What is Bill Clinton Up To?

When Bill Clinton tells friends that Obama is going to have to “kiss my a–” to get his support, is he just ranting?

No. He’s pursuing a carefully crafted two-step he has worked out in advance with Hillary.

It’s the old good-cop-bad-cop routine. Hillary repairs her relationship with the Democratic base by falling all over herself to back Obama, appearing at rallies, dedicating herself to campaigning for him, and boosting him at every turn. She has to. She has built up so much ill will among blacks and young people by her prolonged and nasty efforts to stop Obama that she needs now to get well. But Bill deliberately takes the opposite tack, snarling and staying away.

He’s doing this, not as a fit of pique, but to hold out for more concrete rewards — money to repay Hillary’s debt. The more the cash rolls in, the more Clinton will see the light. The lighter the cash flow turns out to be, the angrier he will get. And, if in his snarling and snapping he can enhance Hillary’s chances to be vice president, all the better.