Watch a YouTube clip ^[1]of The View yesterday and ask yourself: Does this sound like a man working night and day to get Obama elected?

President Clinton sounds oddly detached, making analysis more powerful. (Indeed, he sounds less partisan than many pundits on talk tv.) He makes a good point that receives thunderous applause. After a long aside about how voters make up their minds, he says he have to stop looking for reasons to tear someone just because we are going to vote for the other guy. He’s right. The kind of rabid partisan that has spread from the web to tv is ultimately bad for the country.

Let’s think about this a little, though. Why are GOP negative television and radio advertisements often effective? They cut through the clutter and either raise new issues or old ones in a fresh way.  If the press were more even-handed is examining issues as they come up, there would no shock value (and therefore benefit) from this ads. Instead, the press buries anything that might hurt Democrats. Compare the coverage of Palin versus Biden or Rep. Charlie Rangel. So the first most voters here of it is on the web, talk radio or a 30-second tv spot. That gives little time for a Democratic candidate to respond to issue in context–their responses are necessarily sound-bites and spots. In short, I suspect that this hyper-partisan atmosphere is driven by the press’ failure to weigh the merits and not pardon the offenses of politicians. Like welfare, media bias hurts those it is trying to help.

Next, in the Clinton appearance we hear a fair amount of praise for McCain. This is fair minded and clearly not an endorsement of the Republican nominee. Still, the heartburn in the Obama campaign must be off the Alka-Seltzer charts…

Finally, is the bombshell the press missed. Clinton says that Hillary didn’t really want to be vice president but would have accepted it as “her duty” if need be. Okay, some of this is sour grapes. On the other hand, if she thinks Obama is a loser, she may not want to be tainted by his loss. Kerry’s defeat didn’t position Edwards very well for the 2008 race. The Clinton calculatrix is always calculating.