Has Bill Clinton learned his lesson?

The Associated Press

He can promote, but not defend.

Featured Topic | Posted 41 weeks 10 hours ago

Has Bill Clinton learned his lesson?

Bill Clinton has seen the error of his ways. "I think I can promote Hillary but not defend her because I was president. I have to let her defend herself or have someone else defend her," Clinton said in an interview with a Maine television station.

Has Bill Clinton learned his lesson? Will it help or hurt his wife if he can't play the attack dog role?

Ben likes: The Bubba factor

Fred Barnes/ The Weekly Standard

What didn't work was having Bill campaign with Hillary, speaking before his wife at events and introducing her. That was tried earlier in Iowa and of course she lost the caucuses there in what feels like an eternity ago but was actually only three weeks ago. At joint events, he overshadowed her and spent much of his time talking about himself. This prompted a newspaper cartoon with a tiny Hillary standing on the shoulder of a huge Bill. Now they appear separately.

And they seem to understand Bill's unique value in the campaign. As an ex-president he can command extensive media attention. What he says gets widespread coverage. In effect, he has a megaphone as big as his wife's, maybe bigger. No other presidential candidate has a surrogate like Bill Clinton. Obama certainly doesn't.

Joel likes: How he's destroying a legacy

Chuck Lippstreu/Huffington Post

Even Bill Clinton knows he went a bit too far.

His L.A. church tour this week, coupled with the general feeling that an invisible leash has been put around the former president's neck, come as clear indicators of a big "whoops" revelation the weekend before Super Tuesday.

In the coming months, Bill will likely regain (almost) all the respect he lost over the last few weeks from Democratic voters who remember a very different, exponentially more affable man from the 1990s. He deserves that opportunity; his contribution to U.S. policy and his abilities as a statesman were too great during his presidency to burn him at the stake for getting too enthusiastic about his wife's candidacy.