Saturday, June 02, 2012

Best Bill Clinton story ever?

Gail Collins, after a little inside dope illustrating the shallowness of John Edwards' engagement with policy questions, has this about Bill:
I’ve listened to in-depth policy discussions with a lot of presidential hopefuls. I once rode in a car with Bill Clinton, during which he gave a nonstop disquisition on highway funding that I found a little disjointed until I looked over and noticed that he had actually nodded off and was talking in his sleep.
Ditto for Hillary. When the firestorm broke in May 2008 over her reference to Bobby Kennedy's assassination (as evidence that primary fights should really just be getting going in June), I watched the whole 60 minutes of her interview with the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader in which that gaffe occurred (in the final two minutes). She too looked gaunt, exhausted, ready to fall asleep in mid-sentence. But I wish the tape or transcript were still up and you could hear that woman discourse on Native American policy and the varieties of potential ethanol sources and western water distribution arrangements.

Obama is the same way -- now, if not always in 2007-2008. But then, policy fluency isn't eveything...

1 comment:

  1. The 2008 democratic primary battle was effectively over in March…

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