Politics is a Strange Business

It's long been believed that President Obama and the Clintons have had a tenuous relationship.  Some point to a contentious preliminary race in 2007 and 2008 as the starting point for the drama in the relationship.  The video below of then-candidate Hillary Clinton's reaction to then-candidate Barrack Obama's print ads is often referenced to as evidence of the friction between the two:

Emotional responses like that aren't necessarily commonplace in the political arena.

As a follow up, Bill Clinton had this to say about then-candidate Obama in 2008:

Offering Hillary Clinton the position of Secretary of State was, as theorized by some, an olive branch offered by President Obama. Perhaps it really was that cynical, but we also know the President has an affinity for Abraham Lincoln, who in Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals was shown to have built his team out of former political adversaries. Perhaps the President wanted to extend an olive branch and mimic President Lincoln at the same time. Whatever the reasoning, he hitched his wagon to the Clinton political machine and has had to deal with it every since.

And the political headaches Obama suffers are real. Recently former President Clinton had this to say while at a campaign stop for President Obama in Ohio: "Governor Romney's argument is "we're not fixed, so fire him and put me in". It is true, we're not fixed." Many see that as a subtle dig at President Obama. Indeed, even offering the former president a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention this summer was met with some trepidation.

According to some sources, Bill Clinton has been labeling the President behind the scenes as "The worst president ever." This hasn't made life easy on President Obama.

It's said that politics make strange bedfellows. And perhaps at some point President Obama will regret bringing Hillary Clinton into his cabinet. Perhaps in the future he'll think it might have been best to divorce himself from the Clintons. But in the meantime it looks like the new Democratic political machine is colliding with the old Democratic political machine, which has made life difficult on the President. To be honest, I don't think President Obama was ready to confront the duplicitousness of the Clintons. It makes me think of a scene from The Prince of Egypt, the Dreamworks movie from 1998:

When it comes to backstabbing and angling for personal glory in politics, it seems President Obama really is 'playing with the big boys now.'