"There you were, Mr. Elevate-Cronyism-Over-The-Rule-of-Law, sitting on a stool right behind me in that look-at-me Crayola yellow shirt..."

Maureen Dowd writes about my favorite '08 election topic: the problem of how to wring positive value out of Bill Clinton without getting any of his negative on Hillary. (TimesSelect link.)

Yes, did you see those photos of Bill and Hillary in Iowa, with him in that bright yellow shirt? We all know yellow is the color of hope, and Bill is the man from Hope, and Hillary's name begins with H but her image is not so much one of hope but of grim resignation. Obama is the candidate who embodies hope. (It's the main thing he does!) So, naturally they put a bright yellow shirt on Bill.

The end of Dowd's piece is a riff I think we'll hear her riff quite a few times: Bill will want to have trysts in the White House. How is the Hillary Clinton campaign going to try to keep people from thinking about that when they imagine Bill as the first First Gentleman? It looks like what they're doing is having him appear alongside her, acting out his role as proper husband. But, as Dowd notes, everyone is going to be scrutinizing him to see if it's genuine, and if everyone's looking at him, how will he not be too distracting?

“Sweetie,” [Hillary] says, smiling brightly. “Everything’s going really well. You abide by your five-minute limit and talk only about me. You’re still having a little trouble getting that adoring smile down. In fact, on our first stop you actually looked bored and fidgety while I was talking. But I think we solved that problem today by having you leave the stage as soon as I start speaking. If you can just refrain from looking so longingly at the microphone, our pas de deux will be perfect!”

CORRECTION: I called Bill's shirt a polo shirt. The shirt actually buttoned all the way down the front and had long sleeves. Which I recommend.