What is That On Bill Clinton's Lip?

I just saw WHAS 11's coverage of Bill Clinton stumping for Jack Conway in Lexington. I expected Slick Willie to bite his trembling lower lip. I did not expect him to have what appears to be a cold sore on his upper lip.

I don't even want to think how he got whatever that thing is. I hope Jack Conway had the good sense to not let Clinton kiss his baby daughter.

Calling Slick Willie

Jake at Page One reports that Kentucky Democratic Party disbursements for last month include "$75 on a massage for an intern."

Good to see the Democrats practice the same stewardship for donors that they do for the taxpayers.

If only said intern could have waited until Monday, when former President Bill Clinton comes to campaign for Jack Conway. I'll bet Bubba would have done the massage for free, just for the good of the party and because he's just that kind of guy.

Hide Your Daughters, Bubba's Coming Back

Jack Conway is hoping to bring Bill Clinton to rouse to the base the last week of the campaign, according to Joe Arnold.

This is all part of Conway's strategy to bury his head in the sand and pretend he has never heard the names Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid -- so he can then go to D.C. and vote for whatever they offer up.

Shortly after he won the nomination, when asked whether he would invite Obama to campaign for him, Conway -- with a straight face -- said he was pretty sure the president had more important things to do (than what, save the Senate?)

Sadly, Obama's reprise of the Carter administration makes even Republicans nostalgic for Bubba.

Disturbing

The Mail Online (via Hot Air) has one piece that will provoke two nightmares.

First, new intelligence about a head of state visit that took place during the Clinton administration:

Former Russian president Boris Yeltsin got so drunk during a visit to Washington that he was found standing outside the White House in his underpants trying to hail a cab to go and buy a pizza.

The drunken behaviour of Yeltsin, who was known for his fondness for vodka and died two years ago aged 76, were revealed by former US president Bill Clinton.

Second,

Clinton, who is no stranger to indiscretions of his own, sat down with historian Taylor Branch to give an "oral history" of his presidency.

Clinton always deed have a sense of irony.

Bubba Email Blast Targets McConnell

Fox News is reporting that former President Bill Clinton has sent an email blast to supporters, urging them to give Sen. Barack Obama a filibuster-proof Senate by defeating Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Norm Coleman and others (link of email to follow).

I doubt that either Bill or Hillary Clinton will even vote for Obama; if Obama wins, Hillary will be too old to run for president in 2012.

Clinton's aim is not to elect Obama but rather to help Hillary become Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, regardless of who is president. She might well be more duplicitous than Harry Reid.

The thought of Obama untethered -- with no filibuster to serve as a check and balance on the socialist agenda he wants to enact -- is almost too frightening to comprehend.

Kentuckians hold an historic opportunity to preserve the firewall in the U.S. Senate by returning McConnell for another term.

Hide Your Daughters -- Bubba's Back

Former President Bill Clinton will come to Kentucky this Friday to campaign for U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Lunsford and Congressional candidate David Boswell. Clinton will campaign in Bowling Green and Paducah, according to Pol Watchers.

Boswell has tried to triangulate himself into a conservative in his bid to take Rep. Ron Lewis's seat, who is retiring.

Bruce Lunsford is the bon vivant bachelor who spends millions of dollars of his own money running for assorted political offices. I hope Hillary has micro chipped Slick Willie for his TGIF tour of the Bluegrass.

Party Wreckers, Left and Right

Peggy Noonan has some harsh words for the president:

George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

I agree that Bush has hurt the Republican Party in many respects. But you have to give the man credit where credit is due: at least he got it right on the judges. Presidents come and go, but judges with life tenure tend to stick around.

Noonan also condemns what Bill Clinton is doing to the Democrats:

[T]he Clintons are tearing the party apart. It will not be the same after this. It will not be the same after its most famous leader, and probable ultimate victor, treated a proud and accomplished black man who is a U.S. senator as if he were nothing, a mere impediment to their plans.

