by Frank James

Back in 1992, Bill Clinton's presidential campaign must've burned through incredible numbers of Fleetwood Mac compact discs as the song "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" was an anthem in constant rotation at his campaign events.

Based on her campaign theme that the '90s were so much better than the 2000s and that she wants to take the nation back there, Sen. Hillary Clinton could set her iPod to play a never-ending loop of the Beatles' "Yesterday" with the lyrics: "Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as though they're here to stay. I believe in yesterday."

At least, that's what struck me after reading The Wall Street Journal's story today about the delicate dance the senator from New York is doing as she tries to win over voters who remember the "peace and prosperity" of that era without reminding those same voters of the Clinton Scandals.

The Journal story has this delicious anecdote from the campaign trail, for instance:

"Sometimes during this campaign I hear criticism of the 1990s. That's fair. It's an election and we've got to expect to be criticized," Sen. Clinton told an audience last week in Fayetteville, N.C. She continued with a line she has repeated often: "But I always wonder what part of the 1990s they didn't like: the peace or the prosperity?"

Just then, an Obama supporter in the audience yelled, "Yeah, but your husband also got impeached for infidelity," referring to the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Workers leave the Warren Truck Assembly in Warren, Mich. during a shift change, Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

by Frank James

For Sen. Barack Obama, there's good and bad news as far as white working-class voters are concerned.

The good news is that the kind of voters who once again showed in Pennsylvania their unwillingness to vote for him are declining as a percentage of the electorate.

The bad news is that their proportion among voters generally isn't going to shrink fast enough to help him.

That and other conclusions can drawn from a new and very enlightening paper by Ruy Teixeira, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University.

In "The Decline of the White Working Class and the Rise of a Mass Upper Middle Class," Teixeira and Abramowitz say that however you define the white working class--by income, education, or occupation--its percentage among all voters is declining. It has fallen 30-50 percentage points since the World War II period till now.

Depending on which definition you use, the white-working class population has gone from being the vast majority of white Americans 60 years ago to a third or less of then white population.

by Frank James

In an earlier post, we mentioned that Sen. Barack Obama disagreed with comments former President Bill Clinton made suggesting that it was the senator from Illinois's campaign that injected race into the presidential campaign.

What failed to come through in that previous post was just how incensed the former president is over allegations that he was the one who played the race card, specifically on the day of South Carolina's presidential primary when he appeared to try and minimize Obama's expected big victory in the Palmetto State over Sen. Hillary Clinton.

According to a Fox News story, Clinton's got pretty earthy yesterday at the end of interview with a Philadelphia radio station while the microphone was still open.

Clinton told WHYY radio in Philadelphia in a phone interview that his words about Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns leading up to wife's primary loss in South Carolina had been twisted and he has been unfairly painted with the banner of racism.

As evidence of his work for racial equality, he pointed to his own appointment of blacks, Hispanics and women to top administration posts, his work worldwide to combat AIDS, and to his Harlem office space.

Former president Bill Clinton campaiging for wife Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana this week. AP Photo by Daniel R. Patmore.

by Frank James

If it's true to say that the Clintons, indisputably two smart lawyers, sacrificed their ability to make mega millions during their years of government service in Arkansas through the Clinton presidency, they obviously have been making up for the lean years with a vengeance since President Bill Clinton left office.

We knew that from their book deals and his speech fees, even before the Clintons were goaded into publicly disclosing their tax returns recently that showed that they made $111 million since leaving the White House in 2001. To be fair, they've also donated a tremendous amount of money to charity.

Now comes the Politico story that President Bill Clinton has had $8 million in official ex-president expenses.

As Politico reports:

The price tag for Clinton’s federal retirement allowance from 2001 through the end of this year will run $8 million, compared to $5.5 million for George H. W. Bush’s and $4 million for Jimmy Carter’s during the same period.

Since 2001, Clinton has received more of almost every benefit available to former presidents — from his pension to his staff’s salaries and benefits to supplies. His $420,000 phone bill and $3.2 million office rent tab both nearly surpassed the totals rung up for those purposes by Bush, Carter and the late former presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan combined. As a group, they spent $484,000 on telephone service and $3.8 million on rent in the same span.

