One More Permutation Ought to Do It

John Dickerson of Slate should read more comic strips. The authors of Doonesbury, Cathy, and Dilbert can all fit two or three jokes into two or three panels. Why can't John Dickerson work on more than one level in a thousand words of political analysis?

Sure, the Clintons want to criticize Bush on the Libby commutation and sure they opened themselves up to a response from Tony Snow. But the Clintons also want to remind people that they like Bill Clinton and it doesn't particularly matter what Bill Clinton says as long as the Clinton campaign gets him out there a little.

Why would the Hillary campaign care about Bush's counter-arguments? In fact, Bush isn't that much more popular than Osama bin Laden. But Bill Clinton left office with an approval rating over 60% despite the Lewinsky scandal and the Marc Rich scandal. Getting Bill some coverage in the media was going to do the Hillary campaign some good however Bush responded.

Doing two levels of analysis isn't that hard. Dickerson should try it sometime.