Bill Clinton has been everywhere in the past few days. With his ever-growing Clinton Global Initiative in town this week, the 42nd president sat for an interview with seemingly every news outlet in America. Aside from discussing his worldwide philanthropic efforts, the always popular and respected political sage offered plenty of advice to the Democrats and President Obama on how to stop being so hapless and terrible at politics.
Embrace people’s anger, he told Obama. Craft a national message and be more “vigorous” in refuting the Republicans, he said to the Democratic Party. Just be more like Clinton, essentially (never mind that Clinton was unable to stop a Republican tidal wave at the same place in his first term). And, of course, some people wish Obama was more like Clinton. At the Clinton Global Initiative, Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm gushed that “people are nostalgic for the Clinton style of governance.”
Perhaps Obama was channeling a bit of resentment, then, when he briefly roasted Clinton as the former president sat onstage at the CGI yesterday, calling him less smart, less attractive, and generally less impressive than Hillary Clinton. Clinton laughed along, because that’s what you do when you’re being roasted. Deep down, though, he wondered whether people really think his wife is better looking. Now let’s give a round of applause for Jeffrey Ross!
