The Comeback Id

(Revised 6/2/08. 8 PM PST)

As the primary season approaches its end, Vanity Fair offers this biting pic to accompany Todd Purdum's send up of the so-described narcissist-in-chief.

Shades of Hillary's ill-advised assassination analogy two weeks ago -- and suggesting a major reason why Hillary crossed the finish line second -- the pic makes Bubba look like he's shooting himself in the head.

The Comeback Id (Todd S. Purdum - VF)
As Clinton Campaign Winds Down, a Spouse Remains Wound Up (NYT)

(image 1: unattributed.  image 2: Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images, Richmond, Va.  2008)

Comments

[Neal Deesit]

No, Bubba's shooting himself in the foot, but his foot's in his mouth, hence the confusion.

[Carolyn Kay]

Obama always wants other people to do his work for him, and then takes credit for it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/23/AR2008032301706.html

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/3/23/224059/069

Making up for the vicious way he has run his campaign is up to him, not the Clintons.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com

[Victoria]

In this case, we can be quite certain that the meaning you see is the meaning they meant. After all, that's the essence of the article: Bill is over-sized in every way, including his self-destructive tendencies.

The other sense I got from reading the piece is that there are a large number of people - former friends and co-workers - who are actually concerned by things they see Bill doing. I wonder how they might have visualized that - article as intervention? - for an illustration.

[johnbpt]

Hmm. I saw the photo as Bill doing the finger twirling gesture that signifies loco.

[Mad_nVT]

Good bye Bill, thank you for leaving.

[jean]

This is not the canny Bill Clinton I remember from the 90's. I believe he was affected by the cardiac surgery he underwent. Bypass surgery can often subtlety alter the oxygen to the brain.

[Johanna]

He surely has mild dementia. It's not so much the bypass surgery as being on the heart lung pump, an absolutely catastrophic machine whose rate of inflicting cognitive damage is said to be 40 to 50 percent, by loosening arterial plaque throughout the body and shooting it into the brain. I am sure they are working on some fix for this, but the people who had to use it are out of luck.