Haven’t you missed Bill Clinton?  The above YouTube will remind you why.

Actually, much of the blame for the debased state of our modern politics rightly lies at Clinton’s feet.  When ordinary people dream of being president, they don’t harbor visions of enacting a micro-agenda that focuses on minutiae like school uniforms, midnight basketball and drive-through deliveries (which Clinton often incorrectly labeled “drive-by deliveries”, a term that made absolutely no sense).  For a purely political creature like Bill Clinton, it was all about having power.  Doing something or anything with that power was a side thought.

In the YouTube above, Clinton conflates the attacks on General David Petraeus with the former POTUS’ fanciful reminisces of political attacks on  John Kerry and Max Cleland.  Normally, I question Bill Clinton’s sincerity any time his lips are moving, but in this clip he shows that little flash of indignant anger that indicates you’re getting a glimpse at the man’s core. 

Of course he would see no difference between a couple of office-seekers and a man who is leading 160,000 American soldiers in combat.  Everything for this man has always been about politics.  The notion of a figure who transcends politics probably makes as much sense to Bill Clinton as the idea of a man who transcends gravity. 

Bill Clinton may have been the master of the game, but his philosophical heirs are still at work at organizations like Moveon.org and the Daily Kos.  They, too, view everything as political and couldn’t possibly understand why a Four Star General leading 160,000 troops in harm’s way shouldn’t be treated as a partisan enemy.  It takes the political deftness of Bill Clinton to makes his rubbish remotely sellable, talents that the likes of Eli Pariser and Markos Moulitsas happily lack.

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