Monday, January 21, 2008

Re: Tomasky on Clinton   [Mark Steyn]

Jonah, you'd have to have a heart of stone not to fall around laughing at that Michael Tomasky quote:

I don’t know who on this planet has the stature to go face-to-face with Bill Clinton and look him in the eye and tell him he behaved in a discreditable fashion. His wife? His buddy Vernon Jordan? Whoever it is, someone had better stop him. He campaigned against a fellow Democrat no differently than if Obama had been Newt Gingrich. The Clinton campaign may conclude that, numerically and on balance, Bill helped. But, trust me, to the thousands of committed progressives who supported him when he really needed it, who went to the mat for him at his moment of (largely self-inflicted) crisis but who now happen to be supporting someone other than his wife, he’s done himself a tremendous amount of damage. 

That's from a column he entitled "Winning Ugly". I've only met Michael Tomasky once. More or less exactly nine years ago. Beginning of the impeachment trial. David Frum and I had a cup of tea with Mr Tomasky, and over a blueberry muffin or two in essence we asked him the same questions he's asking today: Who's prepared to look Bill Clinton in the eye and tell him to stop? His wife? Vernon Jordan? And his answer boiled down to: Well, Democrats figure he's our guy, we're circling the wagons, etc.

Tomasky's missing the point: It's in part because "thousands of committed progressives... went to the mat for him" that he's in a position to screw you over ten years later. He decided back then he'd do what was necessary to win. Why would you expect him to behave any differently today? And how deluded do you have to be to think, of all people, Vernon Jordan's going to tell him to cut it out?

I love the way all these worldly Democratic sophisticates - the ones who told us "everybody does it" - sound so sweetly naive at discovering that this time round "everybody" has done it to them. Better get used to a lot more of that.

01/21 04:45 PMShare