Last week, our 42nd president - and beloved comic figure - Bill Clinton, lived up to his title of “The Most Brilliant and Effective Strategist the Democratic Party has ever had.” On the campaign trail, ostensibly for his wife, Bill resurrected her whopper about coming under sniper fire in Bosnia and embroidered it with even more lies, turning what was a political sprain into a compound fracture.
In an attempt to “fix” the new mess he had made, Bill tried to look like the scolded husband, hushed by her gentle reprimand.
As he stood outside her Terre Haute, Indiana campaign office, which had literally burned to the ground, and just a few miles away from the infamous federal penitentiary, Bill gave the official version of her phone call to him: “Hillary called me and said, ‘You weren’t there - let me handle it. I said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’”
As with everything Clinton, however, there is the “official” version of events, and then there is the actual version. Herewith, the “actual” telephone conversation between Bill and Hillary that day:
RING!
HIM: Hey, baby! Were your ears ringin,’ ‘cause I was just talking about you. Boy, did I help you today. You. Will. Love. It.
(Stony silence, dripping with seething anger.)
HIM: Hillree? You there, sweet pea?
(More stony silence; sound of fingers tapping on phone mouthpiece.)
HIM: Well, I’ll tell you, I really deserve a raise after what I did for you today. Damn, I am so good.
(Even more stony silence, and then:)
HER: Bill, can I ask you a question?
HIM: Shoot.
HER: Don’t tempt me.
HIM: What’s eatin’ you, baby?
HER: Why do you insist on inflicting a slow, painful death on me? Why don’t you just put the knife in my jugular and end it for me once and for all?
HIM: What in the hell are you talkin’ about, Homeskillet? I just reminded everybody that you were tellin’ the truth about dodging bullets in Bosnia. I even added a few details to really paint up the image of my homegirl narrowly escaping death. Crowd ate it up. I had them in the palm of my hand. Felt like the old days, honest to blog…
HER: Would you please spend less time watching “Juno” and more time filtering the sewage that comes out of your mouth? Every time I get my (expletive) head above water in this god-forsaken (expletive) nightmare of a campaign, you open that claptrap and a bunch of (expletive) comes out.
HIM: This is called “help,” Sugar. And right now, you need as much of my “magic touch” as you can get.
HER: “HELP?!” Reminding everyone that we are pathological liars was not “helpful,” Bill.
HIM: Don’t go all “Mars/Venus” on me. I was trying to fix one of your fine messes, and you’re kvetching because you just “want to be heard.”
HER: This is NOT “Dr. Phil!” This is my (expletive) (expletive) presidential campaign, which is quickly going to (expletive) because of you.
HIM: Hold it right there, sister. First, this is OUR presidential campaign. Get that straight in that frosted blonde noggin of yours. And second, you needed some damage control on this Bosnia thing.
HER: I already DID the (expletive) damage control, you ass. Nobody needed your “helpful” reminder. I swear, you are literally trying to kill me.
HIM: No use dwelling on the negative, baby. I’ve got to get back to work for the American people.
HER: I need you to do one thing, and please try to do it without bringing up flying bullets or any of my other lies, OK? Go to the Supers and tell them that the insufferable Hope Guy can’t win. And no, it’s not because he’s black. He can’t win because he’s too liberal. He’s too inexperienced. Nobody has the first clue about his background. There are scandals there just waiting to pop. Scandals that make ours look like Girl Scout (expletive). And he’s an arrogant jerk. The Republicans will have him for breakfast.
HIM: I know! I’ll tell everybody that a conceited girly-man like Obama never would have taken sniper fire in Bosnia the way my brave lovemuffin did. Just kidding, baby. These are jokes! Lighten up.
HER: You know what might help me lighten up? Smothering you with a pillow in your sleep. Just kidding, baby. These are jokes.
HIM: No wonder you’re bombing.
HER: I don’t have all day. I need you to do this one thing for me. Think you can manage it without calling attention to your narcissistic, sociopathology?
HIM: I’m on it, sweetheart.
HER: Now, if we could only get Hope Guy over there to stick his foot in it. If only he’d say something to show what a pompous jerk he is. Something that would put down the salt-of-the-earth voters in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Indiana. Something that would show that he thinks of them as “little people” with whom he has to bowl and play Yahtzee, but wouldn’t be caught dead with them otherwise. Something that would turn them off and get them crawling back to me.
HIM: “Us.” Crawling back to “us.”
HER: He’s going to slip up. He can’t help it. It’s who he is. Sort of like you.
HIM: I was the original “Hope Guy,” and don’t you forget it.
HER: We need Obama to show what an effete snob he really is. And we need him to do it soon, so I can position myself as a “woman of the people,” and slug beer and down shots of Crown Royal while riding a tractor with a gun slung over my shoulder.
HIM: It IS your only hope, baby. While we wait for The Guy Who Thinks He’s Me But Will Never Be to make a mistake, I’ll take more of the supers out for a spin. You know, work them over all easy and “persuasive-like.”
HER: I guess we just wait for a sign. You know, a slip-up by Obama would really tell us God is on our side.
HIM: He won’t let you down, Sugar. And neither will I.
