McCain, the Goldilocks Candidate

Unnerving as the image may be, there is a contorted Three-Bearish quality to the tale of the Republican standard bearer this year.

After the party found Rudy Giuliani too hot and Mitt Romney too cold, Ron Paul too hard and Fred Thompson too soft, they reluctantly decided that John McCain was just right, albeit not far right enough to suit some of the more vocal party animals.

Pappa Bear Rush Limbaugh has been ignoring McCain and diverting himself by getting Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

Momma Bear Ann Coulter is still sulking about McCain sitting in her chair with threats to vote for Hillary in November because "she's more conservative than he is" and "would be stronger on the war on terrorism."

Only Baby Bear Bill Kristol, with the optimism of youth, has warmed up to the GOP Goldilocks, babbling that "Republican hopes of denying Democrats complete control of the federal government for the next couple of years may rest on the promise of 'McCain exceptionalism,'” which could result in "a return to this cold-war model--a strong-on-national-security and supporter-of-middle-American-values Republican presidential candidate prevailing, while at the same time voters choose a Democratic Congress."

As fairy tales go, that may be the most outlandish of all.

Barack and the Beanstalk

The fable of the giant-killer was alive and well in South Carolina--a young man climbing into the castle of a behemoth called Blunderbore and his wife and stealing their prizes.

Barack Obama summed it up in his victory speech: "After four great contests in every corner of this country, we have the most votes, the most delegates and the most diverse coalition of Americans that we've seen in a long, long time."

The Clintons are still huge as they lumber toward Super Tuesday, but Obama has lost narrowly in New Hampshire and Nevada, won handily in Iowa and now by a country mile in South Carolina. His beanstalk is looking sturdier with each contest.

After all the blather about race and gender, it was Bill Clinton shadowing the landscape that made the difference between what might have been a close contest and a runaway. The voters were not charmed by his "Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum! I smell the blood of a journeyman!"

In the exit polls, South Carolina voters clearly said they were turned off by the sight and, from here on, to push the fairy tale to its limit, the Clintons will have to find another goose to lay their golden eggs.

Bill Clinton, An Embarrassment

As if race and gender were not complications enough in this critical Presidential contest, we now have Bill Clinton stepping up to remind us of how devious and disruptive he can be.

For a year, he stayed dutifully in the background, but the man who can't help being Bill Clinton is now roiling his wife's campaign with the kind of hatchet work on her opponent that is normally done by an incumbent or aspiring Vice-President. In the process of Cheneying Barack Obama, he is outdoing Jimmy Carter in trashing the dignity expected of a former President.

It's dispiriting to see a former occupant of the Oval Office seeking absolution from Al Sharpton for parsing Obama's positions on the war in Iraq as a "fairy tale," the kind of attack usually assigned to a campaign chairman or anonymous aide like the one quoted as saying, "If you have a social need, you're with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool."

It's saddening to see the re-emergence of the man who used to be called Slick Willie in sliming Hillary's opponent while complaining about the "sanitizing" of Obama by the media.

Dignity has never been Bill Clinton's long suit and, under the pressure of Obama's surge, his panic is understandable. But it's a sad reminder to those who supported him of what comes with all that undeniable idealism and political savvy--a reckless need to get what he wants by seducing the world.

He dodged his own impeachment but, if he doesn't step back from the spotlight now, our problematic former President is going to wreck Hillary Clinton's chances for the nomination, let alone in a general campaign against someone with the unimpeachable character of John McCain.