The joke in that title belongs entirely to Professor Bérubé whose endorsement of Barack Obama at TPMCafe you should read as much for its wit as its wisdom, even though I don’t quite share his Clinton fatigue.

Let me start by discussing all the talked-about reasons for choosing Obama over Clinton that did not, I repeat, did not influence my decision.

I do not believe that Hillary, or her ex-president husband, have run a Rovian smear campaign against Obama.

I do not believe they played the race card.

I do not believe that either Hillary or Bill will say anything or do anything to get elected.

I don’t believe that what either or both Clintons’ careers in politics and governance have always been about is themselves.

I don’t believe Bill Clinton has a pathological need to hog the political spotlight, nor do I believe Hillary’s would be a co-presidency, nor that “Bill” would be rattling around the White House with nothing to do. Clearly, he would resume the work he has been doing with his foundation, his Presidential library and the graduate school of public service he has founded at the U of Arkansas, that is also part of the library.

I do not believe, as William Greider, a writer whose work I have admired and probably will again, would have it in The Nation, that “…the Clintons play dirty when they feel threatened. But we knew that, didn’t we?”

No, some of us didn’t and we still don’t.

Greider continues:

The recent roughing-up of Barack Obama was in the trademark style of the Clinton years in the White House. High-minded and self-important on the surface, smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard to the groin area. They are a slippery pair and come as a package.”

The thought of the Clintons back in the White House makes Greider “queasy.” :

The one-two style of Clintons, however, is as informative as low-life street fighters. Mr. Bill punches Obama in the kidney and from the rear. When Obama whirls around to strike back, there stands Mrs. Clinton, looking like a prim Sunday School teacher and citing goody-goody lessons she learned from her 135 years in government.

edit

The style is very familiar to official Washington, not just among the Clintons’ partisan adversaries, but among their supporters. The man lied to his friends. All the time. They got used to it. They came to expect it. I observe a good many old hands among the Senate Democrats are getting behind Obama. It would be good to know more about why they declined to make the more obvious choice of endorsing the power couple.

Reading Mr. Geider’s unsourced assertions made me queasy, and not about the Clintons.  Read more