Ladies and Gentlemen, Our 42nd President!

David Weigel | April 22, 2008

Here's audio of Bill Clinton from Pennsylvania's WHYY, cursing and ranting about how Barack Obama's campaign "played the race card" on him.

I confess, I didn't really miss those January days when Bill Clinton kept springing out from behind the bushes to grab reporters by the collar and turn purple screaming about Obama. But this is sort of fun. Just count the whoppers!

- "We now know from memos from the campaign and everything that they planned to do it [play the race card] all along."

No, we don't.

- "I said that Jesse Jackson had run a good campaign with overwhelming African-American support and white supporters."

No, he didn't. He didn't say anything about white voters.

- "They thought his white support was better because Jesse Jackson had blue-collar working people and most of Senators Obama's supporters were upscale cultural liberals. It was like, beneath them to be compared to Jesse Jackson."

I don't think anyone believes this. Jackson peaked at around 15 percent of the white vote, and did far worse in the South. Obama got 25 percent of the white vote in South Carolina, which turned out to be one of his lowest totals. Clinton's disdain for the upscale cultural liberal is fun, and fitting with his policy of shunning private jets or fundraisers with rock stars, but, well... South Carolina's 1984 and 1988 contests were caucuses, which Clinton has argued are more elitist than primaries. He's just babbling like a crazy person.

- "You really got to go somewhere to play the race card with me. My office is in Harlem."

At this point I'm not even sure the Obama team will give Clinton a speaking slot at the convention.