What Obama Owes the Clintons

PETER BEINART, Time

- Someday soon, when Hillary Clinton exits the Democratic presidential race, Barack Obama will walk onstage and praise her and her husband to the heavens. Publicly, Obama can afford to be magnanimous. But it’s a good bet the private Obama feels the way a lot of his supporters do: like sending Ken Starr a fan note. For many Obama activists, Clinton’s brass-knuckles campaign confirmed everything they had always suspected about Hillary and her husband: that they’re cynical and ruthless, the detritus of an era in which Democrats sold out their ideals to get elected. Obama’s backers generally feel about the Clintons the way Reaganites felt about Gerald Ford and the way beer aficionados feel about Bud Light: that by compromising core principles, they watered down the brand.

As it shows Clintonism the door, however, Obama Nation should remember something: without that pair from Arkansas, it wouldn’t be here. The 1990s weren’t always pretty, but for Democrats, they were deeply necessary. Because Bill Clinton threw his body into the line, wrecking the Republican Party’s intricate defenses, Obama today has the political room to run.

Click here for more…