Footnote to Chapter Four

The other day, in a Footnote to the fourth of my posts on my thoughts on electoral politics, I had some unkind words about Bill Clinton. Considering the topic of my post yesterday, I might have added the fact that while the growth in income inequality slowed during the Clinton administration, it did not stop.

However, what I wanted to note here is that John Aravosis at AmericaBlog.com is reporting that

[t]he Kerry Edwards 2004 campaign says Bill Clinton tried to throw gays under the bus. ...

Democratic political consultant Bob Shrum claims in his new book that during the 2004 elections, Bill Clinton advised John Kerry to support the Federal Marriage Amendment, i.e., the anti-gay amendment to the US Constitution that would have banned gay marriage....

Aravosis says he checked with both Clinton's office and the Kerry-Edwards 2004 campaign. Cinton's people denied it; the Kerry-Edwards campaign people said it's true. Aravosis tends to give Kerry-Edwards' people the benefit of the doubt, saying that neither they nor Shrum are thought to be liars while

it certainly "sounds" like something Clinton would say and do, and it sounds like something he'd subsequently deny.

I'm not entirely convinced, partly because the source in Clinton's office is named while the Kerry-Edwards campaign source remains anonymous and refers not to direct knowledge but to media reports of the time. But I do have to agree that the sort of cold political calculation involved (the Kerry-Edwards person said Clinton thought it would be a "grand master stroke to neutralize Bush's base") is indeed the kind of thing Clinton would do. And if it is true, it is yet another reason to refuse to wave the banner of "Democrats über alles."