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Much has been made of the aggressive way Bill Clinton has been attacking his wife’s rival Barack Obama. But we spend a lot of time around girls, and to us, their back-and-forth is decidedly more passive aggressive. “For a lot of young people, they buy [Obama’s] argument that since the Bush people were full of experience and they messed it up, the best thing is to wipe the slate clean and start over again,” Clinton said earlier this month. “That’s like saying that since 100 percent of medical malpractice is committed by doctors, the next time you need surgery, you should get a non-doctor to do it.”
Soon enough, Obama pinched back. “If you get the kind of looseness with the facts that Senator Clinton displayed, and you’re willing to say anything to get a political or tactical advantage, that erodes people’s trust in government,” he said last week. But over the weekend came their Mean-Girl–est moment yet.
After Clinton condescendingly played down the Illinois senator’s win in the South Carolina primary by comparing it to Jesse Jackson’s twenty years ago, Obama suggested to George Stephanopoulos that, really, the sad old man just couldn’t help but be racist. He was just so old and out of touch, you know? “Well, you know, I think that that’s his frame of reference was the Jesse Jackson races,” he told ABC’s This Week. “That’s when, you know, he was active and involved and watching what was going to take place in South Carolina.” As opposed to now, when he’s a drooling old man who should practically be put in a home, you know? If our past experience is any indication, they’ll be rolling on the floor and pulling each other’s hair any day now.
This Week (Transcript) [ABC News]
