The Comments Heard Around the World

Maureen Dowd's recent column has put Hillaryland and her campaign into a tizzy with her comments by David Geffen. While they've been covered extensively, here is a summary of what Hillaryland is upset about:

Mr. Geffen said the Clintons lie “with such ease, it’s troubling” and that the Clinton political operation “is going to be very unpleasant and unattractive and effective.” Mr. Geffen called Mr. Clinton a “reckless guy” who had not changed in the last six years, and suggested that Mrs. Clinton was too scripted.

The real panic in Hillaryland is that Geffen's defection will signal to other high dollar donors that it's ok to raise money for someone else. Their other fear is that Geffen was right: Clinton still has a zipper problem (just like John Boehner - Carl Hulse of the New York Times told me this about Boehner while we were waiting for last year's GOP leadership elections) and Clinton's problem WILL come out during the campaign and cost her some valuable media time. Additionally, talking about him and his pecadillos really doesn't help her much.

Her status as trailblazing first lady to become a Senator and presidential candidate puts her in the same category as Vice Presidents running to succeed predecessor. It's hard for her to tie herself to the successes of her husband's administration without being tarnished with his administration's failures. This proved awkward for Al Gore, and as the latest spat shows, will be even harder for her. Gore could separate himself from Clinton by picking Joe Lieberman, but Hillary can't do anything similar.

Here only real way to distance herself from her husband's failures is to try to intimidate the political class and punditocracy into not tying her to her husband. She even brought back the 90s meme of the "politics of personal destruction." Ironic for a woman who once boasted that her husband's election would give us "two for the price of one"

(Oh and then there are the reports that the whole Hillaryland reaction was actually due to Bill's furiousness about criticism regarding his pardon of multi-millionaire fugitive Marc Rich).

Unfortunately for her, the Clinton years, and Bill's ongoing affairs will be issues that will be embarassing and a challenge for her campaign to overcome. Good thing for her she has enough money to become the nominee anyway. Bad thing for the Democratic party.