It's All About Control: Hillary Says She Can Handle Bill

POSTED BY kevin brannon, 31 January 2008

Hillary takes responsibility for Bill's Comments. Here's the whole interview.
In my mind, the central dichotomy of Hillary Clinton's campaign has been its renowned calculation and discipline versus the perception of 'wild' Bill as maverick attack dog, shooting from the hip despite a questionable aim.  Either she's running the show and Bill's jabs at Obama and his self-righteous tirades at the press are part of the game plan, or he's her Achilles heel.  The one person whose judgment she'll trust even when it's off the the rails.

Neither is particularly flattering to Hillary, and perhaps the truth lies at the bottom of a brilliant strategy that will win her the White House in November.  In any case, part of the message these days is that she does take responsibility for whatever damage he's done; and she wants us to know that she can control her man.  Here's a quote from the interview with Hillary that aired on ABC yesterday.

“I think whatever he said which was certainly never intended to cause any kind of offense to anyone,” Clinton said, “if it did give offenses then I take responsibility and I’m sorry about that.”

"Can you control him?" asked McFadden.

“Oh of course,” Clinton replied.

As someone who's been troubled by Bill Clinton's behavior in recent weeks, I'm reminded that he's the kind of guy, for better or worse, who's capable of saying just about anything as long as he can convince himself it's for the greater good.  It's an intriguing and sometimes troubling psychological tick.  A recent Politico piece by John Harris fleshed this out a bit:

From Bill Clinton’s perspective, Washington is a city of cynics. His critics may think he is a brazen phony. But Bill and Hillary Clinton both believe devoutly in their own pure motives. As one who has covered them for 13 years, I can say that he does not see himself — and certainly not Hillary — as calculating or insincere, even when pursuing tactics that look transparently political to outsiders.