strategy on her part. In return she'll give him her pledged delegates and begin encouraging her voters to support him. Oh, and she also wants him to clear her campaign debt of $20 million.

But Obama's afraid to sign on to the deal. Why? Because he doesn't trust her to decline the nomination as promised!

I will be so sad when this hugely entertaining primary is over.

[Jane]

OT: Obama just accused Bush of coddling Cuba. I kid you not.

And now he is announcing his agenda of - get this:

"Freedom from fear"

[PeterUK]

"I do like the casting of RW as an asp, though. "

That's a hell of a big asp!

[PeterUK]

"Freedom from fear"

I was frightened he would use that one.

[vnjagvet]

He has nothing to fear but the big asp herself, PUK.

[Jane]

I think "Freedom from fear" must be a right, in the Obama constitution.

Obama figures we will never know what hit us.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

OT, but I just heard a clip of Joe Biden criticizing John McCain for making an ad hominem argument. He goes on to say something like;

It's as if, in the middle of a debate on a highway traffic safety bill, John McCain said I was wrong; that the bill wouldn't make the highways safer, and I responded: "My wife and child were killed in a traffic accidnet. Don't tell me about traffic safety."

Biden's right that that's a logical fallacy, but it's an appeal to emotion (or to a spurious authority), not an ad hominem (to the man, not to the man's argument).

A good example of a real ad hominem would be if Biden had responded to McCain's safety claim by saying: 'Don't listen to McCain. He dumped his first wife when he met someone prettier and richer.'

[clarice]

Actually, didn't Biden lose family members to a traffic accident?

[Soylent Red]

I think the proper nomenclature is that Hillary is a fat asp. Or something like that.

DoT:

Bubba is pushing because he'll settle. When, at any time during her campaign, has Bubba been with the program?

[PeterUK]

Could be worse, could be "Freedom from beer".

[PeterUK]

Actually Scooter Libby's remark about "aspens" is beginning to make sense.

[kim]

'Freedom from Fear' is a naive and confusing riff off of 'All we have to fear is fear itself'. Actually, it is somewhat emblematic of the difference between Obama, the flyweight, and Roosevelt, the cruiser.
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[Ann]

Heck, with the V.P. nod, Hillary is in this for the long haul because Barack might be assassinated:

Via Drudge:

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out

[PD Quig]

"In fact, the Obama's campaign had detailed preparations covering A to G and beyond."

All way up to Preparation H? He's going to need a tube or two before Bill Clinton is done with his skinny rear end.

[Sara]

Clinton says reports of veep negotiations untrue

Asked if her campaign had any discussions with the Obama campaign about her possibly bowing out in exchange for the vice president slot, Clinton said: “It is flatly untrue and it is not anything I’m entertaining. It is nothing I have planned and it is nothing I am prepared to engage in. I am still vigorously campaigning.”

[ahg]

Obama good at golf? Tiger would make a better president. He won't pain either.

Obama propably wants to forgive the land claims and look gooh all around. No more socialist land issues, etc. His pals want the land though.

The luciferian wreck probably had something to do with Obama and Kenya, S.Africa, etc. Yes, Obama and his pals and their history is the same as a combat vet who was tortured to death and Hilly's feminists who endured years of repression. Everyone is equal in their sacrifice to the country.

Appeals courts? We can find better people who have agendas that will really help everybody.

[centralcal]

"We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California."

Well, Ann, there went Hillary's VP chances! Aw, heck, she probably didn't even have a chance. These Clintons are sure some skilled campaigners.

[MikeS]

'Freedom from Fear' is a naive and confusing riff off of 'All we have to fear is fear itself'.

Obama still wants us to be afraid of fair trade, just not of terrorists and their sponsors.

Obama is going to make all these decisions for us about what to be afraid of, what to eat, what to drive, what temperature to keep our homes, etc.

[windansea]

re Obama assasination fox paw by Hill

in Brandon, SD:

“Earlier today I was discussing the Democratic primary history and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June 1992 and 1968 and I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That’s a historic fact. The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that, whatsoever. My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to, and I’m honored to hold Senator Kennedy’s seat in the United States Senate from the state of New York and have the highest regard for the entire Kennedy family.”

me head hurts

[windansea]

y'all know what a fox paw is don't cha?

[centralcal]

faux pas?

[windansea]

faux pas?

ding...winner read the thread on this at Hot Air

sample:

Hilary: Oh, shoot… I mean darn, that didn’t come out right. I will be sure to fire… I mean discharge… NO, I mean dis-employ my staffer who wrote that. My aim… I mean target (oh, crap) I mean goal was to make a reference to the time line. But I cocked… I mean messed it up and the press is going to murder… oh… I… give up… (bangs… I mean hits… no, I mean beats head against desk)

db on May 23, 2008 at 5:20 PM

[Ann]

Her apology doesn't match up with her incredibly stupid "Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June" statement. Imagine a republican making that statement.

MSDNC is already spinning how tired she is because of the last week. Brother! I know this woman and she is campaigning on the Democrat FEAR factor.

What's a fox paw, Wind? :)

[Ann]

I love this comment at Hot Air:

She out Huckabeeed Huckabee!!!

(I forgot about his fox paw!)

[PaulL]

It's not like Sen. Clinton *called for* "Sen." Obama's assassination.

[section9]

I simply don't understand what everyone's all bent out of shape about. She's simply channeling the Inner Spirit of the Undead Richard M. Nixon, which has decided to inhabit her body for the duration of the campaign.

She'll go out and buy Bill a nice Republican cloth coat, call Pat Buchanan, Roger Ailes and get the Old 1966 Gang back together and show those Pansies at the DNC how a real Convention is run. Do you think for one minute that the Undead Nixon would let some candy-a** McGovern Wannabe steal the nomination from him? Forget it!

Time for Hillary to take a nice, lonely walk on the beach with the Ghost of King Timahoe.....

Now where the f**k is Donald Segretti, dammit!

[Danube of Thought]

That is the modern-day version of what passes for an "apology." It's not "what I said [or did] was wrong and I apologize for it and ask your forgiveness." It's "to the extent anybody was offended I regret that."

Jesus...

Peggy Noonan does a pretty good hatchet job on her, and it was done before the "assassination" flap.