The Left to the Clintons: Please Go Away!

Yet another missive from Robert Kuttner of the lefty American Prospect that will warm the cockles, and many other things beside:

Depart, I Say, and Let Us Have Done with You. That’s what Oliver Cromwell said to the Long Parliament in 1653. In May 1940, the British Conservative M.P. Leo Amery flung the same words at Neville Chamberlain, demanding that Hitler’s appeaser step down as British prime minister.

The words came back to me as I read about the paid speaking tour just announced by Bill and Hillary Clinton. The 13-city tour, billed as “An Evening with the Clintons,” begins two weeks after the midterm elections.

And billed is right. Ticket prices range from $120.50 to $370.50.

They are not selling a book on this tour, just having a good time and bringing in the bucks. Isn’t that grand?

Since the cities include Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Boston, New York and Washington, D.C., it doesn’t exactly seem to be a political tour on behalf of Democratic candidates, either. Nor is it clear that such a mission would be a plus.

In the Age of Trump, it’s all about celebrity. Jesus wept.

So get your seats, and we can all relive the great Clinton moments:

The Blue Dress! How Bill spoiled it for Al Gore because he couldn’t resist sex with an intern.

NAFTA! How Bill set the Democrats up for one of the worst midterm blowouts ever, in 1994.

Bankers going bonkers! How he turned over the deregulation of Wall Street to Bob Rubin, setting up the financial collapse of 2008.

And, of course, how Hillary bungled her way into giving the nation Donald Trump.

I seldom agree with Orrin Hatch, but the Republican senator from Utah put it well. “The Clintons don’t know when to shut up.”

Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. ~ ROBERT KUTTNER

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