Bill Clinton Doesn't Want Hillary to Be President

Why else would he be sabotaging her campaign, columnist wonders
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 8, 2016 4:30 PM CDT
Bill Clinton Doesn't Want Hillary to Be President
Former President Bill Clinton addresses a crowd of about 1,200 at Erie Hall at Penn State Behrend in Harborcreek Township on Friday.   (Christopher Millette/Erie Times-News via AP)

"She can't divorce him," Slate's Michelle Goldberg notes about Hillary and Bill Clinton. "But she can fire him." And Goldberg says that's exactly what it's time for Hillary to do. She argues that Bill's behavior while campaigning for his wife in recent months amounts to what can only be described as "sabotage." In February, Bill said Obama isn't "a president that's a changemaker." A few weeks later, he condemned "the awful legacy of the last eight years." Both of those comments come at a time when Hillary is trying to tie herself to Obama and his policies as closely as possible. But the capper came Thursday when Bill was interrupted by Black Lives Matter activists protesting his 1994 crime bill.

In a response Goldberg argues couldn't have been worse, Bill vigorously defended his crime bill, despite the fact that he denounced it just last year and that his wife is pushing policies that go against it. Goldberg says Bill "yoked [Hillary] to his own discredited policies." It's possible Bill is just old and "slipping, mentally." But Goldberg points out he did a similar thing during the 2008 contest until Hillary lost to Obama, at which point he went back to being "one of the world’s most talented and agile politicians." Goldberg states it's more likely Bill simply doesn't want Hillary to be president. "What is needed here is probably a shrink, not a neurologist. Either he doesn’t want her to overtake him, or he doesn’t want her to repudiate him." Regardless, she says it's time for Hillary to steal a famous line from the Republican frontrunner: "You're fired." Read the full piece here. (More Hillary Clinton stories.)

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