WaPo's Richard Cohen: Today, I'm Casting My Vote -- Against Bill Clinton
February 5, 2008 -- 1:02 PM EST // //

One thing that's good about the fact that the voting is upon us is that it's forcing pundits to come clean about what's been driving their commentary about the Clintons for so long. Case in point: Richard Cohen in The Washington Post today.

Before, Cohen and David Broder and other pundits had the option of concealing their disdain for Bill by couching it in predictions about how the American public, as opposed to them, would ultimately judge Bill a liability to Hillary's candidacy. But in his column today, Cohen endorses Obama, which forces him to reveal what he actually thinks. And he writes:

The fact is that as a politician, Hillary Clinton is a creature of her husband...He remains, as Wordsworth might put it, too much with us. He was a good president with bad associations -- beginning with Jim McDougal of Whitewater fame and ending with Marc Rich of pardon infamy. Bill Clinton has a tropism for the faintly corrupt, and his wife has more than a tropism for him. He would stalk her presidency as he has her campaign, and when she vows that she alone would rule the White House, she is talking personnel, not marriage. It ain't the same.

So I vote, as I must, for Obama and against Hillary.

And there you have it: A top columnist at the second most influential broadsheet in the country is basing his choice between Hillary and Obama largely on ... Bill! And the man isn't even running for President. Cohen is so put off by the thought of the mere presence of Bill anywhere near the White House again that he has let this specter determine his choice between two other highly accomplished adults for the post of leader of the free world.

Making this even more striking, Cohen doesn't have a single word of praise for Obama anywhere in the column explaining his choice at this rather critical juncture in our history. Instead, this is all about Bill. Oh, sure, Cohen does murmur some criticism of Hillary's war vote, too, but since Cohen also supported the war, this can't have impacted him all that much.

Make no mistake: This is all about Bill. Cohen is casting his vote today -- against Bill Clinton. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, really.

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