Who Are You Calling a Liability?

Washington’s pundit class has furiously argued that Bill Clinton’s mountain of foreign entanglements will prove a liability for the Obama administration. Poppycock, writes Joe Conason in Salon. Clinton has accepted some restrictions on his activities, and those make sense. “What would not make sense, however, is to hobble Bill Clinton's role as a global citizen.” Clinton’s "soft power" approach is exactly in line with Obama’s philosophy.

Pundits fear Clinton might start “freelancing” in international affairs, contradicting the Obama administration abroad. But no one can recall a single time Clinton embarrassed George Bush, a president he disagreed with on nearly everything. Instead, as US prestige “sunk to unprecedented depths,” Clinton quietly represented a “better America” to the world. If he keeps doing what he’s been doing, that’s “all to the good.” (More Bill Clinton stories.)