Diagnosis: Clinton fatigue
In 1999, after almost seven years of Bill Clinton's rule, the commentariat christened a new buzzterm: Clinton fatigue. The peccadilloes, the double-dealing, the outright lying had overwhelmed the American public. "The Clintons have finally worn out their welcome," wrote columnist Linda Bowles. "There is a prevailing sentiment that it's time for them to go, and to take their baggage with them."
Clinton fatigue. With the presidential election less than 11 months away, I am feeling it already.
I'm not talking about Mrs. Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Senator Clinton, Hillary Rodham, or whatever she is choosing to call herself for this news cycle. She's no different from every intelligent, overachieving, soulless corporate lawyer I've ever known. She's far from boring, and as unprincipled as she needs to be. Trotting out Bill Shaheen to slime Obama with the drug smear - slick work, Hill! You're more than ready to knife-fight with the big boys.
My Clinton fatigue is about Bill. I am getting sick of him.
Bill's problem is that he has no idea of how to be a political wife. Right now, Michelle Obama is the best in the business. Smart, accomplished, articulate, and capable of projecting empathy, she moves the Obama campaign forward with every appearance. She fills the stage without stealing the spotlight from her husband, from Oprah, or from whoever she appears with. With Bill Clinton, it's just the opposite. He is a great campaigner; he is a former president; the cameras flock to him like cocktail waitresses to a hedge-fund manager.
It's when he opens his mouth that things go awry. A few weeks ago, Tim Russert challenged Hillary to open up the archives of her activities during her husband's administration. It was a tough question, and she didn't handle it well. The fact is that all administrations, not just Bill Clinton's, have been playing hide-and-seek with the National Archives since the Nixon administration. Of course the Clintons don't want the Lewinsky Papers declassified before, say, the year 3025, but that's just smart politics.
Unfortunately, the day after the debate, Bill Clinton went on television and started blabbering about how liberal he had been with releasing archives, blah blah blah. And I thought: There he goes again. The gay deceiver, the sentence-parser, the guy who always says one thing and means another. Go away!
Not long after that, Bill again took to the lectern to "praise" his wife. Remember the "biggest regret" of my administration, he asked for about the one hundredth time? This is a recurring Bill Clinton theme, that his purported failure to intervene in the 1994 Rwandan genocide - a heartbreaking, but wise, policy decision - outweighed the failures that led to his impeachment. Clinton went on to say that Hillary wanted to intervene in Rwanda, which he presented as the correct policy choice.
This fails on every front. First: It was not the correct policy choice. Second: He was the president - the decider, if you will - and what his wife may or may not have thought was irrelevant. Men and women on the National Security Council make good money to help make these decisions. Third: It makes Hillary look ineffectual, one thing she decidedly is not. If she can't successfully lobby her own husband, how will she fare with the Chamber of Commerce, or with the House Republican Caucus?
Hillary's campaign clearly views husband Bill as an asset. Others, including the Globe's Joan Vennochi, aren't so sure. But here is a more intriguing angle, suggested by Herald columnist Margery Eagan: Is Bill "The Underminer," as defined by the hilarious book of the same name by Mike Albo and Virginia Heffernan? The underminer is your "friend" who waxes enthusiastic about your fabulous trip to New Zealand, and then lets slip that he was hang-gliding there in the early 1980s, you know, before all the American tourists arrived.
Surely you remember the famous maxim of General Von Clausewitz: Marriage is a continuation of war by other means. Just kidding! Von Clausewitz never said that. I said that. If it's true, then Bill Clinton is digging tunnels under the ramparts of his wife's campaign. And it is becoming quite fatiguing to watch.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com. 