No one expected Bill Clinton to be a silent partner.  We expected President Clinton to be an ardent advocate for his wife’s candidacy. But the degree to which he has squarely taken on Senator Barack Obama, his wife’s chief rival, has given many people pause. Bill Clinton has involved himself in a tit-for-tat exchange with Senator Obama and his supporters in a manner which is highly unbecoming for an ex-president. Not only does it hurt Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy in the long run (though it may pay short term dividends), but it threatens to tarnish President Clinton’s legacy.

            To be sure, campaigns typically have “attack dogs” (i.e. surrogates who do the dirty work, who says tough things about the opponent that the candidate cannot easily get away with saying). These individuals allow the candidate to appear to be “above the fray” while allowing someone else to sling the mud at their opponent on their behalf.  However, one does not usually think of this role being fulfilled by a former President of the United States (who also goes by titles such as “Commander in Chief,” and “Leader of the Free World”). When one thinks of an ex-president, being the “attack dog” for a political candidate does not readily come to mind. Rather, Jimmy Carter’s work with Habitat with Humanity is more like it. Or President George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton urging Americans to donate funds to help the victims of the South Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina comes to mind.  Being a former President of the United States places an individual in easily the most exclusive club in the world. It is a status which commands considerable prestige, both within this country and around the globe. An ex-president is considered a statesman. Bill Clinton cheapens the dignity of his position by performing a role more appropriate for a precinct captain in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign than for a former president.

            Not only has Mr. Clinton diminished his stature by personally taking on Senator Obama,, but he has done so in a disingenuous and dishonest way. The former president opened the attack on Obama  last month by questioning his readiness in an interview with PBS‘s .Charlie Rose. He compared himself to Obama, asserting that he had had the “good sense” to resist the temptation to run for President in 1988 (though in his heart, he badly wanted to) because he nevertheless concluded that he was not “ready” to be president. Electing Obama, Clinton went on, would amount to America “rolling the dice” with its future. Though denying he was suggesting Obama should not be running, he clearly implied that very thing by setting himself up as a counterexample to the Illinois senator.    However, Carl Bernstein’s recent biography of Hillary Clinton, A Woman in Charge suggests another motive for then-Governor Clinton’s decision to forego the 1988 presidential campaign - the fear that his extramarital affairs would be exposed to a national audience. Recall the context of the times: personal indiscretions sank the careers of many prominent political figures during the late 1980’s. Gary Hart’s affair with Donna Rice preempted his presidential run. Charges of plagiarism against Senator Joe Biden from his law school days derailed his presidential campaign. Supreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg’s confirmation was scuttled by his admission to marijuana use during his youth. In 1989, the U.S. Senate did something virtually unheard of when they failed to confirm one of its own (Texas Senator John Tower) as President Bush’s Secretary of Defense because it was revealed he had a drinking problem. This, within this context, Governor Clinton had every reason to believe that, given the political and media climate of the 1988 campaign, that his effort could not survive these kinds of revelations.  Bernstein’s account suggests the former president is not being straightforward and honest about his real reasons for delaying his run for president until 1992. He is, therefore, not in the best position to use the “experience” argument against Obama.

            Moreover, Bill Clinton has made several statements about Senator Obama in recent weeks that are simply not true. They include, for example, taking remarks Barack Obama made in 2004 out of context in order to make the claim that the Illinois senator is not being truthful when he claims that he has been consistently against the war in Iraq from the start. Both he and Hillary Clinton deliberately distorted his observations from an interview with a Nevada radio station: they asserted (and continue to assert) that Obama praised Ronald Reagan and believed that during the 1980’s and 1990’s, the Republicans were :”the party of ideas.”  In actuality, Obama was acknowledging what is a unmistakable historical fact - the idea that,  like it or not, Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of American politics in a way that favored Republicans and conservative political causes. Reagan’s  election in 1980 shifted the nation’s political discourse to the right in a manner not unlike the way Franklin Roosevelt’s election in 1932 moved the center of gravity of American politics to the left.  Even worse, Bill Clinton himself recognized this fact by helping to found the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) in 1986. Led by Southern moderates like himself, Al Gore, and Dick Gephardt, the DLC arose from the ashes of Walter Mondale losing 49 states to Reagan in 1984. Reaganism had made old-style New Deal liberalism obsolete, the DLC reasoned: the Democratic party had to move “to the center” in order to be competitive again in national elections. Mrs. Clinton, for her part, praised Ronald Reagan in a book soon to be released by former NBC evening news anchor Tom Brokaw. The Clintons’ “outrage” over  Obama’s acknowledgement of Ronald Reagan as a transformational leader represents hypocrisy at a very high level.

