The account in the new book Game Change of Bill Clinton's fury in a phone conversation with Ted Kennedy over his refusal to endorse Hillary has the ring of truth. Clinton was venting to a lot of people about how he thought Obama was jumping the line to be president, and hadn't paid his dues the way Hillary had. The crack about Obama would have been serving coffee to them just a few years earlier struck me as less racial than his view that Obama was little more than an intern compared to Hillary with her lengthy resume of public service. In the 2008 NEWSWEEK Election Project, we had an account of Clinton's call to Donna Brazile making much the same points he made to Kennedy. "If Barack Obama is nominated, it will be the worst denigration of public service," Clinton told her in a rant that went on for much of an hour. Brazile kept asking him, "Why are you so angry?" Clinton was disbelieving that the Democratic Party would desert his wife, and by implication, him─and it's true that Hillary never called Caroline Kennedy to ask for her endorsement, which gave Caroline an easy out.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