By John Riley

Following the excellent links in this Huffington Post story on Bill Clinton's ties to Colombia and lucrative trade-related speaking fees, we find:

In May, 2007, Colombia -- looking to overcome Democrats' resistance to a free trade deal -- hires Mark Penn's firm, Burson Marsteller, for $300,000. Penn is Hillary's chief strategist at the time, and the hiring is publicized.

In May, 2007, Colombia -- pursuing the same goals -- puts the Glover Park Group, partly owned by Hillary spokesman Howard Wolfson, on a $30,000 a month retainer. Wolfson is already working for Hillary, and that deal is also publicized.

In May 2007, Colombia announces plans for a gala in June to honor former President Bill Clinton, with President Alvaro Uribe (left) to honor Clinton with a "Colombia is Passion" award in return for his support. While Al Gore backed out of an April, 2007, event with Uribe because of his opposition to Colombia's human and labor rights practices, Clinton attends the June gala, and says in his speech, "We need to remember that we are friends."

By Rick Pearson

KENOSHA, Wis.-- Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton’s voice filled with emotion today as she listened to the story of a mother and young daughter who said they were being forced from their home due to a skyrocketing adjustable mortgage.

Appearing at a rally and question and answer session inside the Brat Shop, a restaurant located off Interstate 94, the main north-south route between Chicago and Milwaukee, Clinton asked local officials if they could provide any help to the woman.

The woman, who identified herself only as Donna, took to a small dance-floor being used as a stage after her young daughter asked Clinton what she intended to do for “children that are going to lose their houses.”

by Frank James

Did President Bill Clinton help a wealthy Canadian mining executive get access to uranium ore in Kazakhstan and did the mining magnate give the former president's charity millions of dollars of contributions as a thank you?

Only the principals involved know if that's the case and they have denied any quid pro quo.

But the excellent New York Times exploration today by Jo Becker and Don Van Natta of the ties between the former president and the mining executive is sure to raise eyebrows for a number of reasons.

The story tells us about a September 2005 Kazakhstan trip Clinton made with the Canadian businessman, Frank Guistra. During that trip, the former president praised Kazakh strongman, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, for "opening up" the former Soviet state politically.

At a press conference during the visit, Clinton also supported the Kazakh goal to lead the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

What's really strange about this is that the former president's position contradicted the formal policy of the Bush Administration but also the stated position of his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton.

by Frank James

If a politician wants to score points with the public, it never hurts to beat up on the media, something which President Clinton, a politician with few equals, knows and demonstrated yesterday when he got gnarly with Jessica Yellin of CNN.

Yellin asked Clinton a legitmate question. If the former Democratic Party state chair likens the tactics used by a former president of his own party to those once used by Lee Atwater, one of the most fearsome Republican political strategists, that certainly needs a response from the accused.

Surely, if CNN had just reported the comments of Dick Harpootlian, the former South Carolina party chair, without offering Clinton a chance to repond, that would not only have violated journalistic ethics but it would have no doubt angered the former president, and justifiably so,

So this was clearly a case where Yellin was damned either way.

by Frank James

Fellow Chicago Tribune blogger Eric Zorn goes where Sen. Barack Obama fears to tread.

Eric is flat out declaring in a post on his "Change of Subject" blog that Obama's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and former President Bill Clinton, are flat out lying about what Sen. Barack Obama said regarding the late President Ronald Reagan.

Eric provides the transcript of Obama's comments to the Reno Gazette Journal's editorial board when he was campaigning in Nevada.

We also have video so that you can either believe the Clintons or your lying eyes and ears:

Anyway, Eric starts out by quotiing from The Swamp's live blog of the debate last night:

(Barack) Obama stopped just short of calling (Hillary) Clinton and her husband liars... from the Swamp's live blog of last night's Democratic debate.

Hmm. I see no reason to stop short. Bill and Hillary Clinton have lied brazenly about Obama's recent statement about Ronald Reagan.

Let's look at the transcripts (emphasis added):

Hillary Clinton, Jan 18:

My leading opponent the other day said that he thought the Republicans had better ideas than Democrats the last 10 to 15 years.

Bill Clinton, Jan 18:

(My wife's) principal opponent said that since 1992, the Republicans have had all the good ideas....I'm not making this up, folks.

