What Has Become of Bubba?

Have you seen Bill Clinton lately?

I think it is fair to say that the version of Bubba that is currently making the rounds, ostensibly in support of the candidacy of his wife Hillary, is a far cry from the one we remember as president and for a few years thereafter.  Yup, it is pretty sad watching him make speeches and answer questions abut the campaign.

He has allegedly become a vegan, or at least "gone vegan", presumably the result of his imperfect cardiac health and the after-effects of an indulgent life.  Being a vegan will make you miserable anyway, especially if it is not particularly voluntary and emotionally committed.  And Bill Clinton looks miserable.  Certainly last night on stage with his wife as she was being demolished in the New Hampshire primary by Bernie Sanders.  Let's just say his suit looked a lot better than Bill did.

I would offer that there is a large part of his perceived misery that is associated with the fact that there is a campaign in the first place.  Back in April I wrote that I believed that Bill absolutely did not want Hillary to run for president.  It was completely at odds with what he wanted; no matter how you define the role of a man married to the president of the USA, it would not fit with the lifestyle Bill Clinton wanted for himself.

Golf?  Occasionally, sure; he could be allowed to do that.  But from that point his freedom would be immensely restricted.  No more speechifying overseas for $10 million a year.  No more being treated like royalty by the royalty of regimes that treat women and others as disposable.  Couldn't get away with that.  Clinton Foundation?  Nope, no more of that -- conflict of interest all over the place when your wife is president.

It is pretty obvious that Bill Clinton is about the most reluctant presidential campaign spouse you could possibly imagine.  And he looks it.  That is a man with zero energy; he was a man who was once an active, aggressive, happy warrior on the campaign trail -- in bygone days.  Today he is reduced to accusing the Sanders campaign of sexism.  Even Bill can't believe that, and no one short of John Kennedy has ever treated the White House more as his personal brothel than he did.  No accusation of sexism from Bill Clinton is taken seriously.

But there's one other thing that I did not mention in the April piece, and now as I look at the uninspired, reluctant candidate's spouse that Bill has become, it finally makes more sense to me.  It's a matter of legacy.

Bill Clinton left the White House in a stench of scandal, having gotten caught dallying with a young intern, and having gotten impeached for lying in relation to testimony about the case.  But over time, l'affaire Lewinsky became less the defining element of his presidency.  It didn't go away, mind you, and certainly he will be associated with the incident forever.

But time has given the spin doctors time to write (and to some extent, rewrite) the history of the Clinton years to where we are more frequently reminded of positive things, such as the balancing of the Federal budget and some reforms to welfare.  One way or the other, by 2016, absent the Hillary campaign, we would be remembering the Clinton presidency and its legacy in a more positive manner.

But we are not absent the Hillary campaign; it is out there as loud as you please. 

Along with the campaign come some things that would be far more minor were she not campaigning, such as the egregious email scandal, which is smelling more and more like an indictment (or a mass resignation at the FBI if there is not an indictment).  There is the manipulation of the press, a bribery-for-access scandal just now out.  There are the gargantuan conflicts of interest at the State Department during her tenure there, associated with Bill's speeches for countries wanting favors from State.  That smells pretty bad, too.

And with each of those huge negatives, Bill and his presidential legacy are colored with the negatives associated with his wife.  Rather than live the life of a popular ex-president, traveling, golfing, making scads of money and celebrating a presidential legacy of his own, he is denied all that.

Bill Clinton looks like a very, very sad man right now.  There is not a shred of doubt why, and only a part of it is that vegan thing.

Nope -- Hillary is getting her revenge.  She just doesn't know that she is.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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