Hillary vs. Bill Redux

Mrs. Clinton must be having flashes of déjà vu.

Just as she is relaxed enough to make jokes about dealing with bad boys, here comes a bargain-basement Bill Clinton 1992 look-alike nipping at her heels.

John Edwards has clearly read their playbook for beating the Bushes. His “Meet the Press” interview yesterday on Super Bowl Sunday echoed the Clintons on “60 Minutes” after the game fifteen years ago.

Both featured slippery mea culpas. “I have acknowledged wrongdoing,” Bill said then. “I have acknowledged causing pain in my marriage” as he denied a 12-year affair with Gennifer Flowers.

Yesterday Edwards used the word “wrong” a dozen times about his 2002 vote on Iraq, but whined that Bush never admits being wrong. Asked about standing by it a year and a half later, he cited pressures of the 2004 race and his wife’s breast cancer while complaining Hillary has still not admitted she was wrong and is “morally bound” to say so or defend her vote.

Between them, Bill Clinton and Bush 43 may have exhausted our patience for the campaign smarm of polite-Southern-boys-you-can-bring-home-to-your-family.

Edwards talks about trust and leadership while updating Clinton’s “It’s the economy, stupid” with talk of “the two Americas” and a convoluted universal health care plan.

Joe Biden, in a bad week of commenting on candidates, was on the money when he said, “I don’t think John Edwards knows what he’s talking about” on Iraq. “All this stuff is just like so much Fluffernutter out there.”