Finally saw last night's Daily Show.... Bill Clinton was MUCH better

[scheming daemons]

than the day before. Compare his appearance on Letterman to his appearance with Jon Stewart and it is night and day.


Was he as enthusiastic as we'd want? Not really. But at least he didn't spend the entire interview telling us how great a candidate John McCain is (which is precisely what he did on Letterman).


He either A) realized that he messed up on Monday or B) Hillary called him and said, "Bill.. WTF?"

Either way... kudos to Bill for coming to his senses.


Please... more of the "Daily Show" Bill Clinton and less of the the "Late Show" Bill Clinton.

[seabeyond]

1. i htought so too. but then i thought jon stewart helped him along on that

hubby wanted to watch and i told him, nope didnt want to see. of course he got his way, and i enjoyed the interview with clinton and stewart

[bunnies]

2. Im done caring about what Bill does.

Whatever.

[GodlessBiker]

8. Me, too.

[BeyondGeography]

3. Different audience, different Bill

The man's a politician, after all.

[faithfulcitizen]

4. Yes, I totally agree! I think it was B and I'm assuming it wasn't just Hillary.

[moobu2]

5. President Clinton was trying to attract undecided’s and weak McCain voters

You cant attract them by being extremely partisan and viciously attacking the opponent. Re-watch The Daily Show interview or watch him on Larry King tonight (with that in mind) and you’ll see.

[RichGirl]

7. EXACTLY!

Like Bill said, he doesn't have to convince those who already love Obama.

Does anyone really believe that Bill Clinton should do an interview saying only what strong supporters of Obama want to hear??? Where is the gain in that???

When you have Bill, Biden, etc, constantly praising McCain for the SINGLE thing that is praise worthy, then you relieve republicans of the need to defend and protect McCain.

[SteelPenguin]

9. Bingo

I even think he was doing this on The View. I understand people want him to be shouting from the rafters for Obama, but that's not going to win over the independents and undecideds. They'll just look at it as more partisan rancor.

What President Clinton is doing is making the case AGAINST "narrative", I think very effectively. If you go up to an undecided person and say "McCain is a wobbly old fool, Obama is the future" they're going to shut off. They won't listen to you. At least not effectively.

If you go in and say "Look they're both great Americans and qualified to be President. We need to get past this character smearing bs, and actually be mature about who we decide is president." then people in the middle and even some on the right, have a much higher chance of agreeing with their disgust at the concept of narrative, and the like, and then getting past the candidates 'character' they might actually look at the issues.

The more people we get to rationally look at the issues the more people vote for Obama. People aren't undecided on Obama because they don't like his positions. The Republicans once again have made this election about character narrative, and not actual facts.

As someone who every election has to deal with many conservative and independent minded relatives regarding politics, I can tell you that this is exactly the first inroad you make to them to get them to open their mind. If you start it by dismissing the bullshit character narrative stuff by saying both candiates backgrounds are solid, there is a good chance you can get people to agree that Obama is a nice guy, not a muslim terrorist, etc. Then you can actually compare policies and make people aware of the candidates positions.

Step 1) Remove partisan narrative character BS
Step 2) Find out what issue or issues the person you're talking to cares about
Step 3) Explain to them the candidates positions on those issues and good chances are they'll agree more with Obama. (trick here is to remain calm and not blow out McCain's policies as evil or something extreme)

If you can't get past Step 1 there's no chance in hell they're voting for Obama anyway. If you're already in the tank for Obama it's a waste of energy to preach to the choir.

[glowing]

6. I didn't mind him on Letterman... Obviously Bill is a Democrat. He has his views.

I think it would look bad to go on Letterman, a show viewed by Dems and Reps and just go to town on McCain.. NOW, on Stewart, its already biased and liberals watch it most of the time anyway, so what's the harm in a few digs. I think Bill sounded like an Ex-President on Letterman, like a statesman.