Well, yes he is. The key, inflammatory words in the Clintons' quotes are better and good, and I invite you, reader, to find it these transcripts of what Obama has actually said:

by Frank James

When former President Bill Clinton appeared on the Charlie Rose show on Friday with the clear goal of boosting his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, and knocking Sen. Barack Obama down a few pegs, the former president took aim at an argument Obama has made repeatedly on the stump.

Obama has sought to diminish the importance of experience by pointing out that President Bush's team included members with deep Washington experience like Vice President Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The former president said about the 35 minutes, 20 seconds into the video recorded interview:

"I remember the first time Sen. Obama said 'You know, Cheney and Rumsfeld had a lot of experience.' And that has great superficial appeal. But let me make the argument in another context.

"That's like saying, because 100 percent of the malpractice cases, medical malpractice, are committed by doctors, the next time I need surgery, I'll get a chef or plumber to do it."

Clinton paused dramatically to let the words sink in.

"I mean, the logical extension of that is inherently absurd,"

Alan Greenspan, author of The Age of Turbulence, has created some in Washington with his new memoir. AP photo

by William Neikirk

Alan Greenspan’s new book is full of odd detail. He confesses that Ayn Rand, the libertarian author and his mentor, called him "the undertaker" because of his serious manner and conservative clothing. As a boy, he collected railroad timetables, a vicarious if not nerdy way of seeing the world. Unlike most people, he wanted to get out of New York City.

The former chairman of the Federal Reserve writes that his wife, television correspondent Andrea Mitchell, jokes to friends that he proposed three times in his indecipherable "Fedspeak" before she grasped what he was saying. Wrong, said Greenspan. "Actually, I proposed five times—she missed a couple."

For all the lightness and heaviness sprinkled through Greenspan’s memoir, "The Age of Turbulence," this is a serious book by and about a serious man who felt secure enough to criticize President Bush and the Republican Party from which he came for failing to take fiscal discipline seriously. The GOP deserved to lose last year’s elections, he says, and Bush made a mistake in not vetoing a bill. What heresy it was to say that he is fonder of Bill Clinton than any president named Bush.

by John McCormick

On a day Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign announced it was returning $850,000 tied to a Democratic fundraiser under federal investigation, former President Bill Clinton helped raise at least $125,000 for his wife in Chicago.

About 600 donors gathered this evening to hear Clinton speak at the SushiSamba restaurant in the River North neighborhood. The event was closed to the media.

Admission to the sold-out event ranged from $100 to $1,000, with those at the top end invited to spend some time with Clinton in a private VIP room.

Sen. Clinton has made a greater effort in recent months to try to raise money from the Chicago area, a region she largely ceded to Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois during the first part of the year.

by William Neikirk

The first president named George--Washington, that is--issued the first pardon. He did it for the non-indicted participants in the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. It helped quell passions over his government's decision to crush a protest over whiskey taxes.

Now the current president named George--Bush, that is--is holding the door open to pardoning a close aide (Scooter Libby) for lying to government investigators in a probe about leaking the name of a CIA operative whose husband had openly challenged the president's Iraqi war policy.

The prospect of a pardon for Libby, whose sentence has already been commuted by Bush, is not quelling passions. It is doing the opposite. Indeed, the president's constitutional power to pardon individuals has had a checkered past, and often has spurred more controversy than healing.

by Frank James

It's curious Sen. Hillary Clinton didn't decide to punt on the issue of the President Bush's use of his clemency power to commute I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence in the CIA leak trial since she should've foreseen the very effective White House comeback which amounts to: You of all people have a lot of nerve.

Legal and presidential experts on the presidential pardon power are fairly unanimous in asserting that the Clinton White House put on a clinic on how NOT to give pardons.

The case of fugitive financier Marc Rich, who President Bill Clinton pardoned just as his presidency was about to turn into a pumpkin, was bad enough since there was the appearance of impropriety, of a seamy quid pro quo, given that Rich's ex-wife had given political cash to Clinton.

by John McCormick

PELLA, Iowa – Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama acknowledged the 20-ton elephant in the state Wednesday, praising former President Bill Clinton while also saying that his campaign is "not premised on running against the past."