            In the short run, the former president’s tactics are creating real resentment in the African American community, which black voters can  exercise against Mrs. Clinton in the South Carolina primary and in other states.. If this continues, Hillary Clinton may find herself with significant fences to mend with the African American electorate if she does indeed go on to secure the Democratic Party nomination. She may even be forced to offer the vice presidential slot to Obama as a peace offering to black voters.

            However, Bill Clinton’s high-profile role in his wife’s campaign hurts her in the long run.  Many Americans associate the 1990’s with peace and prosperity and give the former president a good deal of the credit for it. As distance has increased between the present and the Clinton presidency, Bill Clinton’s image has gradually improved (He has particularly look good when compared to George W. Bush, who has been grossly  unpopular on the most sustained basis of any president in the history of modern polling.). Unfortunately, the former president’s behavior in recent weeks reminds us of the very personal shortcomings  that annoyed so many of us about him while he was president - his selfishness, his tendency to sink into pettiness, his penchant for playing the role of “victim,” and his legendary problems with telling the truth.

            A recent poll, for example, reminded us that while Bush’s approval rating stands at 34% with a year remaining in his term, Clinton’s figure was 62% at the same point in his presidency. Yet, we forget that in many of those same surveys, American voters made a clear distinction between Clinton’s job performance  and their view of Bill Clinton as a person. While a sizable majority approved of the job Clinton did as president,  most Americans held very low opinions about his personal character.  Too often in the 1990’s, supporting Clinton required Democrats to hold their noses and explain away a lot of embarrassing details - motivated in part by the conviction that those who were Clinton’s most vociferous opponents were far worse. In an odd sort of way, the former president is making the case for the signature argument of the Obama campaign: the idea that it is time for a different kind of politics that rises above petty bickering of the recent past to solve the real problems that ail America.

            By striking such a bitterly partisan and public role in Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Bill Clinton plays right into the hands of the Republicans. The GOP is certainly taking notes while the Clinton-Obama heavyweight fight rages on. Just as Obama challenges the president’s truthfulness, the Republicans will do the same. It will allow the Republicans to ask the average voter a very basic question: do you really want eight more years of the Clintons? More pointedly, is Bill Clinton trying to get around the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which limits the president to two terms? Mr. Clinton, they would say, would be a “co-president,” not simply a trusted adviser. Newt Gingrich on Fox’s Hannity and Combs foreshadowed the Republican argument that will be made in the fall when he called Bill Clinton’s heavy-handed role in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign ‘the most audacious power grab” of any couple in American history.

            Bill Clinton seems to have forgotten that he’s not the candidate - Hillary is. Mr. Clinton’s zeal appears to be as much about vindicating his own legacy as it is working to insure her triumph. However, he should take a cue from his predecessor, George H.W. Bush, who wisely stayed in the shadows for the most part when his son ran for president in 2000. Given the fact that one of the biggest vulnerabilities of candidate George W. Bush was his lack of national experience, the last thing he needed was the public perception that his father, the classic Washington insider, was the one who was running the show.

            Though the two situations are not exactly identical, Bill Clinton needs to be reminded that it is Hillary whose name is on the ballot this time. If his behavior continues, he will turn off voters who might otherwise vote for her (There is already evidence that this is starting to happen among black voters.). This does not mean he has to retreat completely behind the stage. He should play a limited public role.  But Bill easily overshadows Hillary, and that is the problem. He is a remarkable asset (which, if Al Gore had used properly, he would  probably be president today.) But he also comes with a lot of baggage. The more Bill is the face of the Clinton campaign, the weaker Hillary is in the long run.

            This is from a person who, believe it or not, likes Bill Clinton. CHILL OUT, MR. PRESIDENT!