IS HILLARY A FACADE FOR BILL'S THIRD TERM OR A CO-PRESIDENCY?

Cartoon by Henry Payne (click to enlarge)

Charles Krauthammer has a thoughtful--as always--column up today about the comparisons which recent election of a Leftist woman in Argentina to replace her Leftist husband as El Presidente has caused for the prospects of a Clinton co-presidency. Krauthammer thinks that the people who are trying to draw a comparison between this and Hillary running on her husband's coattails are missing the point entirely--the problem is not that he is a serial Sex Addict, the problem is that the Constitution clearly calls for just one President, not a familial Politburo. And aside from being the only President in modern time to be impeached, Bill also happens to be restricted from ever serving as President again by the 22nd Amendment:

Which is why Hillary's problem goes beyond discomfort with dynastic succession. It's deep unease about a shared presidency. Forget about Bill, the bad boy. The problem is William Jefferson Clinton, former president of the United States, commander in chief of the Armed Forces, George Washington's representative on earth.

We have never had an ex-president move back into the White House. When in 1992 Bill Clinton promised "two for the price of one," it was taken as a slightly hyperbolic promotion of the role of first lady. This time we would literally be getting two presidents.

Any ex-president is a presence in his own right. His stature, unlike, say, Hillary's during Bill's presidency, is independent of his spouse. From day one of Hillary's inauguration, Bill will have had more experience than her at everything she touches. His influence on her presidency would necessarily be immeasurably greater than that of any father on any son.

Americans did not like the idea of a co-presidency when, at the 1980 Republican convention, Ronald Reagan briefly considered sharing the office with former President Gerald Ford. (Ford would have been vice president with independent powers.) And they won't like this co-presidency, particularly because the Clinton partnership involves two characters caught in the dynamic of a strained, strange marriage.

The cloud hovering over a Hillary presidency is not Bill padding around the White House in robe and slippers flipping thongs. It's President Clinton, in suit and tie, simply present in the White House when any decision is made. The degree of his involvement in that decision will inevitably become an issue. Do Americans really want a historically unique two-headed presidency constantly buffeted by the dynamics of a highly dysfunctional marriage?

Read the whole thing. (h/t Glenn Reynolds).