Bill Clinton's 'right-wing conspiracy'

last updated 8 January 2015

"Sheesh! It's like the '90s all over again," said Andrew Belonsky in Gawker. Former president Bill Clinton told NBC's David Gregory on Meet the Press that the vast right-wing conspiracy that attacked him is now going after President Obama. Clinton said the conspiracy is now too weak to hurt Democrats in midterm elections as they did in 1994—but he's the only person the Right hates more than Obama, so drawing a Clinton-Obama connection will only "create a sticky, stinky brew of fresh Obama hate." Clinton wasn't entirely wrong, though—conservatives really do want Obama to fail. (watch Clinton on Meet the Press)

No, "it's not that we want President Obama to fail," said Doug Mataconis in Below the Beltway, "it’s that we believe that his policies would be detrimental to the interests of the country. He’s wrong on spending. He’s wrong on taxes. He’s wrong on health care." Bill Clinton just thinks anyone who balks at "abject surrender" to the Democrats should be dismissed as part of a conspiracy.

The idea of a "vast right-wing conspiracy" has been unfairly mocked for years, said Steve Benen in The Washington Monthly. "The phrase, when Hillary Clinton used it, always struck me as unambiguously true—there was a network of conservative Republicans that invested time, energy, and resources into destroying the Clinton presidency. Similarly, there are scores of Republicans who wake up every morning with the same goal: undermining the Obama White House and its allies."