Recent days have seen some thoroughly reported work on Clintonland — a profile in New York Magazine featuring the first big post-State Department interview for the former secretary and a deep story in the New Republic about Doug Band,
a longtime aide to Bill Clinton whose work could complicate the
political future of Hillary Rodham Clinton. And in the midst of the big
takeouts, there’s a lot of cable chatter.
Today’s “Morning Joe” featured a dose of the latter in all its
un-glory. Responding to a question about whether tea party opposition to
Democrats might subside a bit if Hillary Clinton jumped into the
presidential race, “Morning Joe” panelist Cokie Roberts proclaimed, “I
also think — and just calling it — that some of this tea party anger is
racist and that having a non-black person on the ticket will defuse it
to some degree.”
Host Joe Scarborough took issue, citing all the “awful things” that
he and fellow then-Republicans said about President Bill Clinton in the
’90s. “There is nothing I’ve heard said about Barack Obama that we
didn’t take 10 degrees further,” said the host.
And just to keep this Hillary Clinton story addled with throwaway
platitudes, Scarborough explored the dynamics of presidential ambition:
“There’s something that happens between that stage where Hillary Clinton
is Hillary Clinton, not running for president, very likable — and the
second she starts to take that step over, she looks calculated, looks
stiff, looks Machiavellian. It’s just like a light switch goes on.”