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Ruth: Bill Clinton hands Donald Trump a gift with health care line

 
Bill Clinton delivered the sound bite of the week, calling Obamacare “the craziest thing in the world.”
Bill Clinton delivered the sound bite of the week, calling Obamacare “the craziest thing in the world.”
Published Oct. 7, 2016

There Hillary Clinton is on the campaign trail, fending off all the eye-rolling things coming out of that man's mouth at any given moment.

Oh, and then there is Donald Trump.

For a chap who likes to think of his political skills along the lines of Thomas Jefferson meets Benjamin Disraeli meets The West Wing's Jed Bartlet, former President Bill Clinton appeared to be channeling his inner Machiavelli the other day when he threw his wife and Barack Obama under the 24-hour news cycle bus.

Speaking before a political rally in Flint, Mich., Bill Clinton weighed in on the Affordable Care Act, with this observation: "So you got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care and the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. It's the craziest thing in the world."

By the way, this was a Democratic Party political rally in Flint promoting Hillary Clinton's campaign. And yes, let's dispense with two obvious points.

First, Bill Clinton has been supportive of the health care law. And second, it is hardly a state secret the program has had more than its fair share of problems as duly noted by the former president.

It's not Bill Clinton's assessment of the law that has posed a political problem for his wife. It's the fact he handed over a big, fat, juicy slice of political opposition material to the Trump camp. Talk about the "craziest thing in the world."

Bill Clinton doesn't need a campaign bus. He needs a shawl, a glass of warm milk and a long nap — until Nov. 8.

It was bad enough he provided Trump with the script for a commercial attacking his wife. The couch in the den better be comfortable. This wasn't some political neophyte committing an awkward gaffe. This was a former president uniquely familiar with the health care debate in the United States.

But it also wasn't a bright idea to undermine the signature public policy initiative of Obama's two terms in the Oval Office. After all, Hillary Clinton is very much beholden to the enthusiastic support of both Barack and Michelle Obama. The president can't be too terribly happy to have one of his predecessors casting aspersions on a public policy program that has been named Obamacare. Too subtle?

By the next day, Bill Clinton was in full, "Pay no mind to the stuff I just said" mode, as he extolled the myriad wonders of the Affordable Care Act. Meanwhile a Hillary Clinton flack attempted to dismiss the contretemps as merely a case of Bill Clinton being "slightly short-handed" in discussing the law.

Really? Referring to the law as "the craziest thing in the world" in the midst of a contentious presidential campaign is not slightly short-handed. Muddle-headed seems more appropriate.

Bill Clinton's brain cramp notwithstanding, the former president has to know there is no such thing as "walking back" a careless remark. Not in today's chattering class environment. Across the television and radio dials, Facebook, Twitter and all the rest of the social media platforms, "the craziest thing in the world" has settled into a lasting existence.

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Try this. Google: "Bill Clinton Craziest Thing In The World" and watch what happens. You can stop counting after 10 pages of entries. Does anyone think anybody noticed or cared about Clinton's hasty effort to revise his cranial infarction?

If you're Bill Clinton, though, there is a pinch of good news.

With a month to go until election day there will be ample opportunity for the candidates and their surrogates to utter some truly bat nutso stuff. And let's face it, as long as Trump can draw a breath to cradle a cellphone in his hands, his Twitter account will always be a weapon a mass discombobulation.

But what to do about the Bill problem?

The Hillary Clinton campaign could enlist her husband to become a Pokémon Go character hidden away at the highest levels of the stupid game at some location where he is sure never to be found or get into trouble. But where?

A guest house at the Vatican, perhaps? Surrounded by the Swiss Guard, a snake-infested moat and Jason Bourne?

So goes the 2016 presidential election cycle — the craziest thing in the world.