Dance Dance Innuendo

Standing by His Woman
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: April 13, 2008

Last week Maureen Dowd suggested we pick our next president based on who can hold their liquor the best. Since that might favor the vodka-favoring Hillary, this week she has decided that we need to have a dance-off.

See the video of Hillary dancing at a seniors’ aerobics class at a Philly Y.M.C.A. Awk.

Compare that to the slick moves of Senator Smooth Jazz.



The Clinton video has been viewed less than 300 times while Obama has over 700,000 views. I think the voters have spoken. Krugman will probably argue that a bowling tournament would be a fairer test of skill.

The rest of the column is the weekly Dowd update on how the wheels are coming off the bus while at the same time she keeps throwing advisors under the bus. What is masterful about this column is the economy with which Dowd embeds subliminal references to other previous scandals and incidents.

Bill is also crazed about the ineluctable fact that he isn’t Obama.

Maureen explained this in more detail back on in the March 26 column when she said this:

And even Clinton supporters know that Bill does not want to be replaced as the first black president, especially by a black president with enough magic to possibly eclipse him in the history books.

According to Dowd, this rear guard assualt on Obama is personal. The Big Dog wants to stay the darling of Harlem, but his running of the mouth doesn't always help his cause. When Bill Clinton mentions bank robbing sarcastically, that is enough of an opening to dredge up some metaphorical mugging.

“And, oh, they acted like she was practically Mata Hari, you know? Just making up all this stuff,” he said, adding: “And you would’ve thought, you know, that she’d robbed a bank the way they all carried on about this.”

Given her 3 a.m. ads — (that has got to be her hedge fund manager on the phone) — it was not very flattering for Bill to rant on and suggest that her 60-year-old brain was fuzzy.

This lets Dowd recall Hillary's financial windfall from fraudulent futures trading.

And while accusing Hillary of pimping Chelsea is beyond the pale, there is no compunction about calling Bill a call girl, even if he is a seven diamond hooker.

But the dubious deals of her husband, a seven-diamond influence peddler, do provide an unsavory contrast with some of the candidate’s positions.

Seven diamonds was the top price level of Hillary's super-delegate Spitzer's favorite escort agency. And Bill is nothing if not high priced even if his taste in trailer trash is low rent.

While this column is ostensibly about Bill reopening the wound of Hillary's Bosnian dissembling, it is really about things being business as usual for the Clintons. Funny business, money business, and monkey business. It is these little innuendos that Dowd slips in so that every column does double duty. And that innuendo is that the Clintons are unfit for an encore dance.