Why is Bill Clinton campaigning for Lieberman?

Posted by Jan Frel at 1:51 PM on July 24, 2006.

It made a lot of sense to me when I read that Hillary Clinton said she'd support the Democratic nominee in the Connecticut Senate race -- on the surface it appeared she met the demands of online activists who rightly think it's crazy that Chuck Schumer and other senate Dems said they'd support Lieberman even if he didn't win the party's nomination. But the deep reality, I thought, was simple payback from Hillary saying F-U to Lieberman for dogging Bill in his zipper-related Monica crisis.

Now Bill is out campaigning for Lieberman, and for that deep reality to be true, which for some reason I care to think about, and stick to, I need more background to explain it. Enter a conversation I had this morning with a really smart guy who I talk to who is the Democratic nominee in a congressional race against one of the worst, most venal, House Republicans I've ever witnessed. He explained Bill's campaigning for Lieberman this way: Lieberman was furious that Hillary came out and said she'd support the nominee, so he lookedin his ever-shrinking rolodex and called up AIPAC, remembering that Hillary Clinton's rep with the 'Israel Lobby' isn't quite the A-grade she wants it to be for her 2008 campaign. Sure, Hillary's crazy speech outside the UN with Vito Fossella and other creeps outlining her staunchissima eternal support of Israel went a long way in helping her cause, but it didn't deliver the amnesty she needs for her kissing of Arafat's wife, all those years ago: "'...We can’t forget her kiss to Suha,'" said Helen Freedman, executive director of Americans for a Safe Israel, who attended the rally." To get the A-grade from folks like Americans for a Safe Israel, you really have to go all out. So Hillary channeled Hubert Humphrey at his most craven and offered this insane analogy to Lebanon in her speech across the block from the United Nations: "I want us here in New York to imagine, if extremist terrorists were launching rocket attacks across the Mexican or Canadian border, would we stand by or would we defend America against these attacks from extremists?"

And there it is -- in this light, it makes sense that Bill would suddenly find a passion for Joe Lieberman's re-election. It keeps my deep reality alive, and all of it was passed on by a reliable source. And after I finished typing all this, I read from Kos that Hillary was the one who got Bill to go out to Connecticut. So there you have it.