Michael Kinsley once said, "A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth."
I was reminded of that yesterday when I read that Bill Clinton recently told voters that they should support his wife, "if you believe we've finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us and the seven years before that."
(As a reminder, the last seven years were brought to us by the man whose mantle his wife wears like a shawl: President Obama.)
The Clinton campaign instantly went into "cleanup in Aisle 7" mode and clarified that the former president was referring to the Republican obstructionism of the last eight years, not any failures of the Obama presidency. This hardly qualifies as a controversy, especially at a time when the grim reality of the world once again intrudes on the inanity of our politics. But there is truth in the ex-president's gaffe nonetheless.
Perhaps no president could have dented the bulwark of Republican obstructionism in the past eight years, but a selling point for Hillary Clinton should be that she is pragmatic and persistent and will work the levers of power with perhaps less grace, but more skill than the current president. In other words, she should say that she may not be the most agile of politicians, but she's a seasoned fighter who knows how to charm, cajole and compromise her way to progress.
And no matter how many times you knock her down, she will get back up with another idea and path to making the country better. As has been noted by many, even those who support him, Obama lacks these qualities. He excels at laying out a vision for a proposal, if you happen, as I do, to already agree with him. When rebuffed, he rightly blames the Republicans. But then, too often, he gives up and tries to impose his will unilaterally through the impermanence of executive order.
So I think this is the truth buried in Bill Clinton's gaffe: Hillary Clinton has the persistence and insider skills to make Washington work better.
This message doesn't fit very well with the angry, outsider, rap-rhythm of the current campaign, but it may grow in appeal as we get closer to actually electing a president who will have to confront, among other things, a very dangerous international situation. And, as Bill Clinton knows very well, to quote another political cliche (attributed to Mario Cuomo): "You campaign in poetry; you govern in prose."
This article was written by Carter Eskew from The Washington Post and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.
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