Over-the-top hyperbole is par for the course at any party's convention, especially when it's former president Bill Clinton extolling the virtues of his wife. But there came a point last night when the former president's gushing for Hillary crossed the line into Twilight-Zone absurdity.
It was clear from the start that Mr. Clinton set a daunting task -- to sell the notion of Hillary as "the best darn change maker I've ever met," a dubious proposition when the subject at hand represents change to the same extent that Leonid Brezhnev did upon assuming power in the Soviet Union.
It was when Bill Clinton reminisced about Hillary's decision to run for the Senate that guffaws were uncorked from coast to coast --
CLINTON: In 1999 Congressman Charlie Rangel and other New York Democrats urged Hillary to run for the seat of retiring senator Pat Moynihan. We'd always intended to go to New York after I left office and commute to Arkansas, but this had never occurred to either one of us. Hillary had never run for office before but she decided to give it a try. She began her campaign the way she always does, by listening and learning, and after a tough battle New York elected her to the seat (pause for applause), to the seat once held by another outsider, Robert Kennedy. (sustained applause) And she didn't let him down.
"Another outsider" -- who only a year before running for the Senate in 1964 to represent New York had worked as attorney general in the federal government. This alone would render him the antithesis of an outsider -- but Robert Kennedy served in the administration of his older brother, John F. Kennedy, after JFK picked him for the job in an appalling display of nepotism. Attorney general and a close sibling of the president -- is it even possible to get more insider than that?
Come to think of it -- yes! Bill Clinton cites the vague timestamp of 1999 as when Hillary decided to run for Senate. Left unmentioned is what occurred earlier that year -- Clinton's trial in the Senate on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice after he was impeached in the House during the Lewinsky scandal.
No sooner had Bill Clinton dodged conviction did speculation abound that Hillary might run for that soon-to-be vacant Senate seat in New York. After all, her poll numbers had never been better after Hillary made the decision to stand by her man during the year-long scandal, a la Tammy Wynette, whom she'd once so blithely derided.
When Hillary Clinton ran for the Senate in 1999 and 2000, she was still first lady, still co-president in the now-badly frayed Clinton presidency. Does it get more insider, Kennedys aside, than a candidate running for office while she's married to the president?
In fairness, Bill Clinton isn't entirely off the mark with his strained analogy. Both Kennedy and Clinton were carpetbaggers when they ran for the Senate. But "outsider" has a more appealing ring to it, especially in this political season.
