From today's NY Times:
"Bill and Hillary Clinton have stirred virulent passions in their nearly two decades in the national spotlight. They have been known as many things, good and bad — brilliant policy analysts, manipulators of facts and friends, tireless campaigners, skillful political tacticians, monumentally self-absorbed baby boomers. But most of all they were known as winners. Until now....Mrs. Clinton, who survived public humiliation as first lady and then easily won two Senate races in New York, entered the 2008 Democratic presidential primary as the odds-on favorite because of money, connections and celebrity. But through a series of blunders and the appearance of a once-in-a-lifetime opponent, Mrs. Clinton saw the prize slip through her grasp despite a valiant personal effort that lasted through the final contests in South Dakota and Montana. Both Clintons often seemed out of touch with the political times — cautious when they should have been bold, negative when they should have been inspirational. Exquisitely attuned to the political winds in 1992, they watched Mr. Obama almost effortlessly ride the wave in 2008. Former President Clinton, forever a riddle as a man and public figure, was seen by many at the beginning of his wife’s campaign as a political genius, statesman and racial healer who had done much through his charitable work to erase the stigma of his impeachment for lying about an affair with a young White House aide and other personal sins. But his conduct during the campaign on his wife’s behalf, right up to a blistering tirade against a magazine writer last week, raised new questions about his judgment and blotted his legacy."
There's also this, from the same newspaper:
..."“What hurt them was their sense of entitlement that the presidency was theirs and all the acolytes should fall in line,” said Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a former Clinton cabinet officer who endorsed Mr. Obama only to be branded a Judas by James Carville, the architect of Mr. Clinton’s original rise to power. “Instead of accepting it, they turned on the acolytes. It was their war room mentality, to attack when something doesn’t go their way, and it just reminded me of the old days.”
..."As for Mr. Clinton, he boiled with resentment that a candidate with as little experience as Mr. Obama was given what he considered a free pass by the news media. Yet his tone struck some as dismissive. When Mr. Clinton referred publicly to Mr. Obama as a “kid,” Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, recalled in an interview that a fellow black congressman said, “I don’t know why he didn’t just call him ‘boy’ and get it over with.” In private, Mr. Clinton was making matters worse. On the night of the South Carolina primary, Mr. Clinton called and Mr. Clyburn said he told him to tone down his rhetoric against Mr. Obama. Mr. Clinton responded by calling him a rude name that Mr. Clyburn would not repeat in an interview. Mr. Clinton called back a few days later for what Mr. Clyburn called “a much more pleasant conversation,” but the damage was done. “Clinton was using code words that most of us in the South can recognize when we hear that kind of stuff,” Mr. Clyburn said."
