Vanity Fair, Bill Clinton, same old Bill full of Vanity. Fair?

Time to face an inconvenient truth: Bill Clinton is running for a third term. Back in the days when high schools offered courses in civics, one of the things that was drilled into us was the difference between “de facto” and “de jure” segregation. De jure was that which was mandated by law.

And de facto was that which existed in reality.

In watching Bill Clinton’s latest mini-meltdown on CNN—set off by a reporter asking him to comment on a complaint by the former head of the South Carolina Democratic party that the 42nd president was engaging in the “politics of deception” used by the late (and much reviled) Republican strategist Lee Atwater—Clinton’s response offered an unusual lens into the powder-keg that is our former commander-in-chief: Starting with an almost jocular dismissal of the accusation, he then proceeded to wind himself up into a finger-pointing fury, attacking Barack Obama, painting himself as the victim, and generally blaming the press for everything, before walking away with the taunt, “Shame on you.”

It was not, well, presidential.

By now, we’ve all seen the Clinton ground game in South Carolina and can pretty much map out the dance steps: Anticipating a loss, Hillary scoots out of town; her minions start downplaying the importance of the contest (at least until they get called on it, and have to unwind the spin), while Bill trots around South Carolina like some kind of thuggish company hit-man, attacking Obama’s character, provoking him on race, dissembling about his record, and attempting to diminish—and dismiss—the appeal of Obama’s candidacy by predicting that he’ll win because of the black vote. Ergo, he’s a single-constituency candidate. And the goal is to triangulate him into oblivion.

It’s the same old Clinton game, over and over: The Iowa caucuses were important until they weren’t; South Carolina was key until they were going to lose. There is no yesterday that can’t be rewritten; there is no consideration about the blowback from all this tomorrow. The only thing that matters is winning, or appearing to win, at no matter what cost, today.

For me, the most damning part of this week’s mini-meltdown wasn’t the lecture about the media being at fault for everything, or even the seemingly offhanded, passive-aggressive swipe that “When he put out a hit job on me at the same time he called her the senator from Punjab, I never said a word. And I don’t care about it today. I’m not upset about it.” Because, for me, the really damning thing was a series of sentences he uttered just before the Punjab remark, referring to complaints about the Clinton campaign in Nevada:

“It’s okay. And we’re not hung up about it. And we won anyway. We fought hard. And we won.”

In other words, We are running for president. Not Hillary. Not the junior senator from New York. But We—Bill and Hillary—in a de facto end-run around the 22nd Amendment.

Watching the Democrats debate in South Carolina, I was struck by the heated “I’m here. He’s not” exchange between Senators Obama and Clinton because it so perfectly encapsulates the problem with the two Clintons: Bill is out there with a shiv—presumably with the full countenance of his wife—while Hillary deftly manages to avoid being held accountable for him, or taking any responsibility herself. And therein lies my real issue, should this hydra-headed candidacy succeed: Bill Clinton will always be there. He’ll always be larger than life. And, if the last few weeks have demonstrated anything, we’ll never know who’s really calling the shots.

Vanity Fair just published a pretty scandalous story about Prez Bill Clinton. The demand letter claims the article “outrageously insinuates that Ms. Gershon has had an inappropriate sexual relationship with President Clinton. This is absolutely false.”

The letter demands “a retraction and correction. Gershon’s lawyers from the bulldog firm Lavely & Singer noted that “Gershon has only been in the same room as President Clinton on three occasions,” all with many others present. The lawyers take a shot at Vanity Fair, claiming, “Rumor-mongering was substituted for fact-checking.”

out of control personally and consumed by “cavernous narcissism.”

The article, which hits newsstands next week, was distributed to the media and online in advance of its publication. The author, Todd Purdum, has covered Clinton for 16 years. He is married to former Clinton Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers.
“A tawdry, anonymous quote-filled attack piece, published in this month’s Vanity Fair magazine regarding former President Bill Clinton repeats many past attacks on him, ignores much prior positive coverage, includes numerous errors, and ultimately breaks no new ground. It is, in short, journalism of personal destruction at its worst,” reads a statement from the office of the president.

“Though (Purdum) researched the piece for several months, his first contact with President Clinton’s office was several weeks before he closed the story. Most revealing is one simple fact: President Clinton has helped save the lives of 1,300,000 people in his post-presidency, and Vanity Fair  couldn’t find time to talk to even one of them for comment,” the statement continues, along with several pages of argument refuting the article’s main points.

Purdum suggests that in the years since Clinton left the White House $12 million in debt, he has been caught up in a world of rich friends, adoring fans and borrowed jets.  The article quotes one former aide calling Clinton’s current associates like billionaire Ron Burkle and movie producer Stephen Bing “radioactive.”

The aide says Clinton’s associates are compounding worries that the 61-year-old former president is running with a fast crowd