Surprisingly, Noonan's thesis on Clinton is echoed by none other than Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich (via Instapundit):

I write this more out of sadness than anger. Bill Clinton’s ill-tempered and ill-founded attacks on Barack Obama are doing no credit to the former President, his legacy, or his wife’s campaign. Nor are they helping the Democratic party. While it may be that all is fair in love, war, and politics, it’s not fair – indeed, it’s demeaning – for a former President to say things that are patently untrue (such as Obama’s anti-war position is a “fairy tale”) or to insinuate that Obama is injecting race into the race when the former President is himself doing it.

Bill Clinton's comportment during his wife's campaign -- and his anger management problems -- gives rise to the question: how long has he been unhinged? Was he always this way, and the White House advance team just spared us the image?

Arkansas Travelers

All the news these days is from Arkansas, or so it would seem if you tuned into Louisville's television stations for the 11 p.m. newscast yesterday evening. So we will do our best to find political and Kentucky tie-ins to justify writing about these developments here.

First, there was the story of the five-year-old hunter, Tre Merritt, who killed a black bear weighing more than 400 pounds in Dewitt, Arkansas. It is tempting to make an unflattering analogy to Huck versus Hillary, but we won't.

The second Arkansas story from yesterday has more promising parallels. That news item was, of course, the continuing Odyssey of Bobby Petrino, who is more like the Bill Clinton than the Ulysses of the football world, but more about that below.

Arkansans finally have a comeback for Eddie Sutton's infamous quote, made upon his leaving the Razorbacks to coach basketball at the University of Kentucky, that he would "crawl on his hands and knees" to get out of Arkansas.

Part of the reason Sutton left Arkansas was supposedly because he could not get along with Athletic Director Frank Broyles, the legendary Razorback football coach who will retire from the AD position this year. In what could be a sign of rough times ahead in Hogland, Petrino mistakenly pronounced Broyles without the final "s" -- as in "Coach Broil" -- at yesterday's hastily called 10:30 p.m. CST press conference in Fayetteville. In Arkansas, where football is a religion, that faux pas might not produce an immediate beheading, but it's bound to irritate die-hard Razorback fans as much as, say, Rick Pitino would be perturbed for being called "Coach Petrino."

But back to politics. For those who have been wondering why Bobby Petrino is the Bill Clinton of the football world, here are some reasons:

Both men have that shameless ability to deny with a straight face the shenanigans they've been up to, and like Hillary, the fans in Louisville and now Atlanta are understandably furious for being blindsided and betrayed.

Both are also slick at getting what they want by assuring their benefactors that they are not going to move anywhere, even as they secretly make plans to do precisely that. When the Clintons (intentionally plural) last ran for governor of Arkansas in 1990, Bill earnestly assured Arkansans that, of course, he would finish his term and that he had no plans to depart for Washington -- as earnestly as Petrino assured Louisville AD Tom Jurich and Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank that he was in Louisville, make that Atlanta, make that . . . to stay. (Query whether, during his swearing-in ceremony in Frankfort yesterday, Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo was mulling a similar game plan to run for a Senate seat in Washington.)

And both Bobby and Bill have a loyalty deficiency. Ask the fans in Louisville and Atlanta about this topic. Or the Clintons' supposed "friends" from their Whitewater days who ended up in jail while the White House pleaded ignorance.

Finally, say what you want about each, but both Bobby and Bill have audacity of hope. No, wait, that's the title of the book written by that other presidential candidate who's running against Hillary. But it does lead to this final tid-bit:

The nation is aware of two politicians born in Hope, Arkansas -- Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee -- but can you name a third one born there but who now lives in the Bluegrass? The answer is former Louisville Mayor David Armstrong, an Arkansas traveler who made a good move.

Please note: The postings of "G. Morris", written by John K. Bush and which end in 2016, stated his views as of the dates of posting and should not be understood as current assertions of his views. The postings, which have not been altered since they came to an end, remain on this blog to preserve the historical record. In 2017, Mr. Bush took a position that precludes further public political comments or endorsements. He will no longer be contributing to this blog.