ChiTrib editorial on BC's role in HC's campaign: President Heckler

[City Lights]

President Heckler

January 22, 2008

The best observation heard about the peculiar campaign antics of Bill Clinton is that he's behaving like a Little League dad: screaming from the stands, discomfiting those he's trying to help and generally forgetting that he's not supposed to be the center of attention. And that comment reportedly came from someone in Hillary Clinton's campaign.

But Bill, never famous for self-restraint, can't seem to help himself. He wants his wife to be president, and he's apparently willing to do anything to help her reach that goal -- anything but shut up.

In recent weeks, as Hillary Clinton found herself in a close race with Barack Obama, the former president has repeatedly taken potshots at the upstart challenger. The man from Hope fumed that Obama's claim to have consistently opposed the Iraq war was "the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen." He warned that to elect someone with Obama's credentials would be to "roll the dice." He said the Illinois senator has run a negative campaign and "I have been blistered by it for months," a claim no one else has been able to confirm.

Clinton seems to see his function as something like the traditional task assigned to the presidential nominee's running mate -- attack dog. Other critics refer to him as Hillary Clinton's Karl Rove. However described, he's settled on a terrible role.

Traditionally, former presidents generally prefer not to take sides in the intra-party primary fray, much less descend into the muck. A former president has an obligation to his party and his country to treat his would-be successors with a respect borne of experience on the firing line.

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