On his final day of a two-day swing through the early caucus state, Obama answered reporter questions for the first time during the trip -- at least as many as could be squeezed into 15 minutes -- and addressed the running story in the state of Sen. Hillary Clinton campaigning with her husband for the first time since she announced her presidential bid.

In doing so, the senator from Illinois also took a subtle slap at the Clintons, who are campaigning under the banner of "Ready for Change, Ready to Lead."

"Change can't just be a slogan," he said. "Change has to be something that is demonstrated day to day, on an ongoing basis."

Obama also sold himself as being best able to work across the political spectrum.

"The question is how can we get enough Democrats, Republicans, independents working together to actually solve these big problems," he said. "I believe this campaign can make that happen."

Obama discounted suggestions that Clinton has a strong lead against him in national polls. "The notion that they are opening up this wide lead across the country, I think, is just the sort of ups and downs of national polling at this point," he said.

Responding to a statement by President Bush made today in West Virginia that the nation needs to show "more patience, more courage and more sacrifice" when it comes to the war in Iraq, Obama said he could not disagree more.

"The president has stubbornly denied the facts on the ground for a long time now," he said. "Unfortunately, you've got our young men and women there who are paying the price."

by John McCormick

DES MOINES -- Iowa is abuzz with presidential politics today, with seven Republican and Democratic candidates and a former president in the state today.

Sen. Barack Obama kicks off a two-day swing through southeast Iowa, where he will hit several of the state's counties he has never visited before. It is his 13th trip to the state since he announced his candidacy in February.

Obama is expected to hold a press conference on the 4th of July, just as he did at the end of his Memorial Day trip in New Hampshire. There will also be a special celebration Wednesday, which is the birthday of Obama daughter Malia, who is turning nine. Obama is campaigning alone today, although his family is expected to join him for the 4th.

But last night, it was the Clinton's night, with thousands attending a rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds with Sen. Hillary Clinton and her former president husband. Here is the Tribune's story on the Clinton visit, the first joint campaign stumping of her presidential bid:

by John McCormick

Sen. Barack Obama said today that it was "stupid" for his presidential campaign to issue documents that raise questions about Sen. Hillary Clinton's ties to India and Indian Americans.

“It was a screw-up on the part of our research team,” Obama told editors and reporters with The Des Moines Register, according to the paper’s Web site. “It wasn't anything I had seen or my senior staff had seen.”

Later in the afternoon, Obama issued a specific statement of apology to Indian supporters.

Monday marked the first time Obama had spoken publicly about a flare-up last week involving Clinton, a fellow Democrat.

The situation was triggered by the distribution of documents to the media -- on an off-the-record basis -- that offered a harsh analysis of Clinton and her former president husband. One appeared under the headline “Hillary Clinton (D-Punjab)’s personal financial and political ties to India.”

Posted by John McCormick and Christi Parsons

Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign expressed regret late Friday for the “tone” used in recently disclosed campaign documents that raised questions about rival Democrat Sen. Hillary Clinton’s ties to India and Indian Americans.

The statement from Obama’s campaign manager came in the wake of complaints from an Indian American group, whose leader complained earlier in the day about “anti-Indian American stereotyping” in the documents.

“There cannot be a suggestion that Indian-Americans are somehow taboo,” said Sanjay Puri, chairman of the 50,000-member U.S.-India Political Action Committee. “That is not the message we want any leader to be presenting.”

In a letter to Obama’s campaign, the group asked the Illinois Democrat to "respond directly" to the reports and to "let us know if indeed your staff is promoting these hurtful stereotypes."

Posted by William Neikirk at 12:20 p.m. CDT

As the world reacts to Boris Yeltsin's death, many will remember his fondness for bluster and good strong drink.

It didn't seem to bother him when he appeared in public under the influence. When I covered the Clinton administration, I remember a few press conferences between Bill Clinton and Yeltsin when it seemed the Russian president seemed inebriated.

Perhaps the most memorable occurred in 1995 at Hyde Park in New York, where Clinton and Yeltsin had a summit conference prior to an appearance at the United Nations. At the time, Yeltsin and Clinton were trying to work out a deal on Bosnia, but there were sharp